NCRC and PRO-Touring Events
 

I had a little meeting this afternoon at Dave Mills house to discuss future Pro-Touring Events. Dave Mills is one of the owners of the Northern California Racing Club.
It seems to me that the consensus is that we will definitely want to continue a yearly Buttonwillow event in September and this year the Buttonwillow event will fall on September 15th & 16th. He told me if we chose to, we could label the event anything we wanted and give us our own group if we would like.

I'm not interested in turning this into any sort of competition event, just a get together.

In addition I explained to Dave that we have been also throwing around the idea of a Thunderhill event.

My question to you all is, should I continue to pursue getting our own group thing and making it official or should I just leave it alone and we just sign up for random events.

Thanks for pursuing this for all of us Gaetano!

September BW with everyone was so good, my calendar now revolves around that weekend. I like the idea of making it official with dates, it gives everyone specific milestones to get their act together and the turnout will be much higher.

I am good for about 3-4 events a year, so you can count me in for at least 1 thunderhill and 1 buttonwillow with NCRC per year. We would probably need at least 10 cars per event for NCRC to give us our own group right?

Thanks for your interest Steven and yes the magic minimum number will be ten. In addition he will also set aside our own Paddock space.

He told me that he is 90% finished with locking in the Thunderhill dates and will have them posted up within days.

I like the idea of having our own run group. I'm definitely in for Buttonwillow. :thumbsup:

Sounds good to me.

:captain:

Explain the difference between the NCRS and "our" RTTX events....

Or say - the Northern California Shelby Clubs "track days" that I ran at Thunderhill. They had 3 groups and ran 20 minute sessions per group.

Their website kinda indicates that they're RACING events..... so I'm must asking'....

Sounds good! But don't forget Howell is supposedly very close to announcing a date for Thunderhill for RTT-whatever for October 2012 I believe I read.

I am definitely in for the Buttonwillow track day next year that I recently missed.

Thanks for working the back channels, G. :thumbsup:

Greg, NCRC is another one of many track day organizers and club racing sponsors, very much like the Shelby Club, except a littler more open minded. :D This is not a replacement or equivalent for a RTTx event.

NCRC does have a Time Trial deal.... G, you said you were gonna switch to that I believe instead of doing NASA again?

Thanks Dave, and I'm glad you mentioned it. What I would like to do is try and get Bill Howell and Dave together and maybe that will help Bill in getting the Thunderhill gig together.

NCRC does have a Time Trial group but you do not need to run the Time Trial group for lap times. You could get timed in any group except the school group.

And yes, I am switching over to NCRC from NASA due to track day costs. On top of that NCRC gives 5 sessions as opposed to 4 with NASA.

I know we are going to get a great turnout at Buttonwillow but how many are interested in a Thunderhill event?

Oh, and Greg, NCRC is probably alot like the Shelby club.

Thanks! I've only ever done one of these (the NCSC) so it's all new to me.:woot:

I sent an e-mail to Bill Howell regarding NCRC's willingness to cater to us as needed.

I'll keep y'all posted.

I don't see the need to drag Bill Howell into the deal. The american street car series is basically the same at NCRC. I like the road race only event.

Subscribing for updates

Bills ASC series has a 200 tw requirement. I'm sure that has alot to do with insurance costs. Since we are doing this through NCRC and the track days are only $99 plus $10 for timing should we start a 100 tw series?

Call our group gig the "NCRC Muscle Car Challenge"?

Just show up and have fun with a group of 10-20 guys.

Agreed.... for the most part...

The ASCS (RTTx) and NCRC as very different. NCRC is equivalent to OCRC (Orange County Race Craft) who is another organizer and "supervisor" of track events/open track days. Same as Trackmasters, Speedventures, ExtremeSpeedTrackEvents, etc etc.... They are the ones who essentially "managed" the RTTC event I was at earlier this year. Nathan (who drove Rupp's car at El Toro) runs events at El Toro all the time.

G -- I guess you could say Bill could be looking for assistance to help run his events at the local level, but he has been doing this for years and seems to be putting things into place to grow it.


Bill does that for safety reasons (remember, each event has a 80ish mile cruise -- rain or shine) and I really don't think it has to do with insurance. He is always vocally adamant about his events being a true STREET car event and takes it pretty seriously.

Not sure on a formal name and a treadwear minimum... how formal and serious do you want to try to make this?

:thumbsup:

I think that's the only way Bill can run an event at El Toro due to the City of Irvine. Let's keep it simple. If they will give us a run group with a minimum of 15 cars and a max, then let's just do it that way. We'll call it the let's race, drink beer, and bull **** the night away. :thumbsup: I'd say we do it by invitation and they must pony up and reserve a spot on the NCRC site.

The RTTx series of events have been qualifiers for the OUSCI which has a 200tw requirement. One can run whatever tire they want at these events but only 200tw+ tires can qualify for the OUSCI spot.

We've had these track days before. It always works out the best when there's minimal structure to the event. Just run what-ya-brung and have fun.

It would be very cool to have a PT class of our own pending driver eligibility. Newbies would need to take the novice/instructor class and the fast guys may want to move up for a session or two depending on how the mix goes.

I'm all for paying up front to get a session of our own. Non-refundable unless you find someone to take your spot or there is a waiting list. If it's planned this far in advance our chances of filling the run group are much better.

I'll start. Where do I sign up?

Me too....:thumbsup:

OK, sounds good. We'll keep it simple and run what you bring. If we have our own group he said ten minimum so I think we are in good shape there.

But if we want our own run group we will have to sign up under a certain category with NCRC and on their site. That will give Dave verification and give him the green light in setting up a time slot for us. What do we label the group on the NCRC site?

Also, at this point should I just tell him we are only going to do a Buttonwillow gig or should we add Thunderhill?

I would love to join you guys and I am up for either site. Thunderhill is closer for me, so I like that a bit more. Sound like a blast. Having our own group is great as we have similar cars and power.

Brian

Brian, we need at least 10 cars for our own run group at Thunderhill. As far as I know so far We have me, you, Dave G, and Steven.

Dave Mills will have the Thunderhill track dates up soon.

On another note, I was just looking at the lap times on the NCRC site from Buttonwilllow last Sept 17th at Buttonwillow and we were amongst the top 11 fastest cars in lap times at the event.

I thought that was pretty impressive!!

I am definitely in for Thunderhill and/or Buttonwillow.

I wonder how many had transponders though? Pretty small list compared to the turn out. I can gurantee nobody in solo was out running us since I passed them all. :unibrow:
http://www.ncracing.org/results/1109..._Lap_Times.pdf

I'm going to set up so that we are all in point by next time around. I was amazed looking at your lap times and how they bounced around up until your last two laps.

My car was way off tune wise and having a faulty air pressure gauge, being up for 20 hrs straight, and then only getting 4 hours sleep before the event certainly didn't help. Out of 5 25 minute sessions I only got 12 laps in total for the whole day :lol: .

Don't forget that I ran in Solo with about 25 cars and passed about 50. I got in 2 clean laps the whole day out of 27 laps. Even one of my last two I had to pass a car. I barely slowed down and didn't wait for the point by. :lol: Then I missed a gear on my last lap so they were damn near even. I can't wait to run point by with you guys. :thumbsup:

Yeah, next time around should be pretty fun. I'll try and leave Sevilla at home next time so I can get some sleep :lol:

Awesome News!! I just got an e-mail from Dave Mills and he says that Liz Miles of Chevy High Performance Magazine participated in an NCRC event earlier this year and will be doing a write up on her experience. I am currently trying to get a hold of Liz at this time to see if she will cover our September event.

If we have enough cars for Thunderhill maybe we can get her to cover that also.

I need to get a list of cars and drivers and which event ASAP!!

I'm in for thunderhill...that is if you will let my ugly pig out with y'all. If anybody's interested I have track days at Reno-Fernley if anybody want to try that track.

I just need the date in order for me to confirm. Next year I plan on going to Nebraska for the SCCA Solo II National Championship. I have a few dates I have already booked. It looks like the Buttonwillow date will be at the time I am coming home from Nebraska and that would be too close for me. Hopefully the Thunderhill date will be okay for me.

Brian, hope you can keep September 15 & 16 open for the Buttonwillow event.

Thunderhill dates have not been posted yet and should be up soon. Once the are posted we will work on picking a date that works well for all if possible.

Man, Steven's time of 2:20 being only a few seconds behind you heavy hitters with your wide and sticky tires and 150-200 more hp REALLY impresses me the most. :thumbsup:

Can't wait to bring my hunk of junk out to run with you girls. :cool:

I agree, Steven is kickin some ass. :thumbsup:

Thanks for the compliments guys. I used all my mushrooms on that one lap :lol:

Definitely in for Thunderhill and BW dates.

I'm also looking at getting my own data logger/lap timer to chart progress. I'd be willing to share data with anyone faster than me :unibrow:

BW is probably doable for me, but Thunderhill is quite the drive, don't know if I could make that one.

Can I get a first and last name from you

Just got an e-mail from Dave Mills and he told me that he had been following this thread. What he would like to do is give us our own group amongst the "Chrono Series" group. Chrono series is basically a time trials group and of course you would have to qualify by experience level.

We would basically be running amongst other cars just like we did in solo, point by, and open but with our own group title as long as there were at least 10 pt cars entered.

He also mentioned that he could not give us an exclusive pt time slot without having what I am guessing at least 40 or so cars and all drivers within the same experience level but I did ask the question of how many cars for an exclusive time slot and am waiting on a response.

Your thoughts on this.......

40 cars is a bunch. I could bring 5 PT cars but track experience will not be equal. If we run similar lap times to another group we should just keep track of PT seperately.

YGPM.

I agree, 40 cars is alot but Dave is running a business and it would have to make sense to him financially in order to give us our own time slot.

We also need to consider skill level as each individual should take the group that best suits their individual skill level.

I think we should just play this out by ear and see what the turnout will be. After all, this is just the beginning.