WASHINGTON D.C. REGION
SPORTS CAR CLUB OF AMERICA
Flagging and Communication
Newsletter
April 2010

MARCH IN REVIEW – TIME FOR SCHOOL!
Advanced Flag School
It certainly felt good to be back at the track after this long, snowy mid-Atlantic winter. We kicked off March with the annual Advanced Flag School, which this year included Crash and Burn training. Forty-eight dedicated folks pretty much filled the Summit Point registration building for the morning classroom session. The morning was spent covering a variety of decision-making scenarios that that we frequently encounter at Summit Point, with the goal of understanding what influences captains’ decision to leave a car or ask for a hot pull, and what factors effect whether a hot pull can be done under a local yellow or if additional action from the operating steward is needed. Following this exercise, SRF driver and health and safety professional Terry Carraway gave a very informative presentation on heat stress and heat-related illnesses. Terry has been kind enough to present at our Advanced Flag School for a number of years on a variety of health and safety related issues, and I personally want to thank him for all his great work. If anyone has a suggestion for a health and safety-related topic to be covered at next year’s AFS, let us know and Terry will be happy to talk about it. In the meantime, stop by the Hagerman paddock at any of the MARRS events, say hi to Terry, and thank him for his efforts to keep us safe on station.
While folks ate lunch, our own Toree Holmes gave a short presentation on responding to cars on fire, and proper use of a fire bottle. After lunch the group adjourned to the outside of Turn 10, where the EV folks were waiting with two cars – one for burning, and one for cutting. Wayne Armbrust proved that every part of a car can and will burn with proper application of diesel fuel. Special thanks to Craig Zane for donating a bunch of fire bottles for use. Those donated fire bottles really allow us to keep out costs down, as we do not have to discharge, then refill, the region’s bottles. Also thanks to Steve Huemmer and John McCauley for their efforts on behalf of EV, and for making sure the track fire truck was on scene, just in case.

SPRING DRIVER’S SCHOOL
Spring Driver’s School was held at the Summit Point circuit March 19-21. This year the region went to a three-day double school format, which was…..interesting. The Friday schedule-makers were a bit, shall we say, optimistic in what could be accomplished in one day, with the result that the final checkered for the day did not drop until 6:20 pm. At least Saturday and Sunday had more reasonable end-times. We were a bit light on flaggers, especially on Friday and Sunday, but in general the weekend went off without a hitch (other than the usual start-of-season rustiness in some of our radio call), and we trained somewhere around 68 new drivers.
There were two positive things that came out of the weekend. The first was the weather, which was absolutely GLORIOUS for a driver’s school. Hopefully we will not pay for that good fortune later in the season. The second, and most important positive aspect of the driver’s school, was that we had six excellent students in our novice flag school. After a morning classroom session with instructor James Noel, novice flaggers were assigned to trainers out on station for the rest of the weekend. Feedback on all the novices was very positive, and we certainly hope they will come back and join us for MARRS 1. Please join me in welcoming all of our new flaggers: Kim Ward, Kim Roberts, Joe Roberts, Larry Stroup, Michael Handelman, and Jim Pugh.

MARRS 1
Registration is open for MARRS 1 to be held April 24-25 at Summit Point. Please come out and support our MARRS drivers, and one of the best amateur road-racing series in the country. This year’s format is similar to last year’s, with two exceptions: 1) the number of race groups has been expanded to 9, providing SRFs with their own run-group; and 2) Sunday’s races are based on group car count: <20 cars = 16 lap race; 20-34 cars = 18 lap race; 35 or more cars = 20 lap race. As usual, register on the DLB website, which can be accessed from the main page of the Region’s website, www.wdcr-scca.org.
MARRS 1 Schedule:
Saturday Flag Meeting: 7:30 am at the base of the tower
Registration Schedule: Friday – 6:00 – 9:00 pm
Saturday – open 7:00 am for workers
Sunday – open 7:45 am for workers

VRG – JEFFERSON 500
Once again this year the D.C. Region is supporting the VRG Jefferson 500, a three-day event running from Friday April 30 through Sunday May 2. Currently there are approximately 150 cars registered for the event, which is slightly ahead of the registration pace of last year. We are looking for SCCA flaggers to provide the bulk of the flagging support for the event, and I can promise you now that if you flag the event you will receive the following perks:
• Lunch all three days
• Ticket to the Jefferson 500 Dinner Saturday evening, plus a discount on the Friday evening Marlboro dinner ticket
• A long-sleeve event shirt
• A pass to Summit Point Karts

Bryan Redman cannot make it this year, but Grand Marshal for the event will be Porsche and sportscar-racing legend Vic Elford, a 2-time class winner at LeMans, and overall winner at Sebring in 1971. I’m sure Vic will have some great stories about driving those awesome Porsche 917s.

Please plan to join us for the Jefferson 500 April 30, May 1 & 2. To register for the event, send an e-mail to James Noel (jamesnoel@verizon.net) and Steve Hyatt (Stephen@atspeed.org) and specify which days you plan to work. A copy of the schedule for the event can be found online at www.vrgonline.org/events_calendar/Jefferson/J10/j500_schedule_withlogos.pdf. Flag meetings will be 7:45 on Friday and Saturday, at the base of the tower. Please register now if you would like to attend the Friday and Saturday evening dinners. Dinner tickets cannot be guaranteed if you register after Friday April 16!

ALPHA CLUB NATIONAL TIME TRIALS – JUNE 24
We have been approached by the D.C.-area Alpha Romeo Club to provide flaggers for a time trial event being held in conjunction with their National Convention celebrating the 100th anniversary of Alpha. The time trials are at Summit Point on June 24, which is the Thursday before MARRS 5. The time trials will have 3 run groups, with morning practice and afternoon timed runs with each car getting a warm-up lap, 3 timed laps, and a cool down lap, with 3 cars on the track at a time. The Alpha Club will provide lunch and a commemorative shirt, and there may be an opportunity to see some historic old cars run at the end of the day. There is an Alpha concourse being held at the Stone Manor Inn on Saturday which includes many pre-war and very expensive cars, and those cars have been invited to do a demo run at the track at the end of the time trials. If you are interested, let Greg McDermott know at gjmcdermott@cox.net

THE STRAIGHTPIPE
The Washington D.C. Region’s newsletter, The Straightpipe, is now an online-only publication, with its own website www.straightpipemagazine.com. Please check it out – it is a very nice website, and articles are published on an “as-submitted” basis. The editors are always grateful for submitted articles and pictures, and F&C even has its own section!

F&C NEWSLETTER
In addition to the e-mailed copy and to help you keep in touch the newsletter is also posted on the WDCR web site each month and available through:

http://www.wdcr-scca.org/ClubRacing/FC/FCNewsletter/tabid/1575/Default.aspx

CONTACT INFO
There is a common e-mail address for the WDCR FM staff; FandC@wdcr-scca.org automatically sends a note to each of the WDC Flag Marshals.
If you would like to contact us individually:
Greg McDermott: gjmcdermott@cox.net
Wayne Armbrust: sccaflag@visuallink.com
Dale Ferril: Kearneyracing@yahoo.com or 301 322 3240 (M~F 8am to 5pm)
Cheryl Hasychak: hasy@netzero.net