Yes, the cold hard truth is that the 2019 DE season is over and yes, it is cold outside, hopefully for only a few quick months.
We finished off our DE season with two days at Lime Rock Park on November 1st & 2nd ~ a half-day Friday for our instructors/advanced drivers and then a full-day Saturday for all drivers, in all rungroups.
We had perfect weather for both days with excellent track time for all. What a great way to end a great season.
Since this was our last DE event of the year, we made up shirts celebrating the 60th anniversary of CVR. We were able to give out the shirts to everyone who participated due to the generosity of Danbury Porsche’s sponsorship. Thanks to Danbury Porsche for their support throughout the year – we are very appreciative of their support of CVR, and especially of their support for our DE program. I’m sure you’ll see the shirts for the next few years – the bright orange graphics are hard to miss.
On Friday, Chris Partelow (General Sales Manager at Danbury Porsche) called me to ask if Susan or I could swing by and pick up a car to display at Lime Rock on Saturday. The original plan was to have Scott Doty (Porsche Brand Ambassador at Danbury Porsche) bring a car up to Lime Rock but plans changed. To our surprise when we got there, we saw a brand new lizard green 992 Porsche sitting out front with just over 100 miles on the odometer. What a treat that was for us.
We had the car on display front and center at LRP all day and to say the interest was overwhelming would be an understatement. I saw a lot of people taking pictures of the car, all day long. Scott Doty was able to come to LRP on Saturday morning to answer any and all questions that our drivers asked about the beautiful 992. If you have not checked out the new 992 yet, head on down to Danbury Porsche to see what it is all about. And for those that want to know, no we didn’t get to do hot laps with it. The car was safely returned to Danbury Porsche on Saturday night, for it to await pick-up by Chris Partelow, to go on to a Sunday charity event.
We finished off the 2019 events at the 60th Anniversary /Photofest Gala where we presented this year’s DE awards. Our first award was for ‘Driver Education Enthusiast of the Year’ and Jay Diamond was the 2019 recipient. Our second award was the ‘Driver Education Instructor of the Year’ and that went to Chris Musante.
With much thought, we decided to retire the ‘Dale Smith Memorial Award’ after 18 years. The travel award plaque that had been passed along over the years to the winning member(s) got a freshening up and was presented to Sue Smith for safekeeping moving forward.
A new award was created and is now called the ‘The Spencer Cox Driver Education Award’. The award says:
SPENCER COX – A CVR INSTRUCTOR WHOSE ENTHUSIASM & COMMITMENT TO THE CVR DRIVER EDUCATION PROGRAM IS AN INSPIRATION TO ALL. GIVEN TO THE PARTICIPANT WHOSE PERSONALITY & DEDICATION TO THE PROGRAM SERVES AS A MODEL FOR OTHERS.
We are very pleased with the new award, honoring the positive impact Spencer had on others. It was hoped that Spencer would be able to attend the dinner, but unfortunately, that was not possible. Two awards were made up, with the first recipient of the Spencer Cox award being Todd Pajonas. The duplicate plaque was presented to Denise Cox and she told us that it would be displayed at SpeedSport Tuning.
I would like to thank our out-going chief instructor David Nagler for the past two years of service, volunteering for our club. I’m sure he will still be helping out with the program going forward. Our new chief instructor for 2020/2021 will be Chuck Veth. Our new assistant track chair will be Todd Pajonas – it should be fun. Thanks to Mark Lewis for all of the time that he spent and continues to spend on DE registrations.
Our first 2020 event will be our Winter Workshop Car Control Clinic on Saturday, February 29th. The event will be at Lime Rock Park and will be similar to the prior Winter Clinics. Normally I do not hope for cold or snow, but for the 29th, and maybe one or two days before that day, I’m hoping for both. As always, registration will be on ClubRegistration.net (opening up sometime in January 2020).
Thank you to all of our 2019 DE sponsors: Danbury Porsche, Daniel Jacobs Hairy Dog Grrrage, Musante Motorsports, Automobile Associates of Canton, SpeedSport Tuning, Elm City Trailer, Hagerty Insurance and Stable Energies Motorsports. Thanks to our terrific instructors and to all of our volunteers – our program is only successful because of everyone’s support.
Have a great winter.
Dave
photo credits: Alan Davis, Jay Diamond, Jay Harder, Susan Vaccaro
