SOLO II Committee Meeting Minutes 8/10/04

Members in Attendance – Karl Coleman, Gretchen Everett, Tim Irwin, Aaron Pailthorp, Dick Willy, Bud Bohrer, Mike Leuty, Shelbi Zigler, Lou Ann Christensen, Kevin Dietz , Jodi Fordahl, Jerry Lamb, Keith Brown and Fast Mike.

Minutes Review – Approved as written.

Board Report – Race is having a difficult time getting anyone to volunteer. The entire program has very little participation and they may actually suspend the program in 2005 to give themselves an opportunity to get better organized. The Rally Cross was held and the course was extremely rough. The Rally Café made about $400 at the NT. The Rally Sprints were held the weekend of August 7^th & 8^th, along with the quarterly membership meeting. The region has been looking into having a combined Washington/Oregon newsletter, but it was discovered that Oregon was actually losing money on their newsletter, so it doesn’t make much sense. There was discussion regarding a ticket-selling program with the Boys Scout organization that was signed by Dan Carchano without proper review because he was told the contract was exactly what was discussed at the Race Meeting. Unfortunately, the contract was nothing like what was discussed and Dan did not have the authority to sign it. The region will be negotiating with the organization to come up with a reasonable solution.

Treasurer’s Report – Lots of activity in the checkbook. Collected approximately $14,000 from Evolution students. Bus insurance is paid in full for the year. There were several small equipment items for timing and scoring. Paid National office for event #5, Evolution school lunches, several NT expenses, including $3500 for NT social. We also collected $1100 for raffle tickets.

WWSCC Report – Talked about the new Packwood location. WW has agreed to move Sportscar Spectacular from September 26 to October 2, this means that SCCA WILL be able to hold an event and practice at Packwood. The Miatacross was held on Sunday. The group agreed that the course was fast, although the “M” was a bit tight. Overall the event was great. There were some issues with course workers. SCCA voted and agreed to approve the event for Championship status. The passenger rule will not be addressed this year, but will be put on the agenda for the 2005 rules meeting. The BEAC Enduro will be held on August 29^th at the Oxbow site.

Equipment Report – Kevin has sizes and all information for the bus tires/wheels. Kevin is trying to coordinate the construction of the new plastic boxes to hold the timing heads that Fast Mike volunteered to take care of. They will make sure that it will still be possible to adjust the laser after they are completed. Aaron reminded Kevin that he needs to bring batteries to the event this weekend for the radios. A suggestion was made that Kevin take photos of how the equipment is stored in the van. This will prevent any confusion as to how the van should be repacked after someone who is not familiar with the loading process has used it.

OLD BUSINESS

Evolution School – Students who attended the school had a great time. The administration of the event was very unorganized. The practice on Friday was very poorly run and several people were extremely unhappy. There is still plenty of confusion regarding who will be responsible for coordinating this event. Most people involved felt that it was extremely important to have ONE person coordinate and execute all of the event management for the entire week. This was NOT done this year. Although it may have been better than in past years, it is still not as good as it should be. There was NO clean-up crew, all of the garbage cans were used w/o garbage bags, and then all of the trash was just left for the NT crew to deal with. There was much discussion held regarding the organization of this event in the future. Mike Leuty has a checklist that covers all of the responsibility that must be covered by a “task focal” that should be assigned for each day.

Lou Ann has a big concern with holding the Evolution Schools at BMP. BMP wants to charge Evolution a commercial day rate at $1200. Karl has been discussing this with BMP for several years now. The site advisory panel met and unanimously decided that Evolution was not a “commercial” event. Although this discussion was held, the BMP board decided to charge SCCA the full commercial rate, along with a late fee. This was extremely unfortunate, because SCCA had the opportunity to hold these schools at Cheney. It seems that there is not much we can do about it this year, but it should be considered before using BMP for Evolution schools in the future.

Bremerton NT –. The clean up crew suggested that spray chalk never be used on the surface again. Everyone enjoyed the Saturday night social. Bud Bohrer brought up the fact that the NT course map was different from the actual course. When brought up for discussion Bud was told that because of the recommendation made by Andy Hollis, as the NT course coordinator, Scott was forced to make changes. Bud felt that as a Course Designer Scott should have been able to design the course as he sees fit. A discussion was held and it was also brought to the group’s attention that Topeka is aware of the “off courses” we’ve had and they appointed Andy to make sure the course was safe. The group agreed that it was a fantastic event and Angela did a WONDERFUL job as Event Chair. Everyone appreciated her positive attitude with all of the pre-planning and throughout the entire weekend. Thank you Angela! Mike Leuty reminded us that even though it seems that T&S is usually very reliable at NTs, there were several discrepancies with penalties called in. He suggests that everyone going to Nationals just keep an eye out for this type of communication breakdown in the timing vehicle. He also wanted to make a note that next year we use something to display all of the audit sheets and results closer to grid to make things more convenient to double check. There were comments made regarding the bags that were handed out at registration, and the fact that several were passed out with nothing inside besides a plastic lei and pamphlets from WCU. Another issue raised was the fact that it seems as if no one was appointed to be responsible for opening and closing the front gate and it was left open all night.

There were several items that our clean-up crew missed while closing the event. There were several garbage cans that were completely full on the South end of the course, and the actual course was covered with rubber pieces, and misc. materials.

BMP will be charging us to cover these costs, but it will be split with the race group who had and event the weekend before us.

NEW BUSINESS

Event #6 (8/15) – Aaron would like to make a motion that we allow double entries for this event in the afternoon session. This will not ensure that double entries will be allowed, but at least a printed timing card would be available. Aaron is the event chair and will also be responsible for covering timing, so he would appreciate all the help he can get. This event will be run in conjuction with BSCC. All SCCA entrants will be charged $10 to receive points for the BSCC series, just like last time. The after event function will be held at Tony’s.

Packwood – There will be a practice and event held at this new site on September 25^th & 26^th. Karl Coleman and Scott Miller will be the event chairs. The Sunday event will be part of the championship series and will be held in addition to the remaining events being held. That means the series will be based on a best 7 of 10 series. After this event, Aaron would like to do a fly over above the site and is looking for a passenger to ride in the back and take photos. If you are interested in this, please contact Aaron.

Novices with Passengers - Val presented an idea that no one be allowed to take a passenger with them until they have competed in at least 10 events. A discussion was held regarding whom would be responsible to actually police this new idea. Another idea was presented that unless you have permanent numbers on your car you not be allowed either. This discussion was tabled until the next rules meeting.

Event #7 (9/5) - Tim Irwin will be the event chair. He is interested in finding a Co-Chair for this event. He would like to count on the PCA course leftover from Saturday for this event. Jodi will make sure this happens. Because of this, SCCA, PCA and BSCC will all be sharing cones. BSCC will be using our cones on Monday, so it will be important that someone is responsible to get the trailer and or van packed up and brought back to Kevin’s shop. It sounds like either the LeCoques or Karl Coleman can be responsible for this. Karl will make sure someone takes care of this.

Misc. - Jerry Lamb has volunteered to be the Event Chair for our last event being held in October. Karl reminded anyone driving the bus that it should not be returned to Kevin’s shop without at least a half a tank of gas. You should also be using the logbook every time it gets driven.

A motion was made to adjourn the meeting at 9:30 p.m.