Chattanooga Region--Regional Notes

Regional Notes
2002

November Meeting Minutes
November 5, 2002 -- Komatsu Plant

There were 29 members and guests present at the meeting.

The minutes from the previous meeting were approved as posted on the web site.

Gerald Street gave the treasurer's report. The Club has approximately $8000.00 with most bills paid.

Prospects for New Solo II Site:

Scott Dobler has been in touch with the manager of the Eastgate Town Center. She seems to feel favorable about events on the property. Scott is going to make an appointment to see her in person as soon as he can to discuss details. He would like to get letters from people and businesses in support of our club and our activities.

Radio/PA System:

Lacy Linebarger has done some research on the type of system we should use and recommends a Decade Model MS100. This is fully assembled and can be purchased new for $525.00. It was decided to search on e-Bay for a comparable unit and see if we can save some money.

HO HO Solo Budget:

We budgeted $750.00 for this event. Site is yet to be determined.

A decision on who should get the toys from this event will be made after we determine the site.

We voted to buy 50 more cones for approximately $230.00

We voted to buy a new truck battery and battery maintainer for approximately $100.00. Bill Perry will make the purchase and installation after the ARRC.

The Solo Committee will meet and make decisions on how to get people to do their share of work at the Solo events. They will also make decisions on run groups, number of runs per event, etc.

We approved a revised Points System for Rally, Solo & Road Race events.

Wilson von Kessler volunteered to be points keeper for Performance Rally and RallyCross. Mike Strawbridge will handle Road Rally points.

Jamie Hamilton has volunteered to be our Membership Chairman.

Reservations and payment for our January 4, 2003 Christmas/Awards Banquet (Southern Belle Riverboat Cruise) need to be made by December 20th. Payments and reservations need to be made to Gerald Street, 9210 Smokewood Trail, Chattanooga, TN 37421. Payments can be made at the HO HO Solo.

Our Chattanooga Region Speed Freakz are going to be called the "Scenic City Freakz". Tiffany Fitzgerald and Jamie Hamilton are trying to get a group of Speed Freakz to go to the ARRC this weekend to work corners.

There will be a "Crash & Burn School" in Forsythe, GA in February. Anyone who wants more corner working training should make arrangements to attend.

We budgeted up to $30.00 each for year end trophies (need 14).

RALLYCROSS REPORT:

Wilson is going to inquire about a class for Dirt Cars. This would need the SEDIV Club Rally Steward's approval as well as approval by the National Office insurance department. If approved, all competitors must use window nets and full face helmets.

Wilson is tentatively planning a RallyCross on November 23rd at Resaca, GA. More information will be on the web site. Wilson needs someone to pick up the van and drive it down and also needs someone to run timing and scoring.

We budgeted $300.00 for this event, plus $10.00 for each car if we have over 30 cars.

SOLO I REPORT:

Dave McDaniel reported that the Talladega event was cancelled because of problems between the Region and the National Office about sanctions, etc.

The last event of the year is at Roebling Road in 2 weeks. Several Chattanooga Region members are planning to go.

SOLO II REPORT:

Travis reported that the Smashing Pumpkins Solo II was a huge success with 79 entries. We hope for another big field at the HO HO Solo II. Everyone remember to bring a $10.00 unwrapped new toy for under-privileged children.

ROAD RALLY REPORT:

Mike Strawbridge reported that there is a Road Rally this weekend at Tullahoma. Mike, Janice and Scott plan to be at the ARRC this week-end.

Mike is planning a Road Rally to the Christmas/Awards Banquet. Look for more information on the web page.

ROAD RACE REPORT:

Art Thompson gave a report on the SARRC Invitational Challenge. Vesa Silegren is the SARRC Champion in ITC. Vesa finished the SIC in 2nd and Will Perry was 3rd. Crew for that week-end was Art Thompson, Theresa Silegren and Gail Perry. Bill Perry was working on his Steward-in-Training at the race.

Another Chattanooga Region Member, Dwight Floyd finished 1st in class in the SIC race and 2nd in SARRC points for the year.

The ARRC is coming up this weekend. Vesa Silegren, Art Thompson, Will Perry and Michael Cartwright are entered from the Chattanooga Region. Vesa, Art and Will are entered in the Sprint race and in the 2 hour Enduro. Carl Blevins is coming to be crew chief. Others working on the crew are Theresa Silegren, Gail Perry, Dave Brooks, Mike Strawbridge, Janice Strawbridge, Scott Strawbridge, and Chuck Fullgraf. With 3 cars making 2 pit stops each during the Enduro we will be busy.

PERFORMANCE RALLY REPORT:

Mike Strawbridge reported that John Shirley brought Fred Gallagher from Great Britain into the area to go over the details of Cherokee. Mr. Gallagher told John to keep the competition phase as simple as possible. Mike reported that the route book is almost complete and all other plans are progressing nicely.

Bill Perry reported on our proposed Tellico Plains ClubRally. Mr. Alsobrook is working hard in our behalf and may have an answer for us very soon.

Negotiations for the Coal Creek Rally Site have not been finalized.

The Insurance Department in the National office says the ClubRally Insurance rates can be expected to increase by 20% in 2003.

-- Gail Perry
Secretary, Chattanooga Region

October Board Meeting Minutes
October 15, 2002

There were nine of fifteen board members present.

We voted to nominate our region for "Region of the Year" again.
No one else present wanted to go to the National Convention this year, so the Perry's will go again to represent our Region.
We voted a budget of $500.00 for the October 27th Solo II.
We voted to keep our region dues the same. $5.00 member; $2.50 spouse; $10.00 family. These rates equal the lowest in SCCA.
Began the selection process members for the Superlative Awards. Board members will complete this process by November 1st.
Discussed the proposed Coal Creek ClubRally on November 23rd. Rally Promotions is prepared to take the risk involved and pay our region $25.00 per entry for working the event. The last details are to be worked out between Rally Promotions and the Coal Company on Thursday October 17th. It will be decided then if it is financially possible to have the rally. (October 17--The rally is OFF)
Scott Dobler withdrew his nomination for Assistant RE for the upcoming election. He was nominated for Activities Director. These changes will be reflected on the ballot to be published in late October, for voting at the November meeting.

-- Gail Perry
Secretary, Chattanooga Region

October Meeting Minutes
October 1, 2002 -- Holiday Trav-L Park

25 people attending.

The minutes from the last meeting were approved as posted on the web site.

Treasurer's Report, by Gerald Street: We had two events - Borderline Road Rally and a Solo II at the old Sam's lot. This increased our bank balance somewhat.

Bill Perry reported that we received our approval from the IRS as a 501C4 corporation.

It has been reported that the old Sam's lot might be rented and will probably be unavailable to us. Everyone needs to be looking for Solo II sites. Some suggestions were: Eastgate and the old Target lot on Lee Hwy.

ClubRally Proposals:

The paperwork for the proposed Tellico Plains Rallys on May 17 and November 15, 2003 has been sent to the Forest Service. These have potential to be great events - the roads are similar to Cherokee Trails and the town of Tellico Plains wants us there.

Kendall Russell has signed leases for some property called Coal Creek near Caryville, TN to be used for Rally Cross and ClubRally. Wilson and Bill plan trips to check out the site and they will make recommendations to the Board of Directors and take a vote on whether we try to put on an event in November. It seems to be too late for a November 2nd event, but there is probably time to plan a November 23rd event. We will need between 50 and 60 workers and only 10 people volunteered at this meeting. Darrell Pugh, from the East Tennessee Region, was at the meeting and said he thinks their club will also be able to get about 10 people to work the event. Obviously, we will have more workers. Wilson volunteered to be organizer of the event and Darrell thinks someone from East Tennessee Region will want to be co-organizer. Mike Strawbridge volunteered to write the route book.

Insurance Recommendations. Cheryl sent some information and Wilson is going to follow up with recommendations at our next meeting.

We voted to have our year-end banquet and awards party on the Southern Belle Riverboat. We voted for the club to pay one half of the cost as a reward for all the hard work we've done this year. We are checking on the date of January 4th. We also have to have 60 people to get a private deck.

Tiffany Fitzgerald gave a report on her plans for a Speed Freakz Program, mostly for 2003. She plans to call a Freakz meeting to discuss plans and decide on a name for the group. We will make a Freakz-of-the-Year Award for 2002 based upon vote of the Board. The 2003 Award will be based upon a points system.

Travis Fitzgerald asked that the club consider purchase of a computer for scoring events. The Solo Committee will gather prices and information on a computer and also for the FM radio based PA system.

Nominations for Club Officers for 2003 are as follows:

For Regional Executive:	Bill Perry
For Assistance Regional Executive:	Scott Dobler Mike Strawbridge Wilson von Kessler
For Secretary:	Gail Perry
For Treasurer:	Gerald Street
For Activities Director:	Billy Miller
For Board of Directors (elect 3) in addition to the past R.E.	John Barrett Leah Barrett Scott McAllister Dave McDaniel Will Perry

Ballots will be printed and the election will be at the next meeting which will be at Komatsu on November 5th at 7:00 PM

Solo II Report - Travis says the 5th event of the year went well with 48 entries. Our next Solo II will be October 27th at a location to be announced; and the final event will be the HO HO SOLO on December 1st. Alan Syler was missed in Scoring.

Road Rally Report - Mike says the Borderline Road Rally went well. Everyone had a great time.

RallyCross Report - We are looking for a site. There is a 25 acre spot at the Coal Creek site which will be available and Randy Bailey is going to check on a site near Resaca, GA.

Road Race Report - The SARRC Invitational races are this coming weekend and Vesa has 12 point lead in ITC. We expect him to win the Championship. Dr. Jim Osborn will be racing in the Speedvision Touring Car Challenge on Friday Oct. 10 at Road Atlanta. He invites us to visit him in the paddock. The next race for Chattanooga Region racers will the ARRC on November 8 - 10 and we will have most all our road racers there.

The Barber facility in Birmingham has scheduled their first event for the same week-end as Cherokee Trails. Bill has e-mailed their RE and suggested they might re-schedule if possible because there are not enough workers (especially tech) for two events on the same week-end and workers from Chattanooga will be committed to working Cherokee.

Performance Rally - Mike Strawbridge says Cherokee Trails planning is well under way and ahead of schedule compared to last year. The event will be sanctioned by USAC and John Shirley expects a large field. John may bring in some higher-level workers from Europe. We will need one more stage team than last year, and overall will need about 500 workers.

Scott Dobler has the club van and trailer and will keep it until next week. He will bring it to Rivergate shop to have the battery maintainer installed and then we will take it to Lacy Linebarger's house in Red Bank.

Dave Hester gave a very entertaining report on his weekend at the US Grand Prix in Indianapolis. He worked turn 9 and had a great time.

-- Gail Perry
Secretary, Chattanooga Region

September Meeting Minutes
September 3, 2002 -- Komatsu

The meeting was called to order with 27 members and guests present.

The minutes from our previous meeting were approved as posted on the web page.

Treasurer's Report - Gerald reports that we had a gain of approximately $650. for the previous month, with about $6900.00 in the checking account.

John Shirley was unable to be present to give a Cherokee Trails 2003 update. However, Stuart Wood and Bill Perry reported that at the last Committee meeting, John presented information indicating that we will need about 550 workers for the event. It will be sanctioned by USAC, which offersgood insurance coverage for our workers. We all need to be recruiting people to work. Stuart wants to start having training sessions for late this fall. There will be a USAC licensing procedure of some type for workers and participants. The Forest Service has not finalized the permit yet, however reports that it looks very favorable. All of this puts us months ahead on preparation for the event, as compared to 2002.

Our proposed ClubRally for Tellico Plains for November 2002 won't happen, because of forest fires in Oregon. The ranger (Mr. Alsobrook) was fighting fires and we were unable to meet with him until August 27. Then the person who issues permits was sent to Oregon. The procedure takes 60-90 days, and there was not enough time to process it by November. The roads cannot be used in December, January, and February because of freeze-thaw of the roads. It was decided to apply for an event on the third Saturday of May. Mr. Alsobrook is retiring at the end of the year, however he says he will work on the approval process before he leaves.

We voted to apply for the event for the third Saturday of May and the third Saturday in November with no votes against having the events. Now we need to work hard to get entrants. It should not be too difficult since Cherokee Trails will no longer have a ClubRally.

Due to the events at the last Autocross, Dave McDaniel has made an Organization Chart for the region. This will help identify who needs to handle problems at future events.

There was no one present at this meeting to give an update on Insurance.

We voted a budget of $400.00 for the Borderline RoadRally. This is to cover the meeting room, trophies, and sanction/insurance.

Tiffany Fitzgerald gave an update on her plans to get our Speed Freakz members more involved in club activities. She is planning a points scale just for the Freakz for next year and also a year end award. She is planning to send Carl information about the Freakz program and ask him to make a separate page for Freakz information

Lacy Linebarger will have information at our next meeting on a FM/PA system.

Ken Blain has made some of the graphics for the SCCA trailer, at no charge.

Scott Dobler says he is working on the Downshift this weekend so he needs people to send him articles to be included.

Our next meeting will be October 1st at the Holiday Trav-L park on Mack Smith Road (if the meeting room is available). Travis will advise if it is not available.

Solo I Report - Dave Hester reports that there will soon be a safety inspection of a site in Sparta NC for a hillclimb. The town is behind it, so if the site passes, we should be able to schedule a hillclimb next year.

Solo II Report - The next Solo II will be September 22 at the old Sam's lot. Chattanooga Region will be represented by Travis Fitzgerald, Brian Flanagan and Dave McDaniel at the Solo II Nationals in Salina Kansas this month.

RoadRally Report - Mike Strawbridge and Robert Harvey entered a recent Georgia Sports Car Club rally, and won the event in spite of some incorrect information entered in their computer.

RallyCross Report - Wilson von Kessler reports that he does not have any prospects for a site at the present time. He is still looking.

Road Race Report - Road Atlanta Labor Day - Art Thompson raced for the first time this year, in spite of arriving at the track after registration closed on Saturday. Since Jamie Hamilton had worked registration on Friday evening, she located the Chief Registrar and got Art registered. While he was taking care of this, Will and Bill Perry got his car ready and he managed to make a late qualifying session. Therefore, he was able to race both days and finished 3rd in each race. Will won both of the races. Anthony Henderson raced his Formula Vee - but he did have problems. He blew an engine early Saturday and made a quick trip back to East Ridge for a spare motor, which he got installed (with a lot of help) before bedtime that evening. He finished both races, in 4th place on Monday.

The next race will be the SARRC Invitational Challenge. Will Perry and Vesa Silegren will be racing, and Art plans to crew at that event. Vesa leads the SARRC points going in so we expect and will be pulling for him to be ITC Champion again.

There is also a race at VIR on November 2nd & 3rd, however since this is the week before the ARRC, we don't think any of the Chattanooga Region racers will make it.

The ARRC is November 8-10 at Road Atlanta and our Region should be well represented in both sprint and endurance races.

Bill Perry is joining Steward's Program for Road Racing and has committed to fourteen weekends for the training. It promises to be very interesting.

The Alabama Region has tentatively scheduled the first event at the Barber track in Birmingham on the same weekend as Cherokee Trails in 2003. Bill hopes to be able to get them to change the date so both events will be able to get workers, especially tech inspectors. If it is moved, more people from our region will be able to work the event.

-- Gail Perry
Secretary, Chattanooga Region

August Meeting Minutes
August 6, 2002 -- Trav-L-Park

We held our meeting at the Holiday Trav-L Park, with 29 members and guests attending.

The minutes from our last meeting were approved as posted on the web site.

The treasurer's report by Gerald Street indicates that we are continuing our slow but steady growth.

We discussed the Solo II safety issue. This was prompted by the incident (by a relatively inexperienced driver) during Sunday's Solo II at the old Sam's lot.

Scott Dobler stated that he believes we need to redesign the sweeper to slow the course. Our new tech inspector, Nathan Peters, said he would prefer it if cars were presented at tech race ready.

Alan Syler has done some research on the question of purchasing a FM radio station for use during our events. The prices range greatly from $169.00 to $2,495.00. Lacy Linebarger has offered to do more research on what we would actually need and present his findings at the next meeting.

Since it would speed up events if we could run two cars at the same time, Steve Tompkins is going to try to find Windows based software for the Chronologic system. He will give us a report at the next meeting.

Cheryl Tompkins hopes to have some insurance recommendations at the next meeting.

We elected Tiffany Fitzgerald to be our Speed Freakz Coordinator. Her primary job will be to try to get our young members to be more active in organizing as well as competing in our events.

Work is continuing to organize two ClubRally events for this fall. There will be a delay on the Tellico Plains event until the Forest Supervisor returns from fire-fighting duty in Oregon.

We did vote to spend the money required to host the event, if we can get road permits.

Wilson von Kessler is working on the event we hope to have in Dade County. We also voted to spend the money required for this event. Wilson - Dec. 7 - Dade County

Ken Blain will give us estimate for graphics for trailer for the two designs presented by Scott Dobler.

We will hold our next meeting at the Komatsu Plant on Signal Mountain Blvd. at 7:00 PM (6:30 for videos) on September 3rd.

We need to label the drawers in the trailer to identify where items should be placed at the end of each event.

We all looked at the SCCA promotional tape done by Pat Summerall.

Our local SCCA pro-driver, Dr. Jim Osborn, told us about his experiences in the Touring Car Series. He is currently doing very well - 20th overall in the points and 7th in rookie points. This is a very entertaining series to watch on Speed Channel. For more information on his racing for charity efforts see: chilipepperracing.org

Road Race - Art Tompkins gave a brief race report: During the July 27-28 SARRC race at Road Atlanta, Will Perry finished first with Vesa Silegren finishing a close second. Anthony Henderson also competed that weekend. He had brake problems, but finished enough laps to get credit for the race and now has his regional racing license.

The next race for local drivers will be Labor Day weekend at Road Atlanta.

Solo I Report - Steve Tompkins says the series will finish with three more events: Kershaw, Talladega and Roebling Road. There is some discussion of adding an event at Gainesville, but Steve thinks it will be the first event of next year. There is a very good chance we will again have a hillclimb site in the Division next year - probably hosted by Central Carolina Region.

Solo II - Travis Fitzgerald said the August 4th event was quite eventful - one damaged car and one person suffering from heat exhaustion. There were 52 entrants in spite of the heat. There was also a problem with people leaving after their runs and the third run group did not have enough people to work. That is certainly not fair since the people in that group had already worked in the heat for the people that left early.

Our next Solo II will be September 22nd at the old Sam's lot. Travis has the Solo II points compiled and sent to Carl for posting on the web site.

Road Rally Report - Our next event is September 21st (a SEDIV points event) and we really need our members to support this event - workers and competitors. Alan Syler is working on another Road Rally for October. This one will be another beginner type event.

RallyCross Report - Wilson is looking for a site and will give us an update soon. Wilson and Ken Blain went to the Huntsville RallyCross. Ken won overall and Wilson was 4th.

Performance Rally Report - Ken Blain went to the Maine Forest Rally to co-drive with Roland McIvor. They lasted 4 miles before a rock got in the suspension and finished their day.

Wilson and Emmons Hathaway are going to go to the Defi Rally in Montreal Canada.

-- Gail Perry
Secretary, Chattanooga Region

July Meeting Minutes
July 2, 2002 -- Trav-L-Park

The July meeting was again held at the Holiday Trav-L Center. We had 30 members and guests in attendance.

The minutes from the June Meeting were approved as posted on the web page.

The treasurer's report shows that we lost some money during June, primarily because of the low turn out for the Summer Shootout; however, we still have a healthy bank account.

IRS Application Update: Gerald is compiling the necessary financial information for the Not-for-Profit application. Bill is working on writing the numerous reports on events that are required. This is a huge project and is going to take some time to complete.

Does any member of the club have a place large enough to park the SCCA van and trailer? We need a place where we can keep a permanent battery maintainer plugged in. If we don't find a home for the vehicle, we may need to look into a solar battery maintainer.

The next Solo II is scheduled for August 4th at the old Sam's lot. We voted a budget allocation of $250.00 for this event.

The Road Rally scheduled for July 27th did not need any money allocated at this time.

Insurance Committee Report: Cheryl has three possibilities lined up. We need to have a BOD meeting to decide how much insurance we need before she can get costs quoted.

Other Business: The region has received a wedding invitation from George Lewis. He and Susie Blair are getting married in August (see invitation below). Vesa and Theresa are also getting married in August. Wilson and his wife are renewing their wedding vows this week in celebration of their 10th anniversary.

We expect to schedule another Rallycross in about 6 weeks and will post date on web page soon.

We do not expect to be able to hold any tarmac ClubRallys this fall. Efforts are underway for other ClubRally sites.

Our next meeting is scheduled for August 6th at the Holiday Trav-L Park at 7:00 PM.

Solo I Report: Dave McDaniel won his class at the recent VIR event. There were about 30 entries for the event and it was successful and lots of fun - good traction, very few spins. Steve reports that the Talladega event is being rescheduled.

Solo II Report: The Shootout had a disappointing turn out (probably because of scheduling conflicts). However it was an awesome course and was thoroughly enjoyed by the entrants.

The Road Rally scheduled for July 27th will be a beginners type rally. It will be run on very scenic roads - up and down the mountain and along the lake. It will be 60 to 65 miles. We need people to work this event for training for the SEDIV event in September. Alan Syler has a Road Rally Primer available if anyone is interested in learning more about Road Rally. E-mail him for a copy at asyler@vol.com.

The Rallycross last weekend had 26 entries, so we probably broke even on expenses. The owner of the property stopped by and seemed very glad to have us there. He even gave Wilson a key to property so we can have access when we need it. He has a bulldozer and driver we can use for $15 an hour to help us smooth out the course.

Road Race Report: Art reports that we haven't had any members race since the last meeting. We do have a pro racer in our club - Dr. Jim Osborn is running in the Speed World Challenge Touring Car events and finished 16th out of 54 entries last weekend at Mid-Ohio.

There will be a Regional race at Road Atlanta July 27-28. Art Thompson, Anthony Henderson and Vesa Silegren plan to race. Roy Yother may race and Will Perry will race if he can get a car ready.

Dave Hester is trying to recruit people to work at road race events. He says it is lots of fun and working corners is a good place to watch the races. Besides corner workers, there are people needed to work in the pits, timing and scoring, tech, grid and registration to name a few. Workers get lunch and dinner on race days.

Performance Rally: The next Cherokee Trails Rally will be a FIA North American Championship Event - not a SCCA event. It will be a two day event (Friday & Saturday) and Recce will be on Tuesday & Wednesday.

John Shirley would like to have a Committee meeting later this month. Time and place to be announced later.

We had a surprise visitor at this meeting - Bill Johnson, National Administrator - Stewards. He was passing thru Chattanooga on his way to Roebling Road and happened to be staying at the Holiday Trav-L Park, so he dropped in most of the meeting.

-- Gail Perry
Secretary, Chattanooga Region

June Meeting Minutes
June 4, 2002 -- Trav-L-Park

The June meeting was held at the Club Room at the Holiday Trav-L-Park on Mack Smith Road. Due to a severe thunderstorm, we only had about 25 people at the meeting.

BUSINESS MEETING:

The minutes from the last meeting were approved as posted on the web page.

Treasurer's report: Gerald reports that we have we have all bills paid and most of the items needed for the trailer have been paid for. We have about $6600.00 in the checking account.

The members of the Board of Directors and Officers voted to have the entire membership vote for major expenditures.

Bill Perry presented information on our corporate status with the IRS. The members voted to apply for a 501C4 Not-for-Profit status. There is a $500.00 application fee for this. Bill will prepare the necessary paperwork for this application.

A committee was appointed to research insurance costs for the Officers and Board of Directors and for the club van and trailer. The committee is Cheryl Tompkins, Wilson von Kessler and Alan Syler. They expect to have some preliminary information at the next meeting.

Scott Dobler says the Summer Shootout budget of $2500.00 will not cover trophies. We voted another $300.00 for trophies. We need donated door prizes for the drawing Saturday night. We also need someone to sell merchandise at Registration and at the site for the weekend. Amanda Flanagan is bringing cake Saturday night, Brian Flanagan said he would bring soft drinks to Registration Friday evening and Gail Perry will bring chips and dip Friday evening. Dominic's is catering the Saturday party at the Days Inn. Scott has rented a TV and VCR. We have 21 entrants pre-registered at this time.

We also approved a budget of $500.00 for the June 29th Rallycross. Wilson and Ken Blain will check with the owner of the property about grading the site. We also approved another $300.00 for grading and graveling of the site. Gerald Street is checking into the possibility of a Komatsu demonstration for this.

We have scheduled another Road Rally for July 13th. It was decided to use T-Shirts for trophies. Alan Syler is planning this event, using roads on Walden's Ridge. We may begin the event at the Rivergate Shop in Soddy-Daisy and end at Fastech on Signal Mountain. More information will be posted later about this event. We do need to have people sign up to work this event, so we will be prepared for the September SEDIV Rally.

Brian Flanagan proposed that we host an Evolution Performance Driving School at the Dade County site. Brian and the Solo II committee took on this project.

Ken Blain will have magnetic numbers for rent or for sale at the Summer Shootout. Shoe polish will not be allowed on any windows. Competitors may use shoe polish on the paint of their car, rent or buy numbers from Ken or use some type of tape for the numbers.

We still have a few changes we need to make to the By-Laws. These include allowing votes by phone or e-mail, modifying description of duties of some officers and blanket spending approval of some amount (possibly $100.00) for club expenses - such as gas for the van, stamps for sending meeting notices and other small items needed. The current By-Laws are now posted on the website. Send Bill Perry your suggestions for other changes.

Work on the Autocross Trailer is progressing. We now have a checkerboard floor and most of the seven new storage units are installed. We will have a counter for Alan's computer, new florescent lights over the registration counters, and batteries in a storage box on the tongue of the trailer. Most of these improvements were paid for with the money from the generator returned to Home Depot. Approval was given for $300.00 more to finish up project.

Ken Blain will give us a quote at the next meeting for graphics for the sides of the trailer.

Our next meeting will be July 2nd at the Holiday Trav-L-Park (if there's no date conflict). This is a really nice place for the meeting.

SPORTING MEETING:

Steve Tompkins gave a Solo I Report. He said they have had two strong events so far this season, with several more scheduled. The Talladega Solo I has been postponed until fall. The date will be published later. Apparently Solo Trials are very popular - Gainesville hopes to have 1 or 2 more this year. Steve would like to have one in our area if possible.

Mike Strawbridge and his son Scott recently participated in a Road Rally in Atlanta. This was Scott's first co-drive. He must have caught on quick because they managed to finish second.

The Learn-to-Rally Rally was a success. Everyone seemed to have fun and learned some of the basics of Road Rally. There were 8 vehicles entered. Carl Blevins and Lisa Nielson won with zeros on some stages. Jamie Hamilton and Scott Strawbridge finished second.

Art Tompkins gave a Road Race report. Vesa Silegren took his Honda Civic to Kershaw and came home with two first place trophies. He now has his six wins for the year. Congratulations!

Anthony Henderson went to Memphis for his first race with the Formula Vee. He finished second in his first race. Carl Blevins and Art Tompkins went to crew for him.

The next race is June 22nd at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte. It will be a SARRC and ECR weekend.

Wilson gave a RallyCross Report. We had 32 entries at the May 18th Rallycross. Carl Blevins won overall. Randy Bailey was second in Dave Brooks new toy. All the German cars broke down.

John Shirley gave a Performance Rally Report. He says the Cherokee Trails 2003 plan is being presented to the Forest Service this week. He is planning a two day event to be based out of Benton, Tennessee. Expect about 200 stage miles. We will base the event at the Marriott again next year, using the new convention center facilities. He does not plan a ClubRally with the Cherokee Rally next year. He expect Mitsubishi to have a BIG presence at Cherokee next year. John would like to have a Committee Meeting in July. He will be e-mailing former officials soon to make arrangements for this meeting.

CNAR will be part of the FIA North American Zone Championship next year and he expects to get a good TV package. Mexico will likely have the first World Rally event in North America.

John has found out that Bowater owns the mining land in Sequatchie County that he has been looking at as a possible ClubRally site. He expects to contact them soon.

-- Gail Perry
Secretary, Chattanooga Region

May Meeting Minutes
May 7, 2002 -- Dominic's

CRSCCA held its monthly meeting at Dominic's in Cleveland Tuesday May 7th. There were approximately 35 members present.

BUSINESS MEETING:

The minutes from last month were approved as posted on the website.

Treasurer's report by Gerald Street indicates the club is doing well. We have large expenses associated with the new trailer, but the events we have held so far this year have kept the balance in the checking account about the same.

Vesa Silegren announced that he and Theresa Makemson are engaged and plan to marry sometime this summer. Congratulations!!!

Amendments to our club By-Laws were discussed and some minor changes were made to bring the By-Laws more in line with current policies. We held the vote for these changes after it was explained that we need to have them ready to send to the IRS along with an application for 501C4 Not-for-Profit Status. We need to send this in immediately, as it usually takes several months for a decision by the IRS. 100% of members present voted to make these changes.

There will need to be some additional changes made, but these can wait for a few weeks.

The Solo II committee submitted a budget for the Summer Shootout, and members voted to spend up to $2500 for event against expected income of $3,000-$5000.

The Rally committee submitted a budget for the Enterprise South Tarmac Rally, tentatively scheduled for June 29. Members voted to spend up to $6,500 against expected income of $9,900. Other Tarmac Rallys are expected to be held September 14th and November 2nd. These are all planned to be coefficient 3 Rallys.

The new generator was used Sunday at the Solo II event. It was almost whisper quiet and operated the computer with no problems. We did not even need to use a line conditioner. Since we don't need the conditioner, the club voted to sell it to Alan Syler for $100. Dave McDaniel is planning to return the generator to Home Depot. They won't give a cash refund since we kept it for more than 30 days, however they will give us store credit for the full amount. This works out great since we need several more things for the trailer. Some things listed are:

1. checkerboard flooring
2. a battery box and wiring supplies to wire the trailer for 12 volts
3. insulation for the ceiling,
4. cabinets for storage (papers, helmets and other supplies)
5. a fan
6. a container for lime

Also, we would like to get some graphics for the trailer and possibly some magnetic numbers to rent at events.

The Rally supply trailer needs new wiring and according to Dave Brooks it needs a rack to mount Wilson Rock on the tongue of the trailer.

Mike Strawbridge says he doesn't need to spend money for the Road Rally scheduled for June 1st. He thinks he can find the magnetic numbers needed in his garage. He reported that Robert Harvey will conduct the school for the "Learn-to-Rally" Road Rally. We hope some local club members will enter the event. When we host the SEDIV Road Rally in September, we would like to have some local members give a good showing.

The Speed Channel coverage of this year's Cherokee Trails International Rally is scheduled for Thursday May 16th at 11:30 PM.

SPORTING MEETING:

Solo I Report by Dave McDaniel: Dave and Steve went to the Sole Trials in Gainesville. They got about 10 laps on Saturday and 12 laps on Sunday. At $65.00 it was a bargain and they enjoyed the week-end. Dave would like for the Chattanooga Region to host such an event and is looking for a site.

We have had several people ask about a Solo II Novice School. This would have to be held at Dade County High School. Perhaps we can combine that with a Rallycross on Saturday and hold the school on Sunday - maybe in August before school starts.

Jennifer Dobler is doing a great job of recruiting new members during event registrations - about 30 so far this year. This includes Charlie Johnson who has returned after being out of the club for several years. Welcome Back!

Road Race Report by Art Thompson: Vesa won again at Kershaw and he now has 3 wins for the 2002 season. He is well on his way to SARRC Champion in ITC again this year. Only the best 6 races count and it's looking good. Vesa and Theresa are going to VIR this weekend. Hopefully he will add to his streak of wins.

Anthony Henderson and Art Thompson will probably go to Memphis at the end of this month.

Art is the points keeper for the region for road racers, so send him copies of your results.

RallyCross Report by Wilson von Kessler: The April 13 event had 24 entries. We had three cars pop tires and Ottis Airhart rolled the General Z due to one of those tire failures. The event was won by ET Region Darrell Pugh, Will Perry was second and Ken Blain was third. It was great fun to run and fun to watch. We will have another event at the same location on May 18th. We have 9 pre-registered to run. Brian Flanagan says there will probably we 5 rental cars. Contact Brian or Ken Blain for more information.

The supplemental regulations for this event will not change from the last event.

Performance Rally Report: John and Kendal were unable to attend the meeting, but John would like to have a party for people who worked Cherokee Trails. He is looking for a place that can accommodate a large group of people with good food, beer and video capabilities. Does anyone have any ideas for a location?

Hopefully we will have a contract for the Enterprise South location soon. We will open registration as soon as we have the permit.

John & Wilson looked at a 72,000 acre site north of Oak Ridge. This land is owned by a coal company and is available for multi-use. A local ATV club has a contract for using the roads. The land manager is excited about us possibly using site for rally, however the coal company doesn't understand rally. Kendall is preparing a presentation to explain it to him.

-- Gail Perry
Secretary, Chattanooga Region

April Meeting Minutes
April 2, 2002 -- Komatsu

Once again we had a packed house with 38 members and guests attending.

We started with videos from Cherokee Trails International Rally. We enjoyed sandwiches provided by Janice Strawbridge and sponsored by Rally Promotions. Thanks Kendall and Janice!

The minutes from last month's meeting, posted on the website, were approved.

Gerald Street's treasurer's report indicates the club is prospering, even after the final payment on the new trailer.

At the Denver Convention, we were urged to have a mission statement. Bill Perry introduced one: HAVE FUN WITH CARS AND CAR PEOPLE. This seemed to be very popular with everyone present. We all agree we need to make sure our events are fun, every if they do require hard work.

Solo I
Steve Tompkins gave a Solo I report. He says there have been a couple of events added to the schedule. There will be a Solo Trials event at Gainesville International Raceway. A possible hillclimb site has been located - more information at a later meeting. With the added races, there will be events every month from April thru November (except possibly October). He reported that there were more requests for reserved numbers than last year, which indicates growth and interest in the events.

Steve said some Solo II cars are legal for Solo trials events. Stock and street prepared, closed cars are legal to run. Helmets and long sleeves required. Prepared and modified cars need roll bars and driving suits.

Solo II
Dave McDaniel gave Solo II report. He plans to completely hand over the Solo II program to Tiffany and Travis Fitzgerald soon. He is helping with this weekend's event and with the Summer Shoot-Out event and then resign as Solo II chair.

We have 17 people pre-registered for the April 7th Solo II at the old Sam's lot.

At 8:30 on the 7th, Dave Hester will instruct anyone interested in becoming a Solo II Safety Steward. We need several people to qualify for this because without a Safety Steward present, we cannot run an event. At the present time we only have 2 members qualified for this.

Dave will be taking possession of the new trailer Wednesday April 3rd and will bring it to the Rivergate shop. We will have a workday Saturday April 6th, beginning at 10:00 AM, on the trailer and van. We need to install a counter top in the trailer and then move stuff from the old trailer into it. Also, the van needs maintenance and service at the same time. Any one who would like to help is welcome.

Alan Syler reports that the inverter that Carl Blevins sent to us cannot be repaired. Dave is going to try to return the generator we bought and get another one that will run the computer without killing it. If he can't return it, he will be able to sell it and then the club can purchase one that will handle our needs.

In the meantime, Dave will bring his big generator to the Autocross this weekend at the old Sam's lot. By the time of our next event (Summer Shoot-Out, June 22 & 23, Dade County High School) we should have a new generator to run scoring equipment.

Road Race
Art Thompson gave the Road Race Report. He introduced Anthony Henderson, who was a former member of the club and has now returned. Anthony took his Formula V to a double driving school at St. Louis Gateway International Raceway and is now ready to go racing. Anthony will have his Formula V and VW van (tow vehicle) at the "Bugapaloosa" event April 20-21 at Camp Jordan. All VW lovers will enjoy this event.

Art reports he has a new racecar which he had teched at Road Atlanta this past weekend. Now he is ready to go racing.

Vesa Silegren is taking his car to this weekend's double SARRC at Kershaw. Vesa, Art and Roy Yother are all planning to go to the May 11 SARRC event at VIR. Anyone want to go crew?

Road Rally
Mike Strawbridge gave a Road Rally Report. Ron and Margie Langstron (control crew for finish of SS2 & 6 at CTIR) put on a trapped road rally in Cumming, GA. Mike and Robert Harvey ran together. This was quite a change from being fierce competitors for years. They ended the day in first overall, beating the experienced teams of Fred Hollinger and Jim Woooden and Tom Greig (SS 2 captain) and Marty Friedman.

Mike would like to plan a simple "Learn-how-to-Rally" rally for May 25 or June 1 or 8. The rally will use tulips in the beginning and have times and mileages for each instruction. It will gradually drop information so that the last leg will be run with very little information except what is normally given on a rally.

The divisional is planned for September 21st. Robert Harvey is considering hosting a rally in Atlanta the next day if the logistics can be worked out. Mike needs someone to help him plan hospitality and make arrangements with the headquarters hotel (Dave McDaniel volunteered to help with the hotel in Dalton). Mike also needs help with SCCA insurance and sanctions arrangements (Kendall Russell volunteered to assist with this).

The next Georgia Sports Car Club rally is May 19th. Click to their page from our "Road Rally" page.

RallyCross
Wilson vonKessler gave a RallyCross report. Ken Blain found an excellent site and we now have the first event scheduled for April 13th. Sanctions forms have been sent in and Julie Douglas in Denver says we are good to go.

Wilson still has to meet with the landowner's lawyer on Wednesday April 3rd, and Ken is taking a check to the landowner, Chester Ross.

Wilson has asked Will Perry to be the tech inspector, Bill Perry to be the Safety Steward and Gail Perry to handle Registration for this event. We still need volunteers for timing, to assist at registration, and other jobs need to be filled.

The gates will open at 8:30, registration starts at 9:00 with the first car out at 11:00. We do plan to have a porta-pottie on site. Every one should bring food and drinks for the day.

Classes of cars eligible to participate will be posted on the website. Co-drivers will be allowed. Brian Flanagan plans to have a car available for rent.

There is some site preparation needed, mowing and cleaning up. This is scheduled for Saturday April 6th. Ken Blain says he will be there at 8:00 am and hopes several people will come out to assist.

We will probably use rally timing instead of the timers we use for autocross. The timers don't work well in the dust and are likely to be run over by cars that can't stop as well on gravel.

A water truck might be needed if it does not rain for several days prior to the event. Randy Bailey is going to check with someone he knows that has such a truck.

Performance Rally
John Shirley gave a ProRally Report. The Cherokee Trails International Rally was a huge success, even with the short amount of planning time we had. The competitors loved it. The Higgins brothers said these were the best rally roads in the world. The Polish Champion driver, who brought over a huge team, thought it was a fantastic event. Over 15 countries were represented at the Rally. The economic impact figures are not available yet, but it will be a large figure.

Kendall Russell reported that she issued 20 new ClubRally licenses for the event. Some of the new drivers and co-drivers got lost on the transit to the Whitewater Center, before they realized instructions were in their route book. The Friday evening Podium start attracted about 5,000 people. With that many people downtown, there were long lines at all the nearby restaurants. We had representatives from all the major car magazines and, of course, Speed Channel had film crews here.

The website attracted just under one million hits, 11% from overseas. Website advertising is now available if anyone is interested.

Kendall says she will need to hire a secretary for the next event, to relieve her of some of the tedious work.

There were 581 tickets sold by the Chattanooga Sports Authority.

John plans next year's event to cover approximately 150 miles over a two-day period. The Recce will be scheduled for two days. We will have to limit the field next year to stay within our timeline. There will not be a ClubRally at Cherokee next year.

We have decided on three days for Tarmac events (if we can get permission for the site). These dates are June 29, September 14 and November 2.

John Shirley is actively looking for sites for ClubRally events.

Scott Dobler has designed new business cards for CR SCCA, and he is ordering them this week. They should be ready by the RallyCross date.

Our next meeting will be at Dominic's in Cleveland on May 7th at 6:30 for sandwiches and 7:00 for the meeting.

-- Gail Perry
Secretary, Chattanooga Region

March Meeting Minutes
March 5, 2002

Dominic's Caffe' Espresso in Cleveland

Meeting was called to order with 35 to 40 members present. Once again we had a packed house.

Minutes from the last meeting, posted on the web-site, were approved as written.

Bill introduced new member Chuck Fullgraf, a ham who plans to help work Cherokee Trails Rally. He is a former Formula Ford racer.

SCCA Convention:
Bill gave a report on the Annual Convention in Denver: Chattanooga Region won the Small Region achievement award for 2001. This is our second win in four years. Why? Because we work smarter and we work harder than other regions, we reckon.

Items discussed at the convention included information concerning three SCCA Regions currently being audited by the IRS. There are potential problems for any region that accepts money from non-members. People running our events need to purchase a temporary membership. Any region with income over $25,000.00 a year has to file an income tax return. This has never been a problem for our region before, but we probably will exceed that income for 2002. We will have to declare what type of corporation we are and we hope to be able to get classified as a 501C4.

Other items covered in Denver included proper handling of waivers. Each signature must be initialed by the witness, as well as each page being signed at the bottom by an adult member of SCCA.

Next year we expect insurance costs to double for some activities, largely because of events of September 11. Insurance for Cherokee Trails Rally went up 80% over last year, and we expect that figure to double for 2002.

President Steve Johnson says that we will soon have over 70,000 members in SCCA. He also reported on the planned move to Topeka. It will ultimately save SCCA a lot of money. But our dues are going to increase by $10.00.

Solo I:
Steve Tompkins gave Solo I report. He says the planned Solo Trials event by Central Florida Region is attracting a lot of interest. SEDIV has 7 Solo I events scheduled. Steve also reports that the new timing system purchased by SEDIV, which he tried out Sunday at our Solo II event, seems to work great.

Solo II:
Dave McDaniel gave a Solo II report. He says the new trailer should be ready in early April. After we pick it up, we will schedule a work party at Rivergate. We will also service the van at that time and swap items from truck to van.

Since we do not expect to be able to sell the old trailer for much money, we decided to keep it and use it to store rally supplies, signs, pointers, stakes, etc. To save money on storage, Dave Brooks volunteered to store it at his house.

The new pylons have been ordered and we should receive them next week.

Dave reports that the next Solo II event will be April 7th at the old Sam's lot. He plans to contact Dade County for a two-day event in mid-June.

Dave reported that he needs to cut back on the time he spends on SCCA events. He reports that Travis and Tiffany Fitzgerald have agreed to take over as co-chairs for Solo II. He will work closely with them for the next few events before turning it over to them. We appreciate their willingness to work. Scott Dobler volunteered to co-chair the mid-June two-day event. With four people working on it, this should be an excellent event.

Dave asked Scott Dobler to design a new tee-shirt for the June event.

Dave noted that we have a new entry form to conform to IRS requirements. He wants Carl to add a box for driver's license check. He also says that registration needs to assign car numbers if the entrants do not have one.

Gerald reports that he going to create a Registration Box for all registration supplies. This should cut down on confusion at registration.

Dave Hester wants to have a Solo Safety Steward training event at the April 7th event. We hope to have several members attend this training. How about you?

Dave McDaniel reports that the little generator we bought will not run computer. Bill says that he has asked Carl to bring the 1000 watt inverter that was in the van when it was purchased from TVA. It needs a small repair which Alan Syler can handle. It should solve the problem. Dave says he is also going to try to get the new generator repaired or replaced.

Road Race:
The only event has been the SARRC at Road Atlanta last weekend. Vesa went and kicked butt. He won the race under rainy conditions.

Treasurer's Report:
The March 5th event only took in $750.00 of which we should clear about $400.00. Not too bad considering the weather conditions. Rally Promotions repaid the loan our club made them for preparations for Cherokee Trails.

RoadRally:
Mike Strawbridge reported that he and Janice went to the event in Manchester. Also Robert Harvey & Tom Greig participated. Mike and Janice finished first and Robert and Tom came in second. (If you guessed Janice was tickled with this, you guessed right!)

The SEDIV event we plan to host has been rescheduled for the third weekend in September. He also plans to put on a local event after Cherokee Trails. He asked for suggestions on what type of event we would like - written instructions or tulips.

RallyCross:
Wilson vonKessler gave a RallyCross report. He says we now have a venue, which is the gravel lot and/or some fields at Stateline Dirt Track off Ringgold Road. He plans to hold it the second weekend in April. He needs someone to run timing for this event.

Performance Rally:
The Performance Rally Report on 100 Acre Wood event was given by participants. Brian Flanagan reports he ran the first stage, but on the second stage he blew three large holes in his engine. He has another engine and plans to have it installed in time for Cherokee Trails. Randy Bailey reported "we didn't blow up". They started 19th and took it easy the first couple of stages. He said it was uneventful, with fast, wide, smooth roads. They finished 8th overall and 1st in class. He won the Group 2 National Championship!

Randy reports that Carl Blevins was planning to take it easy thru the water crossing, but for some reason hit it at 35 MPH. This of course drowned the MR2 and their day was finished.

Wilson was co-driving with Josh Turner. They broke their alternator in Stage 5 and went up in a cloud of steam at the finish of the stage, ending their day.

Ken Blain co-drove with Scott Justus. Scott did not wreck but their motor did get wet at the water crossing and they ended up pushing it across the finish. They finished 7th in G5.

Cherokee Trails International Rally Update:
John Shirley reports that they met with the Forest Service yesterday. Most issues are worked out. There are some environmental issues to be settled, but he expects all issues to be settled in time for the event. All our committees are in place and commanders have been assigned. Most have already been having meetings and should be ready.

The Chattanooga Sports Committee will sell tickets and handle merchandise sales for the Rally. They have agreed to work with us to get Finley Stadium for use next year.

Audrey Thomas with the Cleveland Red Cross has agreed to work with us as Safety Coordinator to handle emergency services.

We now have 73 entries. John reports that the Canadian Subaru Team is coming

Spectator costs are getting lots of banter on Special Stages, but most people understand why we have to do this. Stuart Wood, the Chief Spectator Marshall, says the areas are excellent and will be well worth the fee.

The Speed Channel will cover the event. We expect coverage to be about like last year - only the stars will be shown.

Hyundai will sponsor press stage at VAAP site. John still has to work out the arrangements for VAAP site with the city and county governments.

There will be a Ceremonial Start Friday night - starting at Aquarium. The cars will be flagged off, go down street a block or two, and come back and park. Big River Grill has arranged for the street to be blocked off. There will be a party for all rally staff, sponsored by Big River Grill. Drivers and co-drivers will be there. Afterwards, the cars will go to Parc Ferme. This party will end early, because everybody has to be in the forest early on Saturday.

The Rally can't get behind, we will have to cancel stages if we get more than 15 minutes behind, so everybody needs to be in place and ready at the right time. All the Chattanooga Region workers are so "pumped", this shouldn't be a problem.

The VAAP site is going to be destroyed by construction by this fall. John will try to rework the schedule and move our Tarmac events to spring. After this year, the site won't be available for our use.

We have 96 workers registered. If anyone else is planning to work, they need to get their registrations in to John Barrett as soon as possible. We still need more ham radio operators.

New Business:
The club needs a new Hot Line number to accommodate our growth. We will use the Perry's number and multiple line answering machine. The number is 332-2038.

The meeting adjourned.

-- Gail Perry
Secretary, Chattanooga Region

The next SCCA Meeting will be Tuesday March 5th at Dominic's Caffe' Espresso in Cleveland, TN. Take Highway 60 thru Cleveland and turn right at Ocoee Street. Dominic's will be about two blocks on the right. Look for the yellow awning. If you wish to eat, arrive about 6 pm. The meeting will start at 7 pm. SCCA's new Promotional Video by Pat Sommerall will be shown after the meeting.

Small Region Achievement 2001

SCCA Convention in Denver. Bill Perry accepted the Region Achievement Award for the outstanding small region for 2001 for the Chattanooga Region.

February Meeting Minutes
February 5, 2002

Meeting called to order with approximately 50 people in attendance. We had guests Peyton Carter & Lea Carter and newest member Theresa Makemson.

Minutes of previous meeting are on the Web site and were approved by those attending.

Treasurer Gerald Street reported that we have $1848.89 in the treasury. It was reported that 12 officers and board members approved a loan to Rally Promotions to get the Cherokee Trails Rally underway. The Forest Service wanted $6,000.00 immediately to secure the roads. The Chattanooga Region loaned the money, which is to be re-paid by March 15 or sooner. The loan is secured by a Promissory note, which was handled by Wilson von Kessler. Thanks Wilson!

Jekyll Island SEDIV Meeting report: Chattanooga Region members attending were Bill & Gail Perry, Steve Tompkins and Dave McDaniel. Some of the items approved at the meeting were: $7,000.00 for a program for online registration for SEDIV events, using credit cards and hopefully saving much time for Registrars in the future. Also approved was $1,500.00 seed money to establish a Road Rally Championship in the SEDIV. The only rule change was to require race seats in Spec Miata.

It was reported that Bill & Gail Perry are leaving Wednesday for the Denver Convention. We will be attending seminars and taking classes at SCCA University.

Solo I Report: Steve Tompkins reports that at the Jekyll Island meeting SEDIV approved spending $3,300.00 for a division timing system. The Solo I schedule this year does not have a hill climb, but Central Florida Region is hosting a Solo Trials event, probably in April. If it goes well, they will schedule another one in the fall. This means there will be approximately 7 Solo I events in 2002.

Solo II Report: Dave McDaniel reports he has gotten a quote for 50 pylons for $230.00. Also he has two quotes for a new Solo II trailer. One was for $3,092.00 and one for $2,595.00. The club approved purchase of the $2,595.00 custom built Haulmark trailer. It will be 6' x 12' with inside height of 6'1". It will have 6' x 3' vendor doors on each side, with roof vent and 2 rear stabilizing jacks. It will also have two dome lights. Interior will be unfinished. Club approved down payment of $300.00 with balance due when we pick it up in late March. Balance to be paid when Rally Promotions repays loan. Dave agreed to handle sale of the old trailer.

Dave reported that he has scheduled several Solo II events, trying not to conflict with the Huntsville, Atlanta & Nashville events and also trying to avoid conflict with ClubRallys. He did not have the schedule with him, but will get it posted on the web soon.

He expects the first one or two events to be at the old Sam's lot. First event will probably be March 3rd. We will try to schedule at least one event at the Dade County site for later, possibly a Saturday event. He wants to continue the Summer Shootout event, and may try to do a two day event at Dade County.

Dave reports that at Jekyll Island it was suggested that Solo II events use a stationary tech inspection and issue stickers when car is teched. Starters should look for the stickers before allowing car to compete.

Dave would like to move the start times to 10 AM and open tech and registration at 8:30 with driver's meeting soon after that. We also need people to renew their safety steward licenses.

After trailer is picked up, we need to schedule a work day to get the interior ready and also service the van. This will probably be done at the Rivergate shop and hopefully we will get a good turn out for this work.

Alan Syler reports that the new generator killed his old computer. We need to buy a power conditioner to use with the generator. The club approved purchase of a 1800 watt conditioner for approximately $200.00. Alan will take care of this purchase.

The road race report was sketchy because there have been no races. Vesa Silegren is planning to go to the March 1st race at Road Atlanta. Art Thompson may also go if his car is ready. The Perry's will not have a car ready and probably go to support Vesa and Art.

Road Rally Report: Mike Strawbridge reports that there are two events scheduled for February 16 - one is the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Manchester and there will be a road rally school event co-hosted by the Atlanta Region and Georgia Sports Car Club. See the Georgia Sports Car Club webpage for information.

As reported above there will be a SEDIV Road Rally Championship with the winner in each of the three classes winning a free trip to the US Road Rally Championship. Mike reports that he is still trying to decide on a date for an event for the Chattanooga Region to host. We might try for a two day event, with one here on Saturday and Georgia Sports Car Club & Atlanta Region hosting a Sunday event. These events would be in the Dalton area.

RallyCross: Wilson von Kessler, Joey Gentry and Ken Blain have been trying to secure a site for this event. RallyCross is an autocross on dirt or grass and basically all cars legal for autocross can run, except for open top cars. Wilson asked for permission to offer money in advance to secure a site and club approved up to $300.00 per event for this purpose. We would like to have a 6 race season. Randy Bailey has offered to contact the owners of some motorcycle tracks to see if he can find a site.

Performance Rally Report from Sandhills Sandblast: Brian Flanagan reports he had some troubles but also had lots of fun at this event. The event was better organized this year.

The ClubRally National Championship will be at the 100 Acre Wood in Salem, Missouri. Chattanooga Region members planning to attend are Randy Bailey & Will Perry, Brian Flanagan & Dave McDaniel, Carl Blevins & Art Thompson. Also Ken Blain will be co-driving for Scott Justus and Wilson von Kessler will co-drive with Josh Turner. Billy Miller and Dave Brooks will go as crew.

Kendall Russell will be going to help work the event and they need any workers that can make the trip.

Cherokee Trails Report: The planning committee has met and toured the roads. There will be 8 stages with 120 Stage miles and with transits will be a total of 408 miles. The entry forms are on the web and can be handled on line with PayPal or downloaded and mailed in. The event will be three days, Thursday thru Saturday. Information regarding schedule, hotels, etc. is on line at www.cherokeetrailsrally.com and also at www.rivergate5speed.com

We expect to get the Polish National Champion Group N car here and also expect two British competitors. Hyundai is debuting a 2003 model car here. The Irish team has booked the entire Days Inn. We also expect several competitors from Canada and possibly a Mexican team.

At the CNAR event last week there were 5 CNAR competitors and we hope to have some of them here.

John Barrett e-mailed 190 workers to let them know it was time to register and he already has 25 registrations. Worker registration is at www.rivergate5speed.com

Mike Strawbridge says he will have one All Girl Stage Timing Team and is trying to get hats and t-shirts from Girlie Girl Racing.

Kendall Russell would like anyone with photos of workers in action to e-mail them to her.

We also need Ham Radio Operators to register. We will need quite a few of them for the event.

There will be three spectator sites. There will be spectator tickets and parking passes - prices $20.00 per ticket and $5.00 for the parking passes. These will be great sites with PA announcers at each site. The announcers will be in contact with Net Control and will be able to give up to date standings. Stuart Wood is going to try to get two professional announcers. Scott Dobler will be the third announcer.

Meeting was adjourned and video of last year's Cherokee Trails event was shown. The video was filmed by an Irish television team and is a really good video.

-- Gail Perry
Secretary, Chattanooga Region

BOARD ACTION :

Funds collected in ClubRally entry fees that formerly were used to buy trophies for our ClubRally SEDIV point's champions went instead to a Tow Fund for the ClubRally National Championship. As we organized half of the SEDIV ClubRallys, we initiated the retroactive collection of a $1.00 fee for each entry at the Division's ClubRallys to buy the trophies. Scott Dobler will design the trophies and Kendall Russell will award them at the SEDIV Meeting at Jekyll Island.

CRSCCA Board Members (all that could be reached by phone on January 5th) voted for this expenditure. Cost to our region will be under $50.00.

-- Gail Perry
Secretary, Chattanooga Region

January Meeting Minutes
January 4, 2002.

Chattanooga Region Annual Christmas Party & Awards Banquet

On Friday, January 4, 2002 Chattanooga Region held its Annual Christmas Party & Awards Banquet at Wally's Restaurant in Chattanooga. Attendance was great - 49 people were there.

2001 Awards:

Solo I Driver of the Year	Dave McDaniel
Solo II Driver of the Year	Brian Flanagan
Harvey Templeton Road Racer of the Year	Will Perry
Rally Driver of the Year	Randy Bailey
Rookie Driver of the Year	Roy Yother
Most Improved Drivers of the Year	Tiffany and Travis Fitzgerald
Member of the Year	Cheryl Tompkins -- During Cheryl's 5 years as RE our membership went From 29 to 96 members!
Volunteer of the Year	Bill Perry -- This award was a surprise for Bill and was initiated by Scott Dobler and David Brooks.

Long-time Treasurer Gerald Street reported that our financial strength has increased to approximately $8,400.00 this year.

Solo I: Solo I Steward Steve Tompkins reported that he and several others are searching for a replace- ment site for the Beech Mountain Hillclimb, which has been cancelled. Steve says the 2002 Solo I schedule will consists of between 7 and 9 events, one of which will be held at the Talladega Super Speedway.

Solo II: Dave McDaniel reported that the Solo II program was very successful in 2001. Some of the events attracted as many as 70 entries. The highly visible old Sam's site was certainly influential in this increase. Our HO HO SOLO was a big success. We delivered a large truck full of toys to the Forgotten Child Fund in Trenton, GA. The city of Trenton hopes we will hold an event at the high school there, and we will plan to do so during 2002. Dave is planning a March event, site and date to be announced later.

Road Race: Bill Perry reported there was nothing to report on club racing. Will is building another 36 CRX and working on a CRX for Art Thompson.

Performance Rally: SEDIV was announced as the ClubRally Division of 2001. The Chattanooga Region sanctioned 6 of the 7 events held in the Southeast. We hope to have a ClubRally here in 2002 if we can find a site.

Chattanooga Region will have about 9 members going to work at the Sandhills Sandblast event January 12. Those planning to go are Bill & Gail Perry, Mike & Janice Strawbridge, David Brooks, Art Thompson, Ken Blain, Stuart Wood, Joey Gentry and possibly Charles Long.

We will also have six members participating in the event: Randy Bailey & Will Perry in "Stinky", the Isuzu, with Randy's dad, Ronnie Bailey as crew; Brian Flanagan and Dave McDaniel in the BMW; Patrick Stone with Billy Miller co-driving; Wilson von Kessler is co-driving in a Mazda.323. (Wilson also has a co-drive lined up for the Snowdrift event.)

Kendall Russell and John Shirley have offered the use of the Team LeConte truck to SEDIV members invited to the ClubRally National Championship event to be held in Salem, MO in February at the "100 Acre Wood" ClubRally. Randy & Will are planning to go. Carl Blevins has also received an invitation to the event.

Mike proposed that we try to hold a RallyCross soon, maybe before the Cherokee Trails event, for additional training. There is a course in north Georgia that may be available.

John and Kendall reported that they are attempting to arrange for our use of the VAAP site for future Tarmac events. Turn-outs were low at the Tarmac Series in 2001, but we expect much larger fields in 2002 if we can arrange for the site. John Shirley reported that some Rallyists from other Regions are planning to transfer their membership to Chattanooga because we are so active in Rally.

John reported that there is a ClubRally being planned for May 18th in the Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky. The ClubRally in Talladega has been moved to June because of the 100 Acre Wood event.

The Cherokee Trails event plans are developing, pending site approval, which is expected next week. It looks like now it will be a 3-day event February 15-17, with Recce on Thursday, a press event on Friday, Tech Inspection and a podium start on Friday evening and the 10-Stage Rally on Saturday.

John asked if we have any member proficient in CAD that would be willing to draw the set-up of the Service Area. If anyone wants to do this, contact John or Bill.

Road Rally: Bob Ricker from Florida has been named the SEDIV Road Rally Steward for 2002. He and many others would like to see a Division Road Rally Championship Series developed. He will make a proposal at the Jekyll Island SEDIV meeting January 19. Mike Straw- bridge says he would like for the Chattanooga Region to host one or two of these events. Mike says it does not take as many workers to operate a Road Rally as it does a Club Rally, so it should not be too difficult for our Region to host an event.

SEDiv Meeting: Several Chattanooga Region members plan to attend the Jekyll Island SEDIV meeting: Bill and Gail Perry, Steve Tompkins, Dave McDaniel, Kendall Russell and John Shirley. Many Divisional Champions will get trophies there and rules, financing and scheduling for 2002 will be decided there.

National Meeting: Cheryl Tompkins made a motion, which was seconded, and passed, that Chattanooga Region pay some of the expenses for Bill & Gail Perry to attend the National Meeting in Denver in February. Along with the Convention activities, they will be attending SCCA University Classes there. The Region will get a $300.00 supplement from Denver to cover part of the expenses.

The next meeting will be Tuesday February 5th at the Komatsu plant on Signal Mountain Road at 6:30 PM. After the meeting there will be an award winning video made by an Irish TV Crew at Cherokee Trails last year.

-- Gail Perry
Secretary, Chattanooga Region