SOLO II Committee Meeting Minutes 2/12/08

Members in Attendees--Russell O'Connell, Tim Monk, Mark Mocie, Karl Coleman, Amy Coleman, TJ McGeary, Jackie McInnes, Chris Kmetz, Charles Aggenbach, Kim Littke, Bud Bohrer, Keith Brown, Mike Leuty, Carol Leuty, Ron Bauer, Tom Lecoque, Jerry Lamb, Lou Ann Christenson, Jodi Fordahl, Greg Fordahl, Enrique Garcia,

Visitors: Tyler Archuleta, Danny Sullivan, Brad O'Connell, Anthony Panic.

Introductions--Brad O'Connell - Recently joined Torque Steerers and has been volunteered with Evergreen Speedway drifting and assisting Russell O'Connell with the SCCA Drift program.

Last Months Minutes Review--Motioned to approve and 2^nd. Karl noted that Charles is not on the attendee list. Motioned to approve and 2nd with the addition of Charles - Motion Passed

Reports

NWR Board Report (Jackie McInnes)--Lee Chambers had a meeting with the Governor using the National Forest for Rally. Provided a comprehensive overview of the rally program and its benefits to the state with a proposal to use National Forest land for rally events. Saturday is the NWR Region banquet at the Tacoma Dome Best Western - RSVP due by the weekend. Corvette Show was last Saturday 9th and Sunday the 10th. No one who worked the event was present to give a report. Membership is now 1008. Membership has stayed over 1000 for the last several years and is a good trend.

WWSCC Report (Keith Brown)--Sent timing lights to Race America to be repaired so there will be two good working sets. Website updated by Alan - Calendar is updatable by the clubs. Glenn can provide username and password for access. Need content for the WW site - Please submit! Alan is working with Karen to update the rulebook for '08 and post on the website. Rules to be finalized next Monday before it can be posted. Slush Events--UWFASE and Torque Steerers. Comments: None. Slush Banquet March 22 @ Bison Creek. Food donations in exchange for raffle tickets - looking for sponsors. The 1st WW championship event is on March 23rd

 Treasurer's Report (Lou Ann Christiansen) --Current balance $30,002.26, YTD P&L -Receipts $65,152.66, Expenses $63,252.60, Net Income $1,900. Not much current activity - more coming as the year gets into gear. Lou Ann requested confirmation of all events for the '08 season so she can set up 'jobs' for expense and profit tracking by event.

Questions about differences in the P&L sheets between summary and per event sheet.

Answer - There are additional operational costs not associated with specific events that apply to the full P&L sheet. Lou Ann - There may be an adjustment necessary for a reimbursement from national that might not have been received. Needs to be reviewed. Karl - Would it help for 2008 if all expenses and income is tracked to jobs more completely? Lou Ann - The difficulty is keeping track of expenses since she receives a lot of receipts late or they don't fit to specific events. Requested to turn in receipts in a timely manner to assist with accurate accounting.

Coneheads ( Keith Brown)--Banquet - A good time was had by all. 98 attendees which is a recent high. The banquet well but complaints included the chicken was underdone and music was too loud. These comments have been noted for next time. Cost of the event was higher and used up all the slush and Conehead's funds. Options are to raise more money at the Coneheads practice or raise event prices from $30 to $35. TBD. May need WW to subsidize the banquet for next year .

Keith moved to send $60 to WW to cover the cost overrun. Karl seconded. Motion Passed.

Brainstorming. Charge $30 to attendees of the Coneheads practice and $35 for people who didn't to encourage practice participation and increase revenue. Keith and Kristy received a round of applause for a job well done on the banquet. Karl - What were thoughts on the raffle compared to how it was done in previous years?? People like autocross specific prizes like alignments, mount and balance. General consensus was that low quantity and bigger ticket items are preferred. Keith - need volunteer to run raffle since they don't have the time to do it in addition to the banquet. Raffle tickets could be sold to generate more money for covering banquet costs.

Drift Report ( Russell)--Karl moves to officially include the drift report on the Agenda. Tim Monk seconded. Motion Passed

Dick Willy is at national convention and has been speaking with national officials regarding details and requirements for the Drifting program. A separate Sanction/Insurance form must be filled out for Drift events with the appropriate check boxes marked identifying it as a drift event in order for National to track it properly. The national rules for 2008 have not yet been finalized and there is no confirmation yet if there will be any changes. Dick and I asked Howard Duncan if it would be possible to change the minimum age in the 2007 rules from 18 to 16 for 2008. Howard said in order to run the program as a pilot SCCA Risk Management group required participations to be 18 to limit liability. There is no word if that will be changed for the 2008 season.

 Torque Steerers Skills Day on 2/10/2007

Russell O'Connell ran a Skills Day event which is a drifting practice at the South End of BMP during the TS Slush autocross. The event was a good learning experience and allowed us to test track configuration, registration and worker positions, and was based on the SCCA Drift model. There were 16 participants with 4 autocrosses pre-registered but only 2 (Peter Umino and Greg Peterson) participated and had fun. Several people who have been helping with the SCCA drift program participated in the event. The event ran smoothly and incident free. Jodie Fordahl - Suggested changing 'Skills Day' name as it there are long established PCA events that go by the same name.

NorPac Convention (Keith Brown)--Topics of interest: Weekend Memberships - The most hotly debated topic. Howard Ducan shed some light on the issues and it was dropped at further meetings since NorPac members were unanimous not in support of the program. Weekend Membership Payment Methods - Can be billed or regions can send check. Registration information must be turned around quickly to facilitate sending an information packet to the weekend members to solicit them for full SCCA membership with goodies like a brochure, copy of SportsCar, and DVD about the SCCA from national. Chiefs of Registration. - Now can become licensed registrars with SCCA that gives them direct access to the national database of members. Linda in San Francisco is the current NorPac registrar. Access is used to check memberships, which makes it easier to verify membership for people who didn't bring their membership cards. Divisional Series-- Atwater National Tour on May 3, 4 in flux - SFR lost site and are looking for a replacement. The pro is still proceeding as scheduled at Atwater. National has given until Friday 2/8 to find a new location for to retain national status for the event. Montana Region National is July 13 - 14. NWR members should attend if they can to show support. Packwood - NT 8/16-8/17 and Pro Solo 8/23 - 8/24. California divisional series - Sponsored by ProParts with tire, car manufacturer, and other contingencies. Cash payments for championship winners. National Office - Howard Duncan said that National office is encouraging regions to hold a divisional in place of a national event. Regional events loose the national contingencies and the region is on their own to provide contingencies and sponsorships for divisional series. It is difficult to get the national contingency companies to provide the same prizes to divisional events since there are several in the country. Reno - Planning on doing a divisional series in 2009. Why national insurance and loss fees are going up - Lost lawsuits driving up costs. Last year's incident in PIR not a cause. A incident where some one lost a leg in Phoenix is costing a lot for loss wages and medical costs raising costs. Must keep safety #1 to prevent incidents. Street Survival Program - SCCA working with BMWCCA for teen driving school to teach basic car control skills. National office is promoting it and paying for insurance. $60 per person with $30 fee to provide $1800 in guaranteed revenue to the region. National will cover extra costs to insure $1,800 in revenue. SCCA Foundation would like to have every teen driver attend the program but there are too many 'customers' to serve. PCA and Jaguar club are considering the program. Region must provide workers and instructors. Instructors do not need to be as skilled as novice school requirements. Water truck is needed to provide a skidpad. Promotion will need to be done to make it work. Street Survival provides the registration and payment. Region provides the site and workers. Other regions have gotten a lot of donation and support from community groups and businesses. Reno Region has done 2 of these - Debbie's daughter who didn't want to do it at first but after completing the school was really excited about it and provided great word of mouth with a large increase in registration. Sites - Boeing Everett site is large enough. Might be possible to utilize a school parking lot.

Old Business--Chiefs Needed: Timing - Stock Not Taken - Send to the list; Tech - NS Stock co-chief ; Stock - Detier and NS – Charles; Grid - NS Co-Chief; Joel possibly - Jackie to check

New Business

 Event Dates - Schedule on back of Agenda. WW and Solo site have been updated and are believed to be accurate.

Karl was contacted by a individual in asked to sponsor an event to bring out a portable dyno to an event. No details available. BSCC may require vendors to pay a fee. Vendor would have to make arrangements with BSCC. Boeing would not allow it. Possibility for SCCA. If we are interested Karl can get more details. Portable dyno was popular at Wendover national. Vendor would need to provide his own insurance.

Need a coordinator to have Packwood swept before the 1st event. Jackie/Dick to coordinate with Angus. Jerry Lamb - Reminder on replacing lights at Packwood. There was a motion from November's meeting to investigate and split cost of replacement with Oregon Region. A volunteer will need to contact Angus to get a quote and arrange details.

SOLO Novice event on 4/5--Jackie to send email asking for instructors. Jackie open to suggestions and ideas for changes. Email her with ideas. Question - Instructors get free entry to event on 4/6? TBD. Jackie will look into if we can give free entry to school participants at the 4/6 regional event. SCCA Membership required to do the Novice School. Can be permanent or the weekend membership which will raise price.

Ron motioned to provide free entry to 4/6 for instructions and volunteers. Motioned and seconded. Motion Approved with no objections. Discussion on if we can afford to comp that many workers. Recommend a 2 to 1 or a 4 to 1 student/instructor ratio. 4 to 1 leads to lower quality instruction due to the frequent car swapping.

Drift Novice School - Russell O'Connell - Need Solo Safety Steward before event can be announced. Please contact Russell if you can help with the event.

Annual Tech – Charles--proposed that volunteers who work 4 hours at the annual tech session qualifies them for the core workers practice? Enrique - Asking how many people are working Annual tech? Normally 5 or 6 which would not add to many people to the practice. Jackie proposed amending motion to require people work the full day to qualify for the core worker practice. Normally lasts 9am - 3pm - 6 hour duration.  

Motion - Enrique - Allow people who work 6 hours at annual tech up to a total of 4 people can attend the core worker practice. Karl seconded. Motion passed with no objections.

Trophy Fund for Pro Solo Series. Jerry Lamb - Last year Tight-N-Tidy sponsored pro solo series. With only 3 events enough funds were not collected to cover good quality trophies. Discussion to raise fees to cover the extra cost of trophies.  

Motion - Jerry Lamb - Raise the entry fee to $35 for Pro Solo events and allocate $10 a piece for trophies. Enrique seconded. Motion passed with one objection vote.

Jodie F. - Starting the SCCA registration database over from scratch. Need to have accurate contact information to fulfill registration requirements for national records. Registration form is open until 15th to reserve car number prior to the 1st event. Registration must hold people aside until their timing card information is completely filled out.

Greg F. - Helmets that Failed Tech at Slush event - Drifting drivers in particular must have helmets that are compliant with the rules. 3 helmets were held at tech for TS Slush event and they were mostly from drifters.

BSCC Food Vendors--Killer Bees is no longer allowed by BSCC because they prepare food at home and not in a Health department certified facility. Woodies - Needs guarantees of 35 people to come out. Other vendors can be used. Karl will check on details for a 'Roach Coach' vendor.

Motion to Adjourn.

GOO