August “Who Speaks”

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