By John Lieberman
Well,
gang. The month of March has arrived and the 2001 autocross season is finally
upon us. Thought it would never get here! But even though we’re just now
starting to play in the parking lots, there’s been plenty going on already this
year.
We
had a great turnout for our February 18th gimmick rally- 14 cars and
about 30 people. We even had a couple of street rods, a hopped-up Mustang, and
a vintage Lincoln Continental (which promptly blew a power steering hose and
had to be replaced with the daily driver.) Thanks, Lester for a really fun
event.
A
handful of our members made the trek over to Meridian, Mississippi at the end
of February for the National Tour there. They enjoyed the hospitality of the
Mississippi Region and Peavey Electronics and the openness of a Howard
Duncan-designed course.
On
the road racing side, there’s already been a school/regional, a double
national, and a regional/national – all at Texas World Speedway – with lots
more to come.
As
for me, I’ve been busy fighting the gremlins I encountered while swapping out
my front drum brakes for Metro Turbo disks AND trying to put out scheduling
fires. And, believe me, there have been plenty of fires to put out.
First,
we lost our May 20th event at Caddo and the TSD Rally and party the
day before because Delta wanted that weekend for their TLAC. Bumping local
events because of TLAC events is something we have to cope with every year.
We’re trying, now to move all of those events to the weekend of May 5th
& 6th.
Then
we lost our two events at Esler Field in Alexandria because the Industrial
Development Board there voted unanimously to turn over the airport and some
adjoining property to the Louisiana National Guard – pending legislative
approval. So now I’m working on several alternate sites for those two dates.
I’ll let you know if I can nail anything down.
To
top it all off, we lost OUR April 22nd TLAC date at Red River
Raceway because they found a paying customer for that date. Please don’t blame
the track. They’re in business to make money and our agreement with them is
that we can play there when they aren’t. So, we’ve moved our TLAC to June 24th.
We’re still waiting to hear from Sowela and
Cenla for their TLAC dates. But Sowela HAS said that they would like something
in September or October.
As
for the Divisional schedule, Houston and New Orleans have applied for the June
and July dates. Question now is which region gets which date. As of the cutoff
point, nobody had applied for the August date. So Wally Strzelec (that’s
pronounced Strel’-ik, in case you’re wondering!) asked me if we would be
interested in hosting a one-day event on August 12th at the
dragstrip. I told him we would. Then I checked with the track and got us
penciled in for that date. Since then, however, he’s received last-minute inquiries
from Texas and Houston. So the August Divisional event may be a one-day at the
dragstrip, a two-day at Mineral Wells, or another two-day in Houston . Stay
tuned for future developments.
I
guess that’s about it for now. I’ve got to go recharge my fire extinguisher!
Until
we next meet, go do something FUN in your car.
John