CVR DE has been flat out with events since April, starting the season with both a regular DE for all rungroups and an Advanced DE before the Club Race. Both April events were on the cooler side with the Club Race date giving us snow showers. Next up after April was our May DE event at Lime Rock Park. Drivers, both new and experienced, got to drive the rain line and boy, rain it did. Even though it was wet, every instructed driver but
one showed up for the event, as well as every instructor. While some instructors didn’t drive (having only slicks on their car), all the instructed and solo drivers were out on the track, learning under different conditions than what they were used to. Driving in the rain is still one of the best ways to learn the track as patience and smoothness play a big role in car control. Being able to learn the line at a slower speed was helpful to some of the beginner drivers.
CVR’s next event was held at Watkins Glen in June. Since we had already had cool weather, snow showers and then way too much rain at the earlier events, of course we had to have another weather extreme. We had clear skies and on Monday, the temperature reached 98 degrees. Yes, it was hot. For those that read my previous articles on the benefits of a cool shirt and asked for one for their birthday or the holidays, they were very glad that they had taken the recommendation.
Our DE friends from Canada came down to participate with us (they’ve been coming for more than 10 years and it’s nice to know that they like our event so much that they all come down, every year reliably, just for the CVR DE). Even with the temps being up there, we all had plenty of great track time.
Those who attended the event got a bright lime green shirt sponsored by Bobby Fantarella from Elm City Trailer. A big thanks to Bobby for being our sponsor. The next time you need anything trailer-related, including service and parts and not just trailers, Bobby is your ‘go to guy’. And please, wear the lime green shirt, and not just to CVR events. People will see you coming from a mile away. We decided to change things up a little by having the Watkins Glen dinner at the
Harbor Hotel on Monday night instead of at the Glen Club. Well, we came down the hill from the track and got to the first traffic light. And the light wasn’t working. We didn’t think anything of it. Then the next traffic light was out and we noticed that the Subway store and the Sunoco station had employees just hanging out in their parking lots. And workers were setting up stop signs at the 4-way intersections. It finally dawned on us that there was an issue with the power. We pulled into the Harbor Hotel parking lot and saw that the front doors were wide open and there were more people than usual sitting on the benches. Hmmmm. We went to the front desk and asked about our dinner and they could only tell us that they didn’t have power and it was ‘wait and see’. Great. What restaurant was going to take 50 people (if they had power) without a reservation? At 5:30 the power came back on and the dinner was back on schedule. And the dinner was a hit with all. We kept the ‘after dinner raffle’ the same as we’ve done in the past every driver that came to the dinner got a prize, mostly CVR clothing that we had given out at prior event but also a few hats and sweatshirts from the Club Race and a few shirts from the Dream Show that CVR is attending on August 5th at the Farmington Polo Grounds.
The Dream Ride Experience raised over $1.5 million for Special Olympics in 2017. Registration and info for 2018’s event is online at DreamRide.org and it costs $30 per person, which includes a free lunch buffet, live entertainment and music. The Dream Show will have displays by Pagani, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Miller Motorcars, McLaren, and Bentley and a special car corral just for CVR members. We were asked if we could have some members bring their race cars since the kids love them. This might reach your mailbox after the date of the event and if so, hopefully you were aware of the special event from other CVR emails and articles.
We have a bunch of events still on the schedule for the 2018 season so there is still time to get out on track this year. We have a full day Saturday at Lime Rock
Park on September 8. We don’t get many Saturday events where we don’t have to share with the drivers of Club Lime Rock. Hopefully everyone will register and come out for a full day of driving. Besides our DE, our AutoX crew will be over in Paddock B, miming one of their events. And if you don’t want to drive, but do want to see what DE and AutoX are all about, come on up to Lime Rock Park for the day. Admission to the property is free.
I can’t wait for CVR’s October Advanced DE at WGI on the 8th and 9th. Monday is Columbus Day so if you can come up to WGI, maybe Monday is a holiday and you won’t have to use up a vacation day from work. Last year was the first time we tried having a WGI event for advanced drivers only and it was a big success. I am expecting this year to be just as great. And since we seem to have experienced almost all the types of weather possible for this year, here’s hoping that we have perfect weather for the Glen event.
Don’t let this year slip by if you’ve been thinking of trying DE. Register on ClubRegistration.net for one of the remaining Lime Rock dates. And if you are an advanced driver, you have to do the October WGI event.
See you at the track.
Dave