SOLO II Committee Meeting Minutes 4/13/10
Members In Attendance—Jackie Kmetz, Tasha Mikko, Dick Willy, Mike & Carol Leuty, Mark McCooey, Russell O’Connell, Glenn Austin, Gretchen Everett, Karen Babb, Ron Bauer, Joel Ferguson, Charles Aggenbach, Keith Brown, Jerry Lamb, Trenell Stevens, Tim Brennan. Guests - Mike Miller.
Minutes Review— Moved to approved and seconded.
NWR Board Report— Jackie was multi-tasking during the meeting and spent a majority of her time coordinating the handoff of the old laptop, which Lou Ann unfortunately spilt water on, which was then replaced with a new one. This has been handed over to Kristi Brown, but unfortunately there was absolutely NO information on the computer, so we still do not have any history from the past six or seven years. There was some discussion regarding the closure of the PRG Rally group. The membership chair is looking for personal information regarding our members, and Solo is a majority of our NWR roster. She is looking for details about things such as weddings, births, funerals, etc. She would like the region to follow-up and send cards out for this type of situation. There were 11 students at the Street Survival School. They did hold an adult section that had an additional 12 students. The adult version was a bit more “race focused” than the first school.
WWSCC Report— There have not been any events since the last meeting. Events #1 and #2 are coming up next weekend. Torque Steerers will be holding OS/US in Packwood on April 24/25. NWDE held a practice, which is a requirement of showing a club is capable of holding a championship event. There was one member in attendance. He said the event was run well enough, but Keith felt this was not enough feedback to offer anything back to the council. They still need a VP, so anyone interested should contact Dieter Beldi. The main responsibility of this person is to Chair the Sportscar Spectacular event.
NORPAC Report— There has not been a conference call since the last meeting. San Francisco’s Divisional event is now back on hold. Apparently, someone has visited the site and it seems five years older than the last time we ran there. They are trying to work with Golden Gate Fields ownership to get some repairs to the asphalt. They are willing to help pay for a portion of the fee. The concern is that this will not be organized and completed in time for the event. It seems that SFR really wants to hold an event, but they do not have a proper site. So status quo remains for the Divisional series.
Drift Report — Drift School is this Sunday. Everything is prepared and ready to go. Russell is proud to report that Ed and Mattia are now officially licensed Safety Stewards and the Drift group will be able to support themselves in this area without major support from the Solo Safety Stewards. They are organizing something new for this school and are offering a “ground school” for people interested in getting more involved but may not have a car. They will learn how to work course, or help other key positions, etc. and then will be offered ride -a- longs in the afternoon. He is still working with BMP to see if there is a way that they can have a course run over the staging area. He is hoping they may be able to help pay for having the area repainted on a more regular basis, etc. He will be talking to the PGP (Pacific Grand Prix) guys to see if running on their site will be possible. He is still working on setting up the MS Reg sight. Fortunately, they have very good tech support. The only major issue so far is that MS Reg is not willing to do refunds, at all. Any refunds will be up to our organization. He has set-up a refund policy that will address this. He will also consider a credit for a future event. The site rental fee has gone up to $525. NW Newsletter - Russell wrote the first Drift report. Everyone said it looked great! There is one person who he knows came to an event based on that article. Nice job Russell!
Treasurer Report – Everyone reviewed the summary report presented by Kristi. There were no questions.
OLD BUSINESS
Rule books for Annual Tech – Charles has received the 2010 rulebooks. Kristi ordered up 40 books and approximately half of them were sold.
Blower - We will have the blower at Event #2. The dealer will be giving us a free trial period to see if it is something we actually want to purchase.
Sound Meter – Our region is now is possession of this piece of equipment. Unfortunately, there were no safe places for people to sit and monitor at the few places people could actually get on full throttle. It is safe to assume that there will never be an ideal situation for monitoring at each event. Understanding this, Jackie would like to see some type of parameters written up that will give both competitors and course designers an idea of how things will be measured. It was also suggested that we change our regulations to be 75’ from the car and then do the math to adjust to 50’. Karen said she has been trying to get the SEB to deal with this for several years now. Thank you to Jerry for all of his hard work with this area.
New timer display – Glenn was going to do some additional research to determine is the system they were looking at is wireless compatible. He was not in attendance at this meeting.
BSCC Display Case - Jerry got measurements at the last event, then did a quick search online for a replacement. There are several options available and are not as expensive as he feared. The cost would be no greater than $400. Due to the fact that BSCC saved our bacon at our first event, no one had any issue with making this purchase. A motion was made an approved to spend $400.
Port-a-Potties and Dumpsters - Jackie has made arrangements for these to be delivered to Packwood before the US/OS. This means that we will be billed an extra $250 which will then be reimbursed by Torque Steerers.
Radios - Jackie worked with Shane at the last event. All radios were fully charged and ready to go. They replaced the rechargeable batteries with AAA batteries. 13 radios now that are working properly. Shane would like to make sure that the frequencies are locked before being sent out to the stations. This will eliminate almost ALL user errors. The group agreed that we should just throw away the rechargeable packs and replace them with AAA batteries throughout the season.
NEW BUSINESS
Schedule confusion– There was some schedule confusion since two sites were listing Event #3 on two different dates. Event #3 is going to be on Sunday, May 30th at BMP. July 5th is the ONLY date we will be holding a Monday Solo event.
Event #1 recap - Trenell and Jackie were the event chairs. There were a total of 111 unique competitors. There were some major issues with the timing gear. We owe a HUGE thank you to BSCC for allowing us to use all of their gear which they hold on-site. Another issues is that this was the first time we have used this system in five months. It was suggested that we make sure this will not happen again in Packwood at the next event. Ron has follow-up with Glenn and Drew. There was a straight forward reason for the problems and they are all confident this will not happen again. There was at least one person who was confused regarding the run order being swapped out. Most people appreciated the pocket schedules that were available. Tim Stake sent Jackie feedback via email. He had some major concerns regarding the accuracy of the penalties being called in during the afternoon. There were not enough workers available and he also knows for a fact that he hit two cones which were called in as two gates. The drop off in the number of attendees was pretty severe in the afternoon, which did not help the situation. There also seemed to be an issue with Course Control calling things in inaccurately to timing. The weather was also a factor. It was also mentioned that we need to be more aware of the number of workers we have in specialty positions because they are taking experienced people out of the basic event operations.
Old timing equipment – There is a bunch of “old” timing equipment such as cords and speakers that have been removed from the BEAC storage unit. We need someone who knows what everything is, to go through this and determine exactly what needs to be kept or given away to another club, or possibly sold for a few bucks on Craigslist. Anything we want to keep will be put in the trailer at Packwood.
Timing Van– the tabs need to be replaced. The renewal and tabs were being sent to Lou Ann. They expired in February, so this is something that needs to be taken care of. It needs a new exhaust, the floor has a hole in it, there are several other smaller things wrong with it. There needs to be a discussion as to what we consider the longevity of this purchase. Is it time to purchase a new van? What will it look like? What needs to considered for another purchase? It was discussed that everyone understands that this should not be a comfort vehicle for the driver, but it should be safe and legal. Jackie also wants to remind everyone that coordinating the delivery and return of the Solo Bus is the responsibility of the Event Chair. One free event entry will be given to the driver. If two drivers share this responsibility, they will still only receive one entry. This means that we should fix the exhaust and the dim headlights. Jackie will pass this on to Shane and have him coordinate the repairs.
Novice School - There will be a Novice School on June 19th at Shelton. The event will be chaired by our Novice Chairs, James Wege and Rick Vomenici.
Pro Solo System - Jackie was approached by Jim Viola at Race America with the possibility of our region purchasing a new timing system for Pro Solos. Jackie clearly explained to him that this is not a need for our region since we are clearly covered in this department due to the hard work of Jerry Lamb.
National Tour Donations - Alyson would like to get our group thinking about donations for the NT door prize giveaways. ACE will be donating a $250 certificate for Tire Rack. It was discussed that we could make additional donations towards a greater total amount. Keith was suggesting that he may be able to talk to Howard regarding using the dollars that will be allocated for the Divisional series as part of our door prizes instead. This discussion was tabled until the next meeting to allow Keith time to research our options. Several people suggested names for Alyson to contact that may be able to donate door prizes. Anyone with additional names or ideas should contact Alyson_Bauer@yahoo.com
Registration Canopy- Tasha Mikko, the Chief of Registration suggested that we purchase a canopy/EZ Up and weights to replace the metal awning that has been removed at BMP. We will need the extra long/extra wide, not cheapo version to make sure it will stand up to all the weather elements. Tasha would be happy to do some research and look at costs. There is plenty of time between now and the next BMP event.
Banner - Carol Leuty found a banner in her house that says “This event is sanctioned by SCCA”. She will bring it to the next event and we can put it in the Solo Bus.
Trophy Chair - Davin Sturdivant has volunteered to cover this position for 2010. Leftover trophies from last will be used as a place holder this season until the new trophies arrive. It was also suggested that use the leftovers as giveaways at the NT.
National Tour - The Packwood NT is quickly approaching and we really need to start working on a T-shirt design. There are also Chief positions available. Anyone interested in either of these things should contact the Event Chair, Joel Ferguson.
July 4th at BMP - Due to a scheduling conflict, BMP is now available for a Sunday event on July 4th. Jackie was curious if the group was interested in taking this day for a practice or some other low-key event. There was some reservation throughout the group that it would be difficult to fill Chief position on a holiday and also get enough entrants to cover the site fee. So, the decision is no. Drift is interested in holding an event on July 3rd.
Meeting adjourned at 8:49 p.m.