Yes, I keep adding things and it is really neat to be able to offer comments about CCSCC things more often then when the AUSPUFF comes out.  I have several things to say in this posting:

We have had some really great events!  HISCC held a wonderful event at Rantoul that we all enjoyed.  It was so much fun!  A great course and we came in by the north gate again.  While that is nice, it may not happen again this year, as the area we normally pit in and the grid area are narrow enough that there is not much we can do with them.  Just some sort of slalom or chicane and then a turn around.  But it does allow us to make the course on the main part of the site more flexible.  The last two events we have had there we have had a LLOONNGG sweeper coming out of the old grid area and that is fun!

Our next event is at Parkland College in northwest Champaign this coming Sunday and Monday, Labor Day Weekend.  All proceeds go to our Parkland Scholarship fund and we continue to add to it.  We fund one to three scholarships of $750 each for worthy Parkland auto programs.  It is a great cause, a great course and a fun day.  Plan on showing up and making some runs….

I don’t like online forums.  Why?  Because everyone is an expert.  You know no one personally, so are tempted to say things you wouldn’t say over the phone, in an email or in person.  You don’t have to read a long thread to have an ill-informed opinion.  And it is impersonal to an extreme.

I got my first taste in the TVR forums.  People were asking legitimate questions and then the experts would argue about the answer, giving the person who needed an answer no single answer, but conflicting answers.  I remember one person described how to replace the clutch in a 280i.  What he described wouldn’t work.  How do I know?  I had tried it!  So I asked him if he had done that.  He said ‘No, but a friend had.’  Yeah.  I had an imaginary friend when I was 2 years old.  I don’t quote him….  But when I described how I actually got it to work, I was attacked by the ‘expert’ who had never done it.  That is a big problem about forums.  How do you really know who to listen to?

But the biggest problem is the temptation to post a message without thinking.  How many times do we see posts that are attacking someone or  not well thought out?  I think most of the time.  It is so easy.  You don’t have to sit back and think about your answer.  You don’t have to think about what  you say and how it could influence you or a group you belong to.  Most people on a forum wouldn’t know you if you walked past you in the street.  That is why I really dislike forums.

Next time  you post, stop and think.  My father was a Rotarian and they had something called “the Four-Way Test”

Of the things we think, say or do

1. Is it the TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?
3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

Perhaps the old man’s service club had it right!  If we all followed the Rotary Club’s “Four-Way Test”, we would make even online forums worthwhile.

I only regret I had to leave right after the end for some family fun, as Karen and Bob were  hosting their usual ‘big spread’ of food at the end at their home in Philo.  It is always fun to feast at the Townsends.

All in all a great rally.  Especially for an autocrosser like me.  You autocrossers out there should try rallies.  They are fun!  Jimmy and I had a blast the one time we missed a turn and got off course.  I don’t think we scared the rally chair and vice president too much when we passed to get back on time.

Speaking of……  what a great group of people to rally against.  Not a large turnout, but a good one with experienced ralliests.  Bob used some phantom checkpoints and several times you were to time yourself in to the phantom checkpoint and then give yourself an out time.  You could make your times perfect if you got the calculations right.  If there was a trick in this rally it was mentioning the phantom checkpoint on the outslip  instead of the route instructions.  Of course after the first phantom checkpoint we came upon a ralliest stopped and we realized we had missed the phantom check point, so we stopped and did some calculations.  Having thought we must be the only ones to forget it was proved wrong as we saw several rally cars parked along  the road recalculating in times and out times along the rally route quite a bit after the phantom check point locations.  We did the next phantom checkpoint at the right place.

Great rally, great time.  The Darth Vader Mobile ran great until the last checkpoint, where it vapor locked.  Once Jerry White’s navigator reminded me that some Corvettes have a pressurized fuel tank, I opened the gas cap and listened as it sucked in air .  Lots of air.  Then it started.  It did the same thing when I dropped Jimmy off to get his car, but got home fine.  Vapor lock!  Who would have thought.

Dennis Miller has called an autocross committee meeting for this coming Tuesday, August 19, 7 pm at his house.  All are welcome.

I noticed something I want to bring to the attention of our autocrossers.  It has been years…… years, since I was the starter. This is the most important job of any “work assignment” because the starter controls the pace of the event and who  enters the course and when.  It is very important that an experienced autocrosser be in this position.

Having said that, I have some concerns.  Course workers, of course, often consist of less experienced workers.  They are the most “in-the-way” of anyone and need to be careful or they could be injured.  After one of our entrants was injured at a St. Louis area autocross early in the year (not a CCSCC event, of course), we are trying to be very careful. But are we?

Yesterday’s course had a “Hit-most-often” cone that was the signal to the starter to start the next car.  But the starter couldn’t see the cone.  He only knew it had been hit when it was announced or the corner worker ran.  Literally seconds after that cone was passed was time to send the next car.  But the corner workers weren’t ‘fast’ on the response.  Once I sent the next car and ONLY THEN did the corner worker start running to get the cone!  So I backed off and waited.  Eventually we changed corner workers and it was better.

What should a corner worker do besides chase cones?  Well, we need to tell them to STAND STILL.  That is right.  If they are running along the course, we don’t necessarily know whether they are chasing a cone or exercising!  The corner work needs to stand still if not chasing a cone.  We need to tell them that.

One more comment.  Comments to the starter by entrants about car spacing are not really helpful, since the entrant is not “in the starter’s shoes”.  The person who needs to discuss the starting instructions with the starter is the safety steward.  It would be good for us to remember that the starter is a volunteer upon whose decisions the safety of the workers and entrants depends.

For the first time I’m going to allow comments to an editorial on this web page.  Bring them on!

Well, August has arrived and CCSCC, CIR and HISCC are having great events.  Here are some comments on some great events:

On July 3, Mike Blackwelder, Weird Harold and Karen Davis put on a great, fun autocross that crossed into Indiana and stopped for a lunch break at the Beef House.  It was a whole lot of fun and we even got to climb the Newport IN hill used for the hillclimb, although at a slightly slower rate…..  If you haven’t run one of Mike’s day rallies with a long lunch break in the middle, you are  missing a great time!

On July 10 HISCC put on an event at Lincolnland College in Springfield.  It was hot, the course was on a postage stamp, and if you didn’t go, you missed a great time.  Event Chair Marty Urbanc, as usual, designed a great course with help, of course.  CCSCC was well represented with Greg Lukach getting FTD, FTDI and I got FTDIs, which is the first time that has happened.  Other CCSCCers did well.  But mostly we helped the Lincolnland automotive program.

July 11 was another great CCSCC picnic at the Bedfords.  Thanks again for the great site and fun time.  Perhaps next year I’ll bring my swim suit.  Perhaps not……

July 17 & 18 was the CCSCC/CIR SCCA sanctioned autocross.  As event chair I decided to enter through the north gate and pit on the north end.  The course ran down to the grid/pit area we usually use where there was a “lollipop” turn around and a LLOONNGG sweeper to a tight turn and a bent slalom and turn into the finish.  See the results.  It was a good time.  I changed a few things (very few) on Sunday.  I enjoyed the day and there were few off courses and cones hit.  Thanks to all who competed.

On Friday, July 30 Bob Townsend put on one of his usual fun Friday night rallies.  I hear it was fun.  Don’t miss Bob’s next rally on August 14

All in all, we have had great events and a fine time to start the summer.

Now for the business.  Our income looks good, but we have had lots of expenditures;  We have almost finished our modernization of the autocross program as we now have the new timing system with backup equipment so if we have an accident that takes out the lights we can still run the event.  We have two new computers that use less energy and Tom Ingles has set up the van  so that it is easy to get an autocross running.  It is truly a huge change from where we were just last year, let along 5 years ago.  It is amazing, to be honest.  You should see the Van.  Take a look at it at the next autocross  at Coles County Airport on Aug  7 & 8.

The Van was hit in the locked parking lot in Rantoul we keep it in.  It was only cosmetic damage, but Tom, once again, is fixing it so it looks as good as it did before the accident.

We have transferred $3000 into the Parkland Scholarship fund, so it is well funded for the next year.  On Sept. 5 &6 we have another scholarship event.  All proceeds go to the scholarship fund, so come on out and help us continue to fund students who want to be career automobile technicians.

We have one more major expenditure to finish our overhaul of the autocross program — we need to buy at least one large display.

It is time to think of preparing for next year.  We hope to be able to pay for next year’s insurance with this year’s money; we have the year end banquet to pay for; we have Van maintenance and we would love to buy that large display, so keep it coming in!

Finally, we have plenty of events scheduled for the rest of the year.  Please try to attend as many as you can.

• Coles County Autocross, Aug. 7,8 Coles County Airport, Mattoon
• Bob Townsend’s rally on Sat. Aug. 14
• HISCC autocross at Rantoul (giving the CCSCC people a rare weekend off) on Aug. 21, 22

After lunch we stayed mostly on the north side of I-74 as we returned to Farm and Fleet.  It was a blast.

Mike and Harold (mostly Mike) used “Protection” as a main road rule and I got to revisit that construct.  I must say that the rallymasters used it as a teaching tool and I think I understand it better now than I ever have.

It was a great rally and if you didn’t run it, you missed a great one!  Add to that the good  lunch (2 hours of lunch!) and fellowship at the Beef House, and it was a day not to be missed.  You autocrossers should explore CCSCC rallies.  It was a grand time.

We have had lots of good events recently.  They have been a lot of fun.  The autocrosses at Coles County Airpot put on by Tom Ingles (with input by Nick Owens) were the best use of our expanding space at the airport I’ve seen yet.  It was a hot, humid day and some of us needed to drink more water and keep our electrolytes up.

HISCC/CIR has had a great event, as usual, at Mossville.  I ran for the first time and it was a blast!  85 cars in 3 heats.  They have another event on Saturday, July 10 at Lincolnland Community College in Springfield.  Lets support our friends from Peoria.

I am event chair for the July 17, 18 Autocrosses at the Rantoul Aviation Center.   Please enter from the north end of the site as we are going to pit there for this event.  We will be running on the pavement where we usually pit and grid.  Air will be available at the usual location, but outside the fence.

Finally, we have our complete AXWare/T-link autocross timing system in hand now, including backup equipment.  We will be transferring the autocross timing equipment owned by CIR/HISCC to Peoria effective July 10.  We are purchasing 2 computers (giving CCSCC 3), so we will not need their computes either.  Next year will will be independent of CIR/HISCC as we purchase another timing display to use with our timing system.  We will no longer have to transfer equipment back and forth between Rantoul and Peoria.

Well, the year is going well.  See you at events.  Please remember that we will be voting on a CCSCC constitutional amendment and two amendments to the bylaws of the CCSCC constitution at the club meeting this coming Wednesday night (July 7), so please show up to vote.  The amendments will change the constitution and bylaws to allow us to hold elections on the date the board chooses within some restrictions; allow more than spouses to get club membership discounts, and allow us to charge more than a dollar more for non-member entrant fees at our events.  Currently we are doing all of these things, but that is in violation of the CCSCC constitution and we will have to return to the constitution’s restrictions if we don’t modify it.  We think these were changed, which is why we are  currently doing things the way we are, but can’t find any proof.

See you Wednesday night and at events!

Barry Rowe:  CCSCC President  AKA Barry Who

We have held four rallies, five autocrosses, an autocross school and a TestNTune.

We have purchased a new timing system (that is really great!), we have more members than ever before at this time of the year and our social events are already arranged for the  year!

Finally, we have this new website that will become live sometime in June.  All in all, CCSCC is off to a great start!

So…. how does this affect you?  Well, you will get more and better rallies, more and better autocrosses, and great club meetings, a summer picnic at the Bedfords and a wonderful year end awards banquet!

What can you do to help?  We do need you !  Come on out to autocrosses early and help set up.  Come to the May 7 and 8 Rantoul Patching days.  On Friday, May 7,  1 pm at the autocross site to select and cut bad concrete; 8am on May 8 to pour and finish concrete.  On Sat. May 8, you get a free lunch when we are done.  Of course, there really is no “free lunch”, but  we’re going to call it that…..

For rallies, RUN THEM!  We had lots of good rallies last year and the attendance showed it.  Volunteer to help the rallymasters as check point crews or cold run teams (or both!)

Lets make 2010 even better than 2009 for CCSCC!

Well, I made the mistake of correcting the announcer….. so when they would announce my name there was always a chorus of “WHO?”. The name stuck…. it was even on my helmet. My name became “Barry Who”. When I got married, Jimmy even gave Maria a CCSCC name tag that said “Maria Who” on it!

But that is not what this column will be about. CCSCC has had some wonderful times recently. Those of us who are older remember that we used to have to contribute money to a fund to buy insurance before our first event. Later in the year we got our money back. But now we are ‘plush’. Last year we bought a van. We are buying timers this year. But even better, we have already paid our insurance for this year! We have put money into the scholarship account at Parkland. Almost all of the money we get from events will be cash in the bank! I don’t know when CCSCC has ever done that well!

Of course we are what we are because of our members. Under Jerry White’s leadership we made major changes, including moving away from SCCA sanction / insurance for our autocrosses. We work with CIR/SCCA/HISCC on a higher level autocross series in central Illinois to expand our competition. We are working with the Indianapolis region of the SCCA on a combined rally again this year. Several years ago Jerry added two more board positions to the autocross program and that has helped us improve everything about the program. We now start at 11am instead of 1 or later.

We have great board members. How could we do without Jimmy Hamilton as treasurer? This is his 43rd year as treasurer. Bob Townsend has been registered agent for many years and keeps us legal with the state. John Li is the only secretary we have been able to keep for multiple years in recent times and is working on a more advanced and easier to update website. Russ Bedford still keeps points. Don’t argue with him on that! He really understands the finer points, so’s to speak. The Grables have returned as the Rally leadership team. Most events last year had larger attendance than they had for many years. Dennis Miller and Greg Lukach return as autocross chair and autocross steward. We add in Emanual Martin, who maintains the van and the equipment and Tom Ingles, whose knowledge of our registration / timing system is encyclopedic. Beau Renshaw returns as scholarship chair, which certainly helps us work with Parkland College.

We have some great new board members also. Adrian Astorina is handling Publicity and already has been working on it. Ask for some CCSCC schedule cards at the next meeting. Clint Griest has the social events for the year planned and mostly arranged. Other volunteers to help are Doug Miller who is Webmaster, Mike Blackwelder who repairs our electronic equipment (and puts on a fine Halloween rally each year), and Philip Cheshire, who designed and keeps current our online registration system, even though he is in Florida!

Truly we are lucky to have such a great board. We are sure to have a great year!