Sandia Motorcycle Roadracing, Inc.

I'm a little tardy publishing this, but here is what was discussed at the January meetings:

Attendees at the Executive Committee meeting were Dave Dikitolia, Keith Hahn, Scott Cloninger, Katrina D'Aloia, and Ed Junker with Brian Robertson, Cassandra Robertson, and Kimberly Prichard joining via telephone.

Class sponsorship invoices will be distributed within the next 30 days.  In fact, since I have the luxury of having been lazy in posting, I can report that they were distributed yesterday for all the confirmed sponsors.

We'll need to buy a few items for the upcoming season in the arena of safety gear.  We'll look into purchasing a few additional traffic cones, and we'll be purchasing shingles to repair the Tuff Shed.

We'll be hosting an Air Fence Repair Party at the track the first weekend of April.  Anyone interested in working off their novice hours early this year, or in just coming out to help the club is welcome to volunteer to help.

We'll be working on replacing the Track Marshal's chair as it was damaged last year.

The new Timing & Scoring laptop is in and software has been loaded.  Initial reports regarding improved function are excellent!

The North/South Challenge event has been moved to March in lieu of April to avoid overlap with Kelcey Walker's wedding.  We'll be racing at Arroyo Seco on March 12/13 (track day on the 12th, racing on the 13th).  ASRA members will NOT have to purchase an SMRI license for the event as we will honor ASRA licenses, but they will need a valid AMA membership card to participate as it is required by our insurance carrier.

AMA forms for 2016 have been submitted, as have our event schedule and all our sanctioning applications.

We have submitted our schedule to Medicine Bow for 2016 as well to make sure we have satisfactory ambulance support.

Any members who'd like a 2016 license mailed to them in order to participate at the March Arroyo Seco event need to submit a request to Cassandra Robertson as soon as possible.  Alternately, feel free to call me and I'll pass along your request.  505.238.0323 for Scott.....that's me.  Alan Dye....I've already passed along your request!

We have secured contingency support from Bridgestone for 2016.  All forms are up on the SMRI website.

Several officers' job descriptions are out of date and are being updated.  New descriptions will be posted shortly for members' review.

We will check with Medicine Bow regarding their need for medical data.  If they tell us they no longer need it we will stop storing that data in SMRI's archives and stop requiring it yearly as a condition of membership.

We discussed several procedural issues with grid sheets, tech slips, contingency forms, etc.  Notes will be made available to everyone when decisions are made.  This was in conjunction with job descriptions above.

SMRI are proud to announce that Law Tigers have agreed to become the SERIES SPONSOR for 2016.  This year our series will be titled "Law Tigers' Sandia Motorcycle Roadracing Championship."

The race day schedule will be reorganized to combine Formula 1000 and Historic Vintage Middleweight and to combine Super Street and Amateur 500 Supersport.  Previously HVMW and SS were combined, F1000 ran alone, and 500 was combined with 250.  This change was made to allow 250 riders a "bump" class.

We're considering possibilities for the Pit Out Marshal.  We've extended an offer to Brandon Prince for the 2016 season.

For the 2016 season we will no longer accept mailed entry forms.  Online registration will remain open until midnight on Friday before a race on Sunday.  Registration for the first race of the season is currently open.  Subsequent races will be opened the Monday after each race.  Time Attack will incur a $10 purse fee and ULGP will incur a $40 purse fee.  Board members will continue to pay at least their $30 per bike fee at registration.

Tech stickers will be different in 2016, and will be attached only to the bike.  No safety gear will be inspected at Technical Inspection.

We'll be putting together a draft of the 2016 season program shortly.  We'll post drafts here if anyone is interested.

The general membership meeting was held last night at Route 66 Diner.  It was attended by me, Steve Brown, Yolanda Smith, and Greg Sterosky.  Hurley Wilvert attended briefly via telephone.  The only item of business brought up by the membership was access to the Bridgestone contingency forms.  As we chatted I made it easier to access the Bridgestone contingency page and download the forms, so all of you should be able to navigate there by picking "Roadracing" from the list of tabs at the top of this page....then select "Roadracing Resources"....then "Contingency Program"....and finally "Bridgestone Contingency Program".  If you like you can just click Bridgestone Contingency Program.

Western States Fire Protection submitted a check for their 2016 class sponsorship through Yolanda Smith.  Thanks, YoYo!!!

Hurley Wilvert also confirmed that while he will not be racing with the club any longer due to medical considerations he will continue to sponsor a class through HTW racing for the 2016 season.  Quelle class!  Thanks, Hurley!!!

Route 66 Diner also still has really good milkshakes.

Thanks for the update Scott.

With regard to the 2016 race day schedule. Any news about the Novice races being pushed to the end of the race day and if that is going to be corrected? 

Just a quick addition to this thread to share what was discussed in the Executive Committee meeting held on May 7th after the track day.

Several members have been extended a credit for their race day fees due to an inability to attend the event.  Jaime Smith....gotta love her....couldn't attend the May 8th race and rather than take a credit for herself extended her fees as a "sponsorship" of Lisa Garcia and paid for her to race, instead!  Next time you see Jaime be sure to give her a squeeze.

We had a few issues with the first track day of the year in April that we hope to avoid in future iterations. 

• We had no Technical Inspection stickers, but new ones are here this weekend so that issue is solved. 
• Now that we've had two track days in excess of 70 riders in 2016 (71 on April 24 and 77 on May 7!!!) we've discussed splitting all track days over 60 participants into four groups, treating the "school group" as a fourth rider group, and cutting sessions to 15 minutes from 20 minutes.  This should result in safer conditions for all riders.  We'll also be asking EVERYONE with a race license to ride in the Expert group regardless of the bike they've brought to ride.  This will help limit the number of riders in the Intermediate group.  Groups will be capped at 25 riders and once the cap is hit riders will be asked to choose a different group.
• Kim will provide Registration a list of riders she has asked to assist with the school portion of the track day in order to avoid confusion.
• We received the following feedback:
• • Calls are hard to hear
  • Grids on facebook are excellent (for race days)
  • Would be nice to see results on facebook (for race days)
• We will plan to post grids and results on facebook moving forward so that everyone can share them in their pits!
• If anyone didn't notice Sandia BMW provided SMRI with new control riders' vests!  Next time you're at Sandia BMW or Santa Fe BMW be sure to extend a "Thank You".

Also, at the May General Meeting these issues were discussed:

• Why are ULGP riders gridded by qualifying time and not the others?
• • ULGP is a special case and the club's leadership have decided to extend the class a bit of extra time in order to make the competition in the class as robust as possible.  Gridding all the races for each event requires significant time and effort on the part of the club's Secretary, Cassandra Robertson.  Online Registration closes Friday at midnight and Cass spends several hours on Saturday preparing grids for the Sunday event.  If she had to grid every race by qualifying time we wouldn't be able to post grids early in the day and the likelihood of errors would be greater. 
• What determines when riders are gridded by qualifying time, by class points, or by time of registration?
• • The answer is a bit convoluted, but is actually quite simple.  It goes like this:
  • • ONLY ULGP is gridded by qualifying time.  If a rider enters the race but does not choose to participate in qualifying he or she will be gridded at the back of the pack, behind those who did participate, by order of registration time.
    • Most other classes are gridded as follows:
    • • First, all racers who entered ONLINE are gridded by their class points, regardless of whether or not they paid online.  As long as you register ONLINE you will be gridded by points....except in the first race of the year when nobody has points...then everyone is gridded by time of registration.
      • Second, all racers who entered ON-SITE are gridded by time of registration behind all the riders who registered ONLINE.
    • Two SMRI races are ALWAYS gridded by time of registration, and they are Time Attack and Superstreet.  In these two classes no championship points are tallied, so there are no points to use for grids. 
• How does the club decide when to promote racers from Novice to Expert?
• • The short answer is, the club doesn't decide......Kim Prichard does!  I'll ask Kim to add an addenda to this post, but it basically works like this:
  • • If a rider is fast...no...faster than that....I mean FAST....Kim might ask the rider to accept promotion immediately.  Basically, if a rider can easily turn laps below 58 seconds in the standard configuration we believe they're too quick to compete with most Novice racers and we'll ask them to move up.  Notice I said we'll ASK them to move up, we generally won't force a promotion mid-year.  We want riders to be able to compete for championships and we don't think it's fair to force them to promote and be unable to compete any longer in Novice classes when they're doing well.  Most riders will promote when asked, but those who don't will be forced to promote at the end of the season for the following season's competition.
    • If a rider is fast...yeah...fast but not silly fast....Kim might notice they're fast and automatically consider them for promotion between seasons.  Basically if they can easily turn laps in the 58 or 59 second bracket and they look really smooth doing it she'll take notice.
    • If a rider thinks they'd like to be promoted they can simply have a conversation with Kim and see what they need to do to earn promotion.  If you're one of the riders in the 58-59 second bracket and you think you'd like to be considered please take a few seconds to chat with Kim.  If she thinks you're safe and quick she'll likely give permission for you to put on a white plate!  If not, she'll usually have one or two things you'll need to work on before you're promoted.  The biggest thing, believe it or not, isn't time, but "race craft".  Are you smooth?  Are you safe?  Do you hold your line?  Are you easily upset when passed?  Kim's well trained eye sees all!

That's it for now.  Feel free to drop me a question if you have one!

OK....time for updates from the June 2016 meetings.

In the Executive Committee meeting we discussed only a few issues.  We talked about preparations for the June 26 racing event and decided that everything is pretty much handled.  AMA sanctioning is set, insurance is in place, the ambulance has been secured, Keith will be absent so Katrina will be running the track with Justin D'Aloia acting as Starter. 

We also discussed places where we fell short in May and how to get better for June.  We had a small problem with registration data being carried throughout the day so we've come up with a new way for handling registration forms.  We had a problem getting ULGP qualifying done and posted quickly so we've also come up with a more streamlined procedure for doing that.  Finally, we didn't get results done accurately and postings of lap times and results on MyLaps done well, so Dave and Rylee are sitting down Saturday for a little training with the good folks at MyLaps to make sure we have that all addressed for June 26!

At the General Membership we had a normal turnout with seven people in all.  Discussion topics included clarifications to gridding procedures and printing of the new 2016 Program, which we hope to have in our hands by the June 26 event. 

If you have any questions please drop me a line and I'll answer as quickly as I can.