by John Lieberman
Hey,
Gang!
Welcome
to the year 2001 and the “official” start of the new Century/Millennium!
As
I write this, I have just returned from the Divisional planning meeting in
Dallas and am getting ready for our Regional planning meeting on January 14th
at the Western Sizzlin’ on Greenwood Road.
I
would like to thank “Johnny Yugo” for making the trek over to Dallas with me. I
hope that he now has a much better understanding of what goes on in the
Southwest Division (primarily the road racing side) just like those of you who
attended the mid-year Divisional meeting that we hosted here in Shreveport back
in July.
Before
I go any further, I would like to take just a moment to make all of you aware
of a very sad event that occurred this past Friday. Anybody who has been in
this club for more than about five years is certainly familiar with the name
“Pat Patrick.” His wife, Dianne, was our Regional Secretary from 1993-95. She
autocrossed a fluorescent yellow EP Volkswagen Beetle that Pat built, so she
could have something to play with. I drove it. Bob Talley drove it. It was one
sweet car.
Pat’s
racing history spanned decades of both on- and off-track activities. He earned
his racing license in a Mini(!) and worked for numerous racing greats,
including the legendary Carroll Shelby. Dianne and Pat were two super people
and I’m proud to say that they were my friends. Dianne and the rest of the
family still are!
But,
unfortunately, Pat died of a heart attack on Friday, January 5th. He
will be sorely missed by those of us who knew him. He could really tell some
car/racing stories and was more than willing to help ANYBODY –no matter what
kind of car they drove!!!
I
don’t want to sound morbid, because visitation with Dianne and the rest of the
family at James Burton’s place on the riverfront was an absolute hoot! And I
know that Pat’s up there somewhere listening to Elvis, riding a Harley, and
bench racing with some of the all-time greats.
But,
a new year awaits all of us and we must move on. For the year ahead, we plan a
FULL autox schedule with a few rallies tossed in to make things interesting and
at least on new road racer (Barry) in our ranks.
I
would also like to use this forum to personally congratulate Doug Mercier for
his second-place National points finish (FA) and Bruce Nock for his first-place
Regional points finish (GT5) in the year-end Southwest Divisional awards for
road racers.
But
now the ball is in our court, gang. A whole new year awaits us and, together,
we can make Red River Region whatever we want it to be in the year 2001. So, if you have any ideas for events we can
conduct, places we can hold them, ways to make our Region even stronger than it
is today, or anything else that might improve Red River Region, PLEASE let me
or one of your other officers know.
Until
then, I’ll see ya’ at the cones or on the track.
John