Okay, with reluctance, I'm going to start tabulating the votes since JD is
MIA. Since I originated this, I might as well keep it alive for at least one
more year.
To quote the movie "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"
"There are no rules."
Team.Net is not some SCCA committee, it is not some corporate-world
task group, it is not an elected representative. It is hundreds of
people of who like to go vroom vroom and hopefully share a meal and
drinks afterwards and then talk about it when we should be working.
We don't have rules. We have Guidelines and Suggestions and Proper
Behavior and of course, Improper Behavior.
What we do have is a sense of community, fair play, and friendship
that in Internet years has been going on forever.
So how do we do this DTN thing? The 3 items often quote are
guidelines, there is no central authority to declare it one way or
the other. (Your appeal is not well founded and will not be heard.)
If Fred wants to consider Adam eligible, let him. If Barney wants to
consider him ineligible, let him. They will vote accordingly. I
wish that JD could help us out here and set rules if he wanted them.
The first DTN was by acclimation, the next year it was organized.
"Nominations close on 7/31"
"Voting opens on 8/1"
"Voting closes on 8/7"
"Email votes to ME, not Team.Net after 8/1, put DTN VOTE in the
subject, all others will be discarded. I will acknowledge all votes
accepted."
To be DTN several things should be true:
1) The person must be a long time member of Team.Net and have been useful
on Team.Net.
2) The person must _never_ have competed in the Solo II Nationals and will
probably never go.
3) The person should have demonstrated, over the years, a willingness to
help out their region or regions (or club or whatever) at a local level.
How do we pick the DTN? Well, the previous year's DTN handles it, but
always done in approximately the same way. This year I'm opening
nominations now, July 26, I'll keep them open until August 1. I will then
publish the list of nominees, and open the voting. Voting will take 1
week. Then I'll publish the winner!
Here is nominee #1:
Given that 2000 appears to be the year of Street Modified, and given that
we need 15 drivers in SM at Nationals to qualify for a jacket, I think it's
only appropriate that the DTN be a Street Modified driver.
However, I have someone who I think qualifies for consideration for DTN on
his own merits.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to nominate Ian McFetridge for DTN 2000.
Ian is not from my Region, but I have known him for a couple of years now
through his presence on the Talon Digest and here on Team.Net. I first met
him at Harrisburg in 1999, where he ran in ESP, in an early Talon with
nonfunctional shocks. (I took the car out for a spin, and it was like
driving four pogo sticks in loose formation) He has also made it as far
west as the annual DSM Shootout in Ohio, but he never seems to make it to
Kansas.
Ian did something really special this year: Not only did he jump into SM
with both feet as one of the early adopters, he took my "go forth and
recruit newbies to the sport - and then keep them there!" philosophy
completely to heart, and then proceeded to do a much better job of putting
that into practice than I could. Ian has been dragging new people into the
sport of autocross at an alarming rate, and the people he brings in seem to
stay in. If I had an Ian in every region, SM would rule the world. :) Ian's
Region consistently has the highest participation numbers in the country,
and I suspect Ian is a large reason why.
And he's also managed to develop into a first-class competitor, and is a an
all-around nice guy to boot.
Given the amazing amount of work he has personally put into the promotion
of Street Modified and the sport as a whole, I can't think of a better way
to reward this level of personal dedication than to make Ian DTN 2000.
For your consideration, ladies and gentlemen.
(Karl, Kent, and Karen, this is where you back me up :)
DG
Ian's response:
I was so surprised when I saw my nomination, that I didn't even have the
information necessary to decide if I could accept or not. :-O Well, as of
today, I know that I can get time off work, which had worried me because I
do not have the necessary vacation days and I had a product release that has
fortunately been pushed off until November. So, I grateful accept my
nomination and offer a little bit of information about myself:
Born Philadelphia, PA in 1969; moved to Orlando, FL in 1984, received a
degree in Material Science and Engineering from the University of Florida
(Go Gators!), completed some graduate work in BioMedical Engineering; took
time off to work in industry. Moved to Boston in 1993 and worked for a
Pharmaceutical company doing drug discovery and medical device development.
Went into consulting in 1997 and moved to the Philadelphia area where I am
now doing a little bit of everything to do with pharmaceutical technology
and regulations.
I've always been into sports, segueing from BMX racing to motocross dirt
bike racing (man, I wish they had the Speed Freaks program back then),
dropping back into mountain bike racing during the lean years of college and
then graduating to my first "sports car" after college. When I was in
Boston I replaced my boring Explorer with a Mitsubishi Eclipse and I've been
boosting ever since. :-) Some of the local DSM tweakers invited me out to
a dragstrip and I quickly began to modify my car, eventually dropping my
quarter mile time down to 12.9 @ 106MPH. The straight line thing was fun,
but I craved something more and followed some of the DSM guys out to this
autocross thing I had been hearing about.
A couple autocrosses and a trip to the Diamond Star Shootout in Ohio and I
was hooked on autocrossing. I competed in my first season of autocross in
1999, unmodifying (reinstalling the stock boost controller, raising my 1/4
mile time to 13.9 @100 MPH, yikes!) my 1992 Eclipse GSX to compete in
Philly's ESP class. I found the Philly Region to be chock full of nice
folks willing to help a novice like myself learn the sport. I was so
impressed with the camaraderie and the quality of the novice program that I
started dragging every DSM and import racer that I knew to the local events.
In the spirit of wanting to give a little back to our club, I became a
safety steward and volunteered to assist a much more experienced
autocrossing with the job of Chief Solo II safety steward in the Philly
Region. At the end of the season I realized that my 130,000 mile DSM wasn't
going to make it through another season, so I purchased a fairly modified
1997 Eclipse GSX (12.0@114MPH) with the intention of competing in this
Street Touring Unlimited (now Street Modified) class that I had been hearing
about. I helped-out as best I could with the rules so as to not preclude
many of the local import and domestic drag racers and motorheads in general.
Hopefully, this class will continue to grow as more street prepared folks
install their subframe connectors and manual boost controllers.
Thanks again for the nomination and seconds to the nomination. Please feel
free to stop by and say hi to the tall guy in the white Eclipse at any
Philly event, Northern New Jersey event, or the Divisional in Rome, NY.
Best Regards,
Ian McFetridge
92GSX Philly ESP, retired to commuter duties
97GSX Philly Region's Street Modified!
Nominee #2:
David Hawkins
suppose I'm the only one not to pony up some personal
info so far....so here goes:
I started autoxing in Seattle 4 years ago when I went to an
event to meet up with a fellow MR2 owner. I plowed the
course with my 89 Supercharged car and then came back
the next week to get a ride with Glen Hernandez and get some
insight into how it should really be done. I was hooked. I moved
to Pensacola the month after my first autox and got involved with
Gulf Coast Region right after I got settled. The first year was spent
learning the car and attending as many events as I could. The
second year I was appointed Solo II Co-Chair and made it my
unofficial job to bring down the course speeds while making the
courses themselves more technical (since no one was providing
course maps, I figured I'd come up with some that favored my 112HP
MR2). While Solo II Co-Chair, I championed the cause for a novice
program and ride-alongs in the region (fruitlessly, but I fought the good
fight). Last year I jumped to Dixie Region since I was running there
every month anyway. I try to help out as I can, but being 3 hours from
the site doesn't lend to my abilities in that area.
I try to build up autoxing wherever I go, as I think it does have a direct
impact in how good of a driver you are everyday life. I've chosen to
stick with some of the most profoundly classed cars despite their
weaknesses (93 Mr2 Turbo in ASP, 85 ITA Mr2 in CSP, 86 Mr2
in CSP, Toyota Cressida in EM), and pass on whatever setup information
I learn to whoever happens to ask (and some who don't happen to). I
still compete in Gulf Coast Region every month, and am still championing
the need for ride-alongs, in addition to running in Dixie every month. When
I can convince the SO to let me, I run Wiregrass too :)
I was pretty strong in the running last year, but didn't want to create a
conflict in my region (JD was from Dixie also) and it didn't look like Uncle
Sam was going to give me time off anyway.
Personal Background....I'm 31, with a BS from the Naval Academy in
Aerospace Engineering. I resigned my commission last month after 10
years on active duty and look forward to some time of my own and the
inevitable job hunt. Mr2s have been my passion since I bought my
first new car, the 93 Turbo, in August of 1993. I've owned 14 of them
and currently have bits and pieces of 7 parts cars scattered about the
house in addition to the 93 in the garage and 86 which is in the
middle of an engine rebuild. An 88 Supercharged car with an uncertain
fate sits in the front yard. My first car was a 1966 Corvair, which I
restored with my father and which now resides in his garage awaiting
my purchase of a larger storage area. I pulled Dad into the SCCA at
the final Divisional of 1998 when I bought him a membership for his
birthday and surprised him with a co-drive when he came to watch me
run.
But...I'm rambling. I really enjoy this forum and hope that I add to
it when I can. If you see fit to send me to nationals, I promise to
wear a big DTN T shirt every day and shake the hand of every
team.netter that I run across. I'll even keep a few cold ones in the
Winnie for ya.
David Hawkins
86 Mr2 CSP in pieces
DTN hopeful
Those are the qualified nominees right now.
To contribute:
JD just moved back to Florida and doesn't have web access
just yet, but I'm willing to keep a file of any DTN dialogue for
forward to him as soon as he's back online. I also discussed
with him setting up a DTN PayPal account, which I've done
with the email address of drivertonationals@yahoo.com
This way we can get a lot of money in the fund for basically
doing nothing by using the referral. If you aren't signed up
with PayPal and don't mind using your credit card online,
please use the below link to sign up. This will give you $5 and
DTN $5. As soon as JD enters a credit card number, we'll
have $10 in the account (I used myself as a referral).
https://secure.paypal.com/refer/pal=drivertonationals%40yahoo.com
Any questions about this, please feel free to ask. I guess I'm
volunteering to honcho DTN until JD gets online.....
On that note....let the nominations begin.
David 'free in September (hint, hint)' Hawkins
86 MR2 CSP in pieces
Nominee #3:
Brian Beckman
I have nothing on file, yet.
Matt Murray
mattm@optonline.net
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