The problems started at 6:59 PM on Tuesday, May 12. Our hosting company informed us that they had “successfully” completed migrating our hosting account to a new, more expensive, and (supposedly) better performing account.

Problem number one happened 1 minute later, at 7:00 PM. All of our club emails stopped working. The email didn’t just slow down or bounce. It stopped working altogether. No one on the Board, none of the activity chairs, were able to communicate using their official accounts. Fixing problem number one took approximately 11 hours of telephone time over the course of four days. Not a pleasant experience.

Problem number two happened three days later. Many of you noticed that you were unable to access CHALLENGE, the Club Race Digital Program, or the CVR website. Either the webpages wouldn’t load at all, or they would partially load; images appeared broken, and menus to navigate the website just disappeared. It was frustrating for everyone.

I was so personally frustrated, that for the first time in two years, I didn’t even bother to send out the monthly “nag” email to remind Activity Chairs that the deadline to submit content was approaching. I called Allen and said, I’m throwing up my hands – I can’t figure this out. We need to hire someone to troubleshoot this. In fact, up until about 10:00 o’clock this morning (Memorial Day), it did not look like there was going to be a June issue of CHALLENGE magazine any time soon. And yet, here we are.

Warning: Geek Speak Ahead.

The CVR website is hosted by a company called Bluehost. (We also use something called a CDN – short for content delivery network – from a company called Stackpath. CDNs cache files that don’t change frequently, which means less traffic on the webserver, which makes the website run faster.) Since mid-May, I have suspected that Bluehost screwed something up when they did their migration to the new account, but despite the fact that I have been in virtually daily communication with them trying to figure out what went wrong (and have submitted 5 support tickets) their Technical Support people have been unable to resolve the problem. This morning, out of frustration, I called Stackpath to see if they had any ideas. I wasn’t expecting much, but within 20 minutes, their support people diagnosed the problem and helped me fix it. I’m happy to say that web pages are loading, menus are back, and all is right with the world.

This month’s CHALLENGE is a little thin. (This is entirely due to my belief that there wouldn’t be an issue this month.) The issue leads off with Allen Fossbender’s column, Straightaway. With Father’s Day approaching, Allen has devoted this month’s column to a touching remembrance of time spent tinkering with cars with his father – something that has fueled his love of cars to this day.

Next up, an update on coffee runs from Tourmeister Maria Cappella, a call for drivers from Dave Vaccaro ahead of this month’s 2-day DE event at Watkins Glen, and an exceptional article from Paul Kudra on AutoX. There is also a feature article on audio – the fourth in a series – from Jeff Coe on his Matador project car.

Upcoming events for the month include the Zone 1 Club Race at Watkins Glen from June 4th to June 6th, CVR’s Summer Rally on June 6th, the Windmill Coffee Run on June 12th which is a date change from June 5th, a 2-day DE event at Watkins Glen, AutoX #2 on June 19th, the Old Saybrook to East Lyme Early Bird Coffee Run on June 27th and the Kringle Candle Coffee Run, also on June 27^th.

Of special note this month, is the inaugural Connecticut Colonial Concours d’ Elegance which is being held on Father’s Day, June 20^th, at the Hawk Ridge Winery on Plungis Road in Watertown CT. While this is not an official CVR or PCA event, Lisa Parker will be there representing CVR and will be showing off our brand-new “stuff” for events like this. We have a CVR tent, membership acquisition brochures, and CVR signage. As always, thanks to Executive VP and Creative Director Shelley Krohnengold for all his efforts.

General admission to this event is free. Car Corral Parking is $10. But by special arrangement with the Concours’ Event Director, there will be free parking for CVR members.  The CVR car corral is located directly adjacent to the Entrants (and closer to the event than the VIP parking). Space in the CVR corral is limited to 50 cars and you must RSVP using this form. Just bring your printed reservation with you to the event and show it to the attendants at the VIP gate.

And finally, don’t forget to check out CVR-TV, aka CVR’s new YouTube channel. CVT-TV features videos from CVR activities like Driver Education, AutoX, Rallies, Coffee Runs & Tours, and Monthly Meetings. We’re already at 335 subscribers, and once we hit 1,000 subscribers, we’ll be able to live stream CVR events such as the recently completed Triple Sprint Rumble at Lime Rock Park.

Please click here, sign up and help us make CVR TV a success.