Thanks Murray for the great response.!
I did not indeed get the notice (or if I did I am guilty of not having read
it) that this was to be an all day affaire (car show etc.) . My family would
have loved to have been there but I convinced them that because I had to work
i'd only be there a short time. My son did enjoy the time spent and he's
alreadt daily driving a Triumph so I expect he'll be track bound in a year or
two as well.
I fully support Wayne and the gang and the safety program VARA tries to
implement and like I said...Next year my body is Wayne's for the day so I can
help tech too!!
If I had known that was the venue, or the approx time when the car class
might get teched, like you suggested we might be able to arrange for next
year, guys like me who could only get a half day off on the occasional
saturday might be able to take the second half off and get work and fun done
in the same day.
Always a VARA supporter and my hats of to those who work so hard to keep
things together. Been there...done that with other large body organizations.
Hell, it's only three years to retirement....then we'll see what other sorts
of things I can do to help keep VARA going too. I'm looking forward to it.
Thanks for the clarification and the information. I did not realize there
were Tech Catch ups at the first three races..... I always got it done at
Annual Day so never noticed I guess. I'll try to take advantage of that.
Again, thanks for taking the critique in the spirit intended. My best to the
BOD.
Here's to a great race season!
Bill Burroughs, #195
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In a message dated 1/13/2003 10:41:27 AM Pacific Standard Time,
mchalmers@earthlink.net writes:
<< Subj: RE: VARA NON-tech at the speedway.
Date: 1/13/2003 10:41:27 AM Pacific Standard Time
From: mchalmers@earthlink.net (Murray Chalmers)
To: TRBILBO@aol.com, gasket.works@gte.net, fot@autox.team.net
CC: oneandoutgo@msn.com (Jerry Bernheimer), wtmitchell@worldnet.att.net
(Wayne Mitchell ), GRJ243fp@aol.com (Gary Johnson)
Well Bill your comments got to the right party. Gary Johnson and I were
the event chairs for the Annual Tech and certainly the ones to blame.
Your comments do point up that we did a bad job of getting out the word
as to what this event was this year. It was intended as a family day
and car show. This is important to Irwindale Raceway and to VARA in
getting our presence in front of potential new members. Wayne Mitchell
had Four inspectors and three assistants working very hard all day long
to get the job done and got to everyone who stayed. In addition Wayne
had Chris Campbell and an assistant do the entire FV group. This was
Wayne's choice as he felt that last year he did not have enough control
of the volunteers and wanted to use a more limited crew. The point that
we apparently failed to make was that we needed to have as many cars as
possible come early and stay to keep the integrity of the event.
As usual Wayne and his guys will do annuals for the first 3 or so events
as time permits. Annuals take time to do properly and Wayne needs to be
very careful to do a proper evaluation and gain the confidence that the
car will remain safe and well prepared through out the full year. The
BOD is full support of this principal. It is, after all, the safety of
the driver that is at stake.
Gary and I and the BOD as well are certainly sorry that your experience
was not a pleasant one. We do work hard to put these things together
and make them serve the needs of our members as best we can. We did
recognize that is was not easy for the drivers to know when their tech
would occur and are exploring ways to make this information available
next year. This is not intended so that people can leave right a way it
is more intended so that they can know when they need to be at their
cars. I too really appreciate the great job done by Joe Siam and other
group reps in getting the cars prepared for Tech as it made it possible
for Wayne's people to get through the cars. The number was well over
200 and under the best of circumstances it takes most of the 8:00 to
3:00 to get everyone done.
We are really trying to make this a pleasant experience and always feel
bad when some of the members expectations are not able to be met. >>
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