Are you ready to get together again? Great! Its time for a SOCIALIZER

Nominations
October 4, 2022 7:30pm

El Vaquero
9130 Dublin Rd
Powell OH 43065

Appetizers and light foods will be provided. Full menu and bar available for purchase

Its been quite a while since I’ve put a newsletter out and quite a bit has transpired since that last issue. We’ve had numerous Solos, Rallycrosses, and Races. Board Meetings have gone from Zoom to in-person and back to Zoom for a bit. Its just how we’ve learned to roll. I would definitely put more newsletters out if even one person from each discipline sent me an article. This issue has two… Many thanks to Pete Bates and Jude Summers for typing out stories. I’ve continued to link the most recent columns from Great Lakes Director Dayle Frame and these can always be found on the revamped GLDIV web site. Please note that much more timely information from our club can be found on the Facebook page for our region here.
Sadly I have had to include 2 obituaries for longtime club members and an extremely well written piece by Alejandro Della Torre on Scott Rettich which appeared on the hagerty website. I’m not sure it could have been written any better and I was certainly grateful that Alex let me reprint it here for all to see. It gives a real insight into the friend we all knew in Scott. So many of us knew them and they will all be missed.

As I’ve consistently stated, I’m ALWAYS looking for photos or stories (big or small) on anything thats going on in our club. Feel free to send them to me here or heck even via USPS if you want. The more stuff I get the more reading you get to do. See how that works? For now I’ll mention we have Socializers planned for both Nominations and Elections. We’d love to see you so mark your calendar for both.

On a personal note I won’t be seeking reelection to the Board of Directors. Its been my honor and pleasure to represent you as both Regional Executive and Board member over the last 5 years, but its time for others to step up and get a chance to move the region forward. In my mind new blood is essential to keep our club strong. I’m hoping we have several new candidates run along with the many that put their name in the hat last year. I’m confident we’ll continue to have a strong group steer the club into the future. I’ll continue as the editor of this newsletter so I’m not going anywhere.

By: Pete Bates

Points event number four. A gorgeous day for autocross. Just hot enough for 200 treadwear tires. With three runs in the morning and three in the afternoon tire sprayers got very little use. The course was a bit more technical than the previous 3 events. Challenging folks to concentrate, break harder, run tighter lines and improve on exit speed out of the tougher elements.

The racing was fun and in a number of classes very close. SA 5 entries – Nick Lawrence, SR 19 entries – Ryan Arthur, SF 12 entries – Claude Lawrence with Matt Taylor -.086, ST 33 entries – Dan Howard, XS 12 entries – Kameron Feola with Jeremy Rogers -.158 and Kevin Cho -.031. CAM 20 entries – CJ Miller with Dan Michael -.182, P 2 entries – Alan Stamper with co-driver Jason Tomlinson – .009, M 5 entries Josh Beckman, L 3 – entries Jennifer Arthur, X 2 entries – Ryan Niemic with Rich Verret -.127. Congrats to all the class winners that push us to drive a little faster. If you want to view the complete results and season points goto OVR.SCCA.ORG select autocross results.

I imagine this event was even a bit more challenging for the novices, but if they went on the novice course walk with our experienced drivers they would have learned where to break hard, apex the corners and go fast in the straight bits.

Speaking of novices we had almost 50 novices out of 117 entries. This has been a trend all year and it’s a fantastic one. I think all of our experienced people understand the importance of new people in our club. I saw a number of veteran drivers stepping up to ride along and offer advice.

Novice retention is one of our goals for 2022. It’s comments like this from novices that make me smile. “I bought a 03 WRX but I need to practice driving a 6 speed, can’t wait for next year” or “had a hell of a great time today, thanks for putting on a great event” and finally from PE3 “My girlfriend and I had a great time at the event and everyone we met was friendly and helpful” and they came back for PE4.

The most encouraging thing I’m seeing is the attendance by good drivers. I attribute this to a good surface but especially to excellent and innovative course design.

Finally I’d like to acknowledge the whole team of chiefs, I’ve worked on a lot of teams in my career, this group of folks really clicked.

I believe this pretty much sums up our progress this year, a quote from Matt Mowry. “having come back from almost three years away, there are a lot of very noticeable small changes and improvements that add up to a very smooth event.”

Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course

By: Jude Summers

134 entrants and 96 volunteers descended upon Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, for this year’s Labor Day Celebration of almost the end of summer!  As I write this there are only 17 more days until fall!!!  This season is almost over, and it seems like it just began.  The weather began with a July like day, in that Saturday was hot, humid, and very dry, with very little wind which not having much wind, is very unusual for Mid-Ohio.  Most of the race groups were evenly subscribed which meant there were no schedule changes, nor serious issues with the overall running on Saturday.  (Although we continue to see entrants that for whatever reason, either don’t have a transponder, or it is not working when they go on track.)  Toe Oram took a beautiful picture of the sunset by the tower Saturday night, which I shared that evening on facebook, it was so tranquil and colorful!  (Thank you, Toe!)  But, in retrospect, I now feel like I jinxed our weekend by sharing that beautiful picture, because the weather was quite the opposite on Sunday.

I awoke around 5:30AM on Sunday to the pitter patter of raindrops on the camper’s roof.  After just laying there for a half hour, I realized I should force myself out of bed and face the music er ah sounds of the continuing raindrops.  As I opened the door and glanced out at the sky, I realized this was not a gone in 5 minutes type of rain, there really was no need to check the radar on my phone, (but as a race chair, I did anyway).  Several of our participants decided to not brave the weather, some because they didn’t have rain tires, some were novices and uncomfortable, and some just because they didn’t want to chance it.  Of those that decided to race, well most of them got excellent experience “driving in the rain”.  While the weather did cooperate for a couple of race groups, most of them had at least a few minutes of racing in the wet.  There were several spins, and a few incidents but probably the worst issue we had was a serious oiling of the track, while the track was very wet, you do realize that oil and water do not mix??   One good thing, at least it was not a “cold rain”, as the temperatures hovered around 75 during the daytime.

Some notable activities:  The Driver/Worker Party at Cooper Pavilion on Saturday evening consisted of Cheeseburgers/Hot Dogs, Macaroni and Tossed Salads, and Brownies, and good beverages, the final summer picnic!  It was very well attended, and everyone appeared to be enjoying themselves “socializing”, I know I did!   After the party I personally made it to watch the OSU vs Notre Dame football game with friends at the track, although I was a tad bit late (Notre Dame had already scored – yipes!)  We all watched the game outdoors, which added to the ambiance with the win, friends, and the weather holding out, you could not have asked for a better evening.  A beautiful day of racing, wonderful dinner and social event, and a win for OSU.  It kind of took the sting out of the rain the next day, especially when packing up in the afternoon with intermittent showers.

DoorPrize Winners

Walmart

Duane Ward $50

Joyce Jones $25

Theo Hardesty $25

Macy’s

Ron Long $50

Tara Toe Oram $25

Linda Dent $25

Home Depot

Peggy Dietz $50

Marnie Brannon $25

Nancy Schillace $25

Best Buy

Kip Broyant $50

Donna McDonough $25

Bob Antoine $25

Shell

Randy Alheit $50

Alan Garside $25

Dave Jones $25

A special “thanks” to the following people for all of their organizational support and their volunteer teams this weekend, Peggy Dietz, Dan Hodge, Dennis Barschow, Diane Tedeschi, Christy Graham, Brian Flint, Madison Carpenter, Dave Killian, Tony Kasper, Suzy Hardesty, Duane Ward, Randy Alheit, Dave Howard, Bob Antoine, Phil Alspach, Susan Downs, Alan Garside, Gloria Sheets, and Frank Todaro.  Finally on behalf of OVR, a special thank you to Rusty Bell and John Fippen for broadcasting our event,  and to Cindy Loomis, Brian Sipes, and Dave Schwall and your staff at Mid-Ohio for your hospitality this weekend!  It was very much appreciated!

Thanks everyone for your talents in making this weekend a success!

Area 4 Director Update for July 2022

I thought June was going to allow me to take a breath…..but I was mistaken.  Yes, I had fewer events to attend in person but there were several more Zoom meetings, EVAC emails to write, etc., so I was still pretty busy this past month.

Next month I will be driving to Kansas City for the BoD meeting on 7/29, 7/30.  While there, I will also be sitting in on the CRB meeting on 7/28.

Video Conference Meetings:

• Club Racing Board (CRB) (6/7):  Much discussion was had about a new initiative called “Green to Checker” or G2C.  A myriad of decisions and policies over the years have led to poor performance on track during Club Racing events.  There are just too many sessions that are stopped by a black flag all (BFA) or under full course yellow (FCY) due to an incident on track.  G2C will try to change the course away from the trend of too many BFAs and FCYs which diminishes the race experience for all involved.  This policy is in the planning phase and I will report the results when the protocols are adopted.  While this was discussed by the CRB, rest assured this has also been discussed at the BoD level as well.  Changes are coming once we figure out the most effective way to alter the course of the program.  More work was done on the face-to-face meeting to be held in July (7/28).  The results of CRB rules changes can be seen here.
• Electrified Vehicle Advisory Committee (EVAC) (6/8):  We had guests for part of the meeting (Chris Robbins and Abby Scher) as we discussed how to train and educate the SCCA membership on how to interact with EVs when they participate at events.  We tied up some loose ends on the 2^nd iteration of the SCREV.  We are also nearly finished with a package for Production cars and are continuing work on a package for formula cars.
• BSpec Advisory Committee (6/14):  The BSAC group had some solid suggestions for how to modify our ESpec rules package.
• Touring Advisory Committee (6/20):  The TAC folks had some sage advice for me on the ESpec rules as well.
• SCCA BoD Team Development (6/22):  Those of us new to the BoD were asked to take a Myers Briggs Type Indicator Test.  That was done online a couple of weeks ago.  The results were revealed during a two hour Zoom call.  I had never done this type of personality analysis before.  All of this was done to allow the BoD work better together and be a more effective governing body.
• Board of Directors (BoD) (6/27):  We had a light agenda since we are meeting face to face next month.  We discussed the compensation for the President (Mike Cobb).  I gave an EVAC update.  We did more planning for our meeting in Kansas City next month.  We also received an update on the Haynes lawsuit.
• Production Advisory Committee (6/28):  Once again, a sub committee of the CRB provided some valuable insight on how we should modify the ESpec rules package.

SCCA Events:

• FSAE @ MIS (6/15-6/17):  Man oh man!  What a great time I had at this event.  To see so many college kids working together was truly uplifting.  There were teams representing schools from all over the country as well as several more from Canada.  As Chair of the EVAC, my goal was to see how the EVs were designed and built.  To that end, I hung out in the EV inspection area.  This allowed me to watch the inspectors go through the EV cars with a fine tooth comb.  Watching them helped me understand how the EVs were wired.  I was especially interested in the safety features of the EVs.  We are adopting some of these key safety features in our prototype and formula car rules packages.
• WMR SCCA Double Regional @ Grattan Raceway (6/18, 6/19):  This event was fun to attend as it brought me back to my roots.  I started out as an F&C guy way back when and that’s what I did this weekend.  I had the pleasure of working with a new member too.  It was another chance for me to “pay it forward” so the next generation of SCCA member gets the advice and counsel that I did when I joined.
• I have updated my calendar on the GLDiv website with events I’d like to go to this season.  Click here to see where I’ll be this summer.

Be sure and visit the GLDiv website for information about all of the SCCA programs within the division.  We have schedules, official’s contact info, standings, etc. for all the SCCA programs.

The various national schedules for 2022 are starting to coalesce and they can be found here:

Pro Solo/National Tour, Time Trials National Tour, Hoosier Super Tour, Enduro.

Please take a few minutes and make sure your contact information is accurate in the SCCA database.  It’s important to have the correct information there so the club knows how to contact you.  Log in to your my.scca.com page and check.

As I mentioned previously, there is a new path to getting your annual waiver.  You can now get it through the Member Account Portal (MAP).  Follow this link to get the instructions.  There is also a story about the program here.  I’ve done it and it only takes a couple of minutes. Be prepared to upload a headshot picture of yourself.

Just a quick reminder, if any region out there wants to have an “Ask the Director” session during your monthly meetings, please do not hesitate to contact me so we can schedule a visit.  I retired last summer so have plenty of free time and would thoroughly enjoy the chance to visit with your members.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you soon. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you may have about any facet of the GLDiv. I want you to make the most of your membership and I will help out in any way possible to make that happen.

Dayle Frame
Dayle Frame Area 4 Director
Great Lakes Division
517.889.1117 (h)
dframe@scca.com

Area 4 Director Update for August 2022

This month I competed in a GLDiv Solo in Fort Wayne, IN and worked F&C at the SBR/DET Major at GingerMan Raceway.  I will also be driving to Kansas City for the BoD meeting on 7/29, 7/30.  While there, I will also be sitting in on the CRB meeting on 7/28.

I also contracted COVID on 7/2 while boating on Lake Michigan and watching fireworks display in Muskegon.  My symptoms weren’t too terrible but it wasn’t a picnic either.  The hardest part was isolating at home and not going out.  It is frightening how quickly one can get bored while trapped in your own home.  Please note that COVID is not over.  Please take the appropriate measures and remain vigilant.  As a reminder, if you need some home test kits from the CDC, click here.

Video Conference Meetings:

• Club Racing Board (CRB) (7/5):  We discussed roll cage rules after the severe impact that a Spec Miata incurred at Road America.  On one hand the cage did its job but on the other, the driver was seriously injured.  The T1 Town Hall Zoom meeting was discussed.  We reviewed the Runoffs Tech Inspection lists.  More work was done on the face-to-face meeting to be held in July (7/28).  I updated the CRB on the work the EVAC has been doing.  The results of CRB rules changes can be seen here.
• Electrified Vehicle Advisory Committee (EVAC) (7/13):  With the revised SCREV sent on its way to the various program boards and their BoB liaisons, we concentrated on preparing the Club Racing rules packages.  We discussed some feedback we had gotten from the Production, Touring and BSpec committees.
• Solo Events Board (SEB) (7/13):  This meeting was to discuss the revised SCREV document with the SEB.  They asked a lot of pertinent questions and I hope I answered them to their satisfaction.

SCCA Events:

• Fort Wayne Region Solo (7/23):  Since I will be travelling to the Solo Nationals on Labor Day (9/6), I will not be able to participate in the WMR Solo at Grattan Raceway.  As a result, I needed to attend another Solo to work on my skills.  I checked the schedule and decided to go to FWR’s event on 7/23.  I drove down the afternoon before so I wouldn’t have to get up at an ungodly hour on the day of the event.  This would be first time I’ve competed in a divisional Solo and I was looking forward to it.  When I got to the site, I realized that I wasn’t prepared to keep my gear from getting wet in the impending rain.  Many thanks to Kevin Keys for helping out an unprepared newbie by allowing me to store my gear in his trailer.  The day started out with a HUGE thunderstorm rolling through the area.  VERY heavy rain and lightning dancing all around us.  After a 90 minute delay for the obvious safety reasons, we got started around 11a.  I was to run in the first heat and work the second.  There were three cars in my class (HS) and I ended up finishing in 2^nd place.  FWR puts on a very nice event and I hope all of you can make it to one of their events soon.  Results for this event can be found here.
• SBR/DET Major (7/24):  I signed up for this event so I could help out our friends at SBR and DET while enjoying some fun at GingerMan Raceway.  As it turned out, there was more rain in order (it seemed to follow me during he weekend) but fun was had regardless of the weather.  As usual the host regions ran a great event.  During the “quiet time” period lunch was served which consisted of a fantastic “build your own” hot dog assembly line with chili, cheese, onions, relish…..all the fixings.  As an added perk for me, I got to see my old race car on track in the hands of its new owner.  Quite a sight!
• CRB (7/28):  I’ll report on this meeting in next month’s report.
• BoD (7/30):  I’ll report on this meeting in next month’s report.

Be sure and visit the GLDiv website for information about all of the SCCA programs within the division.  We have schedules, official’s contact info, standings, etc. for all the SCCA programs.

The various national schedules for 2022 are starting to coalesce and they can be found here:

Pro Solo/National Tour, Time Trials National Tour, Hoosier Super Tour, Enduro.

Please take a few minutes and make sure your contact information is accurate in the SCCA database.  It’s important to have the correct information there so the club knows how to contact you.  Log in to your my.scca.com page and check.

As I mentioned previously, there is a new path to getting your annual waiver.  You can now get it through the Member Account Portal (MAP).  Follow this link to get the instructions.  There is also a story about the program here.  I’ve done it and it only takes a couple of minutes. Be prepared to upload a headshot picture of yourself.

Just a quick reminder, if any region out there wants to have an “Ask the Director” session during your monthly meetings, please do not hesitate to contact me so we can schedule a visit.  I retired last summer so have plenty of free time and would thoroughly enjoy the chance to visit with your members.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you soon. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you may have about any facet of the GLDiv. I want you to make the most of your membership and I will help out in any way possible to make that happen.

Dayle Frame

Dayle Frame Area 4 Director
Great Lakes Division
517.889.1117 (h)
dframe@scca.com

Area 4 Director Update for September 2022

September will be a busy month for me as I head to Lincoln, NE for the Solo Nationals.  I’ll be at that event from 9/5 to 9/10.  I’ve never been to the Solo Nationals and am really looking forward to it.  Later in the month, I’m headed to Virginia for the Runoffs.  The Runoffs will be held at Virginia International Raceway (VIR) this year (and next) and I’ll be there from 9/23 to 10/3.  I’ve been to VIR several times.  It’s a fabulous facility that will really test the mettle of the competitors.  As I have a brother who lives near there (Durham, NC), I get to pull double duty and visit with him.  Another bonus…..staying at his place will save me (and the Club) a lot of money.

Since I’ll be on the road most of the month, I may not be able to write an update for October.  Hopefully, it’ll be a much easier month.  I am scheduled to get my left hip replaced on 10/13 (not a Friday) so I’ll be able to walk, golf, bike, flag, etc. with MUCH less pain.  Wish me luck…..

Video Conference Meetings:

• Club Racing Board (CRB) (8/2):  As we just had a face to face meeting in KC on 7/28, this Zoom call was more procedural in nature.  We reviewed the letter log and continued the conversation on the G2C initiative (Green to Checker).  I updated the CRB on the work the EVAC has been doing.  The results of CRB rules changes can be seen here.
• Electrified Vehicle Advisory Committee (EVAC) (8/10):  The revised SCREV is being reviewed by the Experiential programs (Time Trials, Track Night in America, Solo, Rally Cross).  While this review is happening, we are working on a variety of things in the background.  The Broch Evans Motorsports EV race car (previously a Formula Mazda) will be entered in AMod at the Solo Nationals.  The car will also be at the Runoffs but only as a static display.  It will be exciting to get this car in front of SCCA folks so they can see it for themselves.  We are also working on training materials for members so they know how to interact with an EV that has entered an SCCA event.  More on that to come later.
• EVAC (8/23):  This was a secondary meeting among some of the EVAC to discuss data acquisition systems for the EVs in Club Racing.  We met with the folks from Aim as we are considering mandating such systems in all of the EVs in Club Racing.  This would make it easier to monitor voltage, power, current, etc. in these cars.  Its early in the process and we wanted to make sure we had a handle on it.

SCCA Events:

• CRB (7/28):  As one of the liaisons to the CRB, I attended their meeting in KC.  Many topics were discussed with an emphasis on long term, strategic thinking about the Club Racing program as a whole.  Data acquisition to monitor performance was highlighted as this will become even more important as we move forward.  Green to Checker (G2C) was discussed at length.  How do we as a group (drivers, steward, workers, etc.) pull together to make sure we have more green flag laps?  A variety of options were mentioned as a part of the solution.  Some routine house keeping was done as well.  They updated language on officials, discussed burden of proof in compliance issues, talked about the future of T1 and how do we fold FIA GT4 cars into Club Racing.  I updated them on how the EVAC was coming along on our rules packages.  This progressed into a broader discussion about EVs in Club Racing.
• BoD (7/30):  Like all face to face, BoD meetings, we were updated by all the managers so we could get an assessment of each program.  All the programs had bright spots and challenges.  This is nothing new.  The good news is that the bright spots outweighed the challenges and I am optimistic about the Club’s future.  The national staff is working hard to make events better, help make the regions put on better events and make a member’s experience better.  We also got a review of the financial standing of the club (pretty good considering the high cost of travel these days).  We were told by the marketing folks that we are “refreshing” our logos and graphic standards.  As this hasn’t been done in quite a while, it’s probably overdue.  We were also told that we are trending upward in terms of full time members…..that’s always good news.
• WMR Major (8/20, 8/21):  I signed up for this event so I could help out my home region (WMR) while enjoying some fun at Grattan Raceway.  Once again, rain followed me to a race course.  Saturday’s schedule was marred by a session being red flagged just as the heavens unleashed a torrent on the track.  With lightning in the area, the Chief Steward had no choice but to stop the clock and allow the workers to seek shelter as the storm passed through.  20 minutes later, the skies were clear and we could go racing again.  The day continued with the usual awesome, all attendee dinner.  Maybe I’m jaundiced but I will stack up the dinner menu at WMR events against ANY other track food option.  Sunday’s races were held under nicer weather conditions.  As it was the last Major east of the Mississippi, this was the last chance for drivers to qualify for the Runoffs via the Majors path.

Be sure and visit the GLDiv website for information about all of the SCCA programs within the division.  We have schedules, official’s contact info, standings, etc. for all the SCCA programs.

The various national schedules for 2022 are starting to coalesce and they can be found here:

Pro Solo/National Tour, Time Trials National Tour, Hoosier Super Tour, Enduro.

Please take a few minutes and make sure your contact information is accurate in the SCCA database.  It’s important to have the correct information there so the club knows how to contact you.  Log in to your my.scca.com page and check.

As I mentioned previously, there is a new path to getting your annual waiver.  You can now get it through the Member Account Portal (MAP).  Follow this link to get the instructions.  There is also a story about the program here.  I’ve done it and it only takes a couple of minutes. Be prepared to upload a headshot picture of yourself.

Just a quick reminder, if any region out there wants to have an “Ask the Director” session during your monthly meetings, please do not hesitate to contact me so we can schedule a visit.  I retired last summer so have plenty of free time and would thoroughly enjoy the chance to visit with your members.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you soon. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you may have about any facet of the GLDiv. I want you to make the most of your membership and I will help out in any way possible to make that happen.

Dayle Frame

Dayle Frame Area 4 Director
Great Lakes Division
517.889.1117 (h)
dframe@scca.com