RSR Rendez-vous January 1999
Shame on me!
Here I am red faced. Our Editor has slapped my wrist for being late with RSR Rendezvous. Sheesh. I’m gonna demand a pay raise if he wants me tobe punctual. Howard is of course correct and I missed a deadline inNovember. I think I already apologized for it though.
AGM:
The AGM was a great party and the entertainment (club members yet!) was so good that people from the wedding across the hall were crashing it. Wonderful stuff. The AGM is a great time to see what all those folks you meet at DEW look like without “helmet head”. I was surprised that most of them looked “normal”.
Those who were there know that we’ve elected a new slate of directors for the coming year. We have two new people on the board, Mike Delaney who was and remains Track Chair and Michel Rompre who has taken over as Safety Chair from Ralph Papalia.
At the first executive meeting Chris Paine was voted President by acclamation, Michel Galarneau as Vice President. Nicole Galarneau remains as Treasurer (thank God!) and Marc Belanger is Secretary.
Track Stuff:
Apparently interest in purchasing Le Circuit remains strong. Three groups are talking. One from the US, one from Germany and our own Lawrence Strohl. The US and German groups intend on bringing in professional racing. Perhaps they all do. I recall fondly the days of Formula One and Can-Am at Tremblant. With a lot less fondness do I recall the horrific traffic jams leaving the place. If anyone is serious about buying and making something of the track, they’d better take a hard look at the infrastructure. Intrawest has been so successful promoting their resort that getting out of Tremblant on Instructor Day weekend was very tedious. Traffic was backed up from the 117 to the traffic lights!
We’ll be having five Driver’s Ed events this coming summer. Our usual four plus one extra during the Parade in August. It looks like our June event will actually be the last weekend in May due to schedule conflicts at Tremblant. I think it’s great, we get to track earlier, which suits me fine. There’s something special about the first track event of the season.
The new rules (two seats no slicks) got a tune up. The no slick rule has been corrected to say that tires need adequate water evacuation grooves. At least one participant with a 935 is happy because he can easily groove his racing slicks to make them safe in the wet. Everyone else is happy too ‘cuz it will be very exciting to see a 935 at Tremblant.
Spring may hold a special treat. Mike Delaney is going to try and organize a pre-season event. A combination ground and skid school. We’ll get to practice slipping and sliding (spins even) under controlled and very safe conditions. The perfect place to experiment with under and oversteer and what to do about it.
The bizarre popularity of sport-utes makes things worse. Many are behemoths with the bumper at eye level for anyone in a car. Their fogs fry our eyeballs. I don’t know why they do it. When I turn on mine, I don’t get a whole lot of useful lighting on the road. Maybe a little extra spill to the side but nothing really useful. Why do people insist on using the things? Well, I give up. I’ve taken to turning on my Litronic high-beams and frying their $#@!! eyeballs out.
Thrill Seeking One Weekend:
No snow, no skiing. A dull leaden sky and drizzle. Louise and I needed an adrenaline rush, something to get the blood flowing on an otherwise dreary day. We set off to Toy’s ‘R Us on a Saturday afternoon. I told you we were bored! Hoo-whee! Did we have fun. First there was dodge-em. That’s the game where pedestrians get to jump out of the way of cars and mini-vans driven by determined looking suburbanites desperate to: find a parking spot; leave a parking spot (smoking the tires) or, simply to get the hell out of Dodge. In a really crowded parking lot this is an exciting game.
I looked for timing lights but didn’t see any. I guess the autocross was unofficial. I couldn’t tell you what FTD was, but they were all fast. Jumping out of the way is excellent reflex training and aerobic exercise too.
You’ll need every sense attuned to the game. Listen for the sound of an engine starting or idling. Beware the backwards burn out. You gotta watch their eyes to see which way they’ll go, otherwise you get tagged. Getting tagged hurts, so avoid it.
On the way out, you get to play dodge-em again. If you bought anything, you get bonus points. Ten if you’re carrying more than four bags and fifty if it takes two of you to carry something large (like a pool table). Sort of like a potato sack race. Getting to your car unscathed is worth 100 points. Bonus points for not dropping anything. You deduct 20 points if you drop your parcel and 50 points if it’s run over by a car. We made a clean run.
As we began to (carefully) back out, a car screeched to a stop behind us. He wanted our parking spot. Trouble was, he was so pre-occupied with making sure -he- got our spot that I couldn’t leave. As he finally he backed up enough for us to depart, he gave us the finger. Louise remarked ” in the spirit of holiday giving, why don’t you circle around again and I’ll slash his tires”.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Bob
.. life is short don’t drive an SUV.