-----Original Message-----
From: Murray, Matthew D. <MDMURRAY@gwns.com>
To: Teamdotnet <autox@autox.team.net>
Date: Wednesday, June 07, 2000 3:00 AM
Subject: Phil's Membership
>Phil:
>
>I understand and accept your "willingness" to mess with rules set-up by
>clubs
>that you are not a member of. What I don't understand is why you dropped
the
>
>SCCA membership after rejoining in '97 after not being a member for X years
>for the Driver To National's deal. You do get Sports Car as part of the
>membership package. :^) It isn't really that much of a fee. It works out to
>less than 18 cents a day.
It is just that local autocross is my favorite sport. Land O' Lakes Region
is still a bit player in local autocross in the Twin Cities. MAC has more
events and better events in the Twin Cities. I now belong to two clubs with
a local presence: Minnesota Autosports Club, the purveyor of the MOWOG
Series, a series of autocrosses which predates Solo2; and Lotus Owners Of
the North, a small marque club which does mostly social events and whose
members often show up at autocrosses now that I have come along to tell them
what autocrosses are.
I don't mean to denigrate the few LOL members who are dedicated to Solo2.
Chris Baye and Tom Fisk spring to mind as examples. But they are swimming
upstream as far as the Region's commitment to Twin Cities autocrossing. LOL
ran a full schedule of Met Council events in the sixties and early
seventies.
Now they can't put on a full set of events in the Twin Cities without the
help
of other clubs. Why not just cut out the middleman and go to those clubs'
events?
I used to be a road-race worker and official. I think that phase of my life
probably won't be back. There does not seem to be much interest among the
Region's road-racing folks to support Solo2, so reciprocity there is not
likely.
If I ever get to the point where I can travel (nearest tour event is 500
miles away, I think) then SCCA membership would make sense. But for local
events in my locality, SCCA just isn't the club that's doing it.
And maybe that's not wrong. LOL has a fine road-racing program, and they
have an award-winning rally program, including Pro Rally. They were one
of the main regions behind the RallyCross program. So maybe they are not
wrong to play to their strengths and essentially concede Twin Cities
autocrossing to MAC and Corvettes of Minnesota.
I am taking some time off of the organizing end of autocross after a decade
of being the go-to guy in The Cities. Rejoining LOL and trying to make it
a force in local autocrossing is not what I have time for right now.
Whatever
time I can put into autocrossing, MAC has first dibs.
Phil "No longer wearing all the hats, but I have them in my closet" Ethier
Saint Paul Minnesota USA
1970 Lotus Europa, 1992 Saturn SL2, 1986 Chev Suburban
LOON, MAC
pethier@isd.net http://www.visi.com/mac/
"If I can do it, it's not art" - Red Green
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