Well, there was one FP car.
--Pat Kelly
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>From: "John F. Kelly Jr." <76067.1750@compuserve.com>
>To: "BayArea Team.Net" <ba-autox@autox.team.net>
>Subject: RE: Marina of June 1
>Date: Mon, Jun 2, 2003, 10:54 AM
>
> Our June 1 event at Marina Airport came off extremely well. I know I came
> home with a smile on my face and I didn't even win the class.
> Here is some positive things I observed:
> 1) Highway 101 from San Jose to Cochrane Rd in Gilroy is now 8
> lanes. Yea team!
> 2) Going north on 101 after the event was a breeze. No traffic jam.
> 3) Everybody we talked to with Marina Motorsports had a positive
> attitude. One of the guys at the entrance edits the Triumph Travelers SCC
> newsletter. The club is an independent and has been around for over 40
> years! Now that I've retired from event scheduling I finally met John
> Moulton, Marina Motorsports' contact guy. He was in the Pantera. John's job
> is to pass along the latest "rule of the month" from the airport
> management.
> 4) The course was another jewel from Tony Tabacco. It's tough to
> come up with a decent course when the airport people keep chiseling on the
> space. What Tony has figured out is how to lay out sweepers so maximum
> space utilization is achieved. Did we mention he's an architect in the real
> world? Putting the starting area where he did leaves space at the eastern
> end of the area for paddock, etc.
> 5) The weather was terrific. It may have been in the mid-90s inland
> but breezes off Monterey Bay kept us cool.
> 6) We left the premises to buy lunch. Alas the Deli with the large
> "Open" sign wasn't. We pressed on to McDonalds because it was closer to the
> site than Jack in the Box.
> 7) So many people stepped up to do their job and do it well I don't
> know where to begin. I should have kept notes.
> 8 It was fun to watch the weeds disappear as we drove the course.
> Whacked those little suckers right off.
> 9) A number of people volunteered their time to sweep the starting
> area.
> 10) Our chair folks, Andy and Theresa Clark, were on top of the
> operation all day. Thank you for all your efforts.
>
>
> Was there a downside? Well nobody has ever produced a perfect event
> including us.
> 1) The gravel in the pit area was still too much. Those of us with
> sticky tires tracked it on to the course. There was still a pile of it on
> the concrete surface left over from our previous visit.
> 2) Somebody decided we didn't need posting during the run group
> even when there was a volunteer. Thus those of us in tight competition had
> to go to our competitor(s) and ask "How are you doing?" That's the positive
> part of it. But many of us prefer to see the whole list. Requiring a
> posting person to hand write ALL of the times after the group has run is
> one pile of work all at once. And when it is the last group of the day,
> just how many people would show up to look? (I have this vision of the
> posting person running alongside the motorhome as it's driven around to
> pick up the pylons. <G>
> And, of course, nobody would ever see the listings. This we have to fix.)
>
> There are easy solutions to both of the above.
>
> Other observation: I think the Prepared classes in SFR have just about
> disappeared, except for CP (3 drivers) and EP. AP, BP, DP, and FP are also
> vacant. Last year at Marina we had seven (7) DP entrants at one of the
> events; this year: NONE. (That spinoff called BSP-Vintage is no longer
> supported either.) Credit/blame the National Solo Events Board for the
> above Prepared category situation.
>
> --John Kelly
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