Open Exhaust Volume MMXVII, Issue 1 © 2017 SCCA Detroit Region - All Rights Reserved Page 1

Open Exhaust

The official newsletter of the Detroit Region of SCCA ® Spring 2017

What’s in this issue: About us

Upcoming Events

New Website

Son of Sno*Drift TSD Rally

Formula SAE

Annual Awards Banquet Membership Meeting

TSD Road Rally School Rallycross #1 Crystal Rallycross #2 96 Speedway

Sno*Drift National Stage Rally

More Sno*Drift Rally

Crazy car projects

Long Service Awards

Links

Detroit Region Website

Facebook page

Facebook Solo

Facebook Rallycross

SCCA MotorsportReg

Cincinnati Region

Saginaw Valley Region

Western MI Region

NE Ohio Region

Waterford Hills Racetrack

Michigan Turn Marshals

Grattan Raceway

MIS

Open Exhaust Volume MMXVII, Issue 1 © 2017 SCCA Detroit Region - All Rights Reserved Page 2

Go back to page 1

Director and officials (as of end of March 2017)

Jennifer Merideth Regional Executive

Ido Waksman Assistant Regional Executive

Brian Thorpe Secretary, Open Exhaust Editor

Dr. Jennifer Glass Treasurer, Financial Director

Jeremiah Mauricio Solo Director

Jerry Shiloff Race Director

John Fishbeck Rally Director

Jon Jareo RallyCross Director

Jennifer Merideth Chief of Solo Registration

Scott Harvey Director At Large

Frank Putman Director At Large

Matt Wolfe Director At Large

Steve Balanecki Membership Chair

Mike Burns Webmaster

Ken Wiedbusch Timing Equipment Specialist Mike McClintock Club Vehicle Specialist

John Kytasty Club Vehicle Specialist

Mary Shiloff Chief of Registration

Ed Arthur Chief of F & C

Richard (Blackie) Meyers Chief of Fire and Rescue

Board of Directors Meetings The Detroit Region holds Board Meetings every second Wednesday of each month. All members are welcome to attend to see the professional way the club is run. Information about the meetings is on our web site. Minutes of the meetings can be downloaded here.

Membership

The Detroit Region of the Sports Car Club of America is one of the larger re-gions with over 1400 members. It has something for every taste, including some of the country’s best organized Rallycross, Solo (Autocross) and TSD Rallies.

Membership includes a subscription to Sports Car magazine, discounts and savings, schools and classes, experts and information and insurance while participating at SCCA events. We have 1429 members as of 10/09/2016

Long Service Awards are listed at the end of the newsletter.

You can join SCCA online or by mailing the Application form.

Photograph Credits

Many of the photos were found on the internet. If the photographer was known, credit was given. If you want credit for any of yours photos, please contact us.

Cover Photo

Various.

Links

Remember to click on all the links in Red for videos and still photos on the web. Some of the photographs are also clickable for more detail.

Open Exhaust Articles

Articles are always needed and members will get one worker point for every article published. They can be about anything automotive but a priority will be given to articles about Detroit Region events and/or members. Comments about the newsletter are also welcome, particularly about article accuracy, distribution method and readability.

Region Office:

About us

Detroit Region SCCA

PO Box 401018, Redford, MI 48240-9018

Open Exhaust Volume MMXVII, Issue 1 © 2017 SCCA Detroit Region - All Rights Reserved Page 3

Go back to page 1

Click on this link to the Detroit Region online calendar

Solo

Starting Line School April 22, Michigan International Speedway

Season Opener

April 23, MIS

Memorial Day Solo

May 29, MIS

Summer Heat Solo

June 17, Schoolcraft College, Livonia, MI

A few others then the big one: Tire Rack Oscoda ProSolo

August 4-6, Oscoda-Wurtsmith Airport , Oscoda Township, MI ————————————————————————————-

Rallycross

Rallycross #4, April Mudbog!!

April 23, Oakshade Raceway, OH. Rallycross #4a, May-nia! May 27, Thistle Hill Farm, South Lyon. Rallycross #5, June Bugs Me

June 10, Oakshade Raceway, OH.

————————————————————————————-

TSD Rally

Twilight Tour

April 22, Carlyle Grill, Ann Arbor Lyon, MI

Press On Regardless

September 9, Gaylord, MI

-----------------------------------------------------------------—

Race

24 Hours of LeMons (Not an SCCA event)

April 22-23, Gingerman, South Haven, MI

MTM New Flagger Training

April 29-30, Waterford Hills, MI

GLD Tri-Region (Club Races)

May 20-21, Gingerman Raceway. Bert Olsen Memorial Majors Race

July 8-9, Gingerman Raceway. Empire Hill Climb

September 16, Empire, MI

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Also:

Formula SAE—May 10—13 at MIS

Waterford Hills Road Racing Calendar

SCCA Race

SCCA Solo

2017 Calendar of Events

Open Exhaust Volume MMXVII, Issue 1 © 2017 SCCA Detroit Region - All Rights Reserved Page 4

Go back to page 1

New Website

It’s pretty straight-forward. The top row here is where you get most of the info about the club.

Region Info has links to Worker Points, Open Ex-haust issues, Downloads of forms and Meet-ing Minutes etc.

It is still a work in progress and the archiving of vari-ous data will be improved as time goes on.

The latest news is shown here with the most re-cent at the top.

Go to drscca.org and you will find our new website. The Calendar shows all events but more detail is given in each of the event types, Solo, Race, Rally and Rallycross. More event dates are shown here:

.

Open Exhaust Volume MMXVII, Issue 1 © 2017 SCCA Detroit Region - All Rights Reserved Page 5

Go back to page 1

Detroit Region’s 2017 Road Rally season kicked off with the 19th running of Scott Harvey Jr’s perennially popular Son of Sno*Drift on Saturday, January 14.

Son of Sno*Drift is a novice friendly event. The route instructions are mileaged at every instruction and include tulip diagrams of intersec-tions to make navigating the route easier. Speeds over the many tasty back roads of south central lower Michigan are brisk enough to be entertaining while still being sane and legal.

This rally is always an entertaining event, with the weather ever a wild card. We’ve seen inches of snow, skating rink ice, snotty mud, and sometimes combinations of all of those. This year, however, it was something less than a full blown winter rally, but it was still not without its wintertime challenges. Intermittent packed snow and icy patches on the roads made driving interesting. Especially so on Green Rd just before control 13, where my reluctance to keep my speed up to the CAST of 33 on that nasty, icy section resulted in our being 3 late arriving at the control. Better drivers than me (Dave Harkcom, David Stone) zeroed it - good on 'em!

The mileaging was wonderfully consistent! For the first time in nu-merous rallies, Laurie and I were not continuously flailing around managing mileage - it was a nice break for a change.

Hope to see everyone at Twilight Tour on Saturday, April 22!

John Fishbeck

Link to the Twilight Tour Rally flyer.

Son of Sno*Drift TSD Rally

TSD Rallying is an excellent way for novices to get a taste of competition without the need for any car modifications, and so it is far more affordable than Stage Rallying. Scott Harvey Jr. has written an excellent “Beginners Guide TSD Road Rally” which can be found on our web site.

Open Exhaust Volume MMXVII, Issue 1 © 2017 SCCA Detroit Region - All Rights Reserved Page 6

Go back to page 1

Formula SAE 2017

Formula SAE® is globally the most estab-lished educational motorsport competition organized by SAE International. Backed by industry and academia, the competition aims to provide real world experience to young engineers bridging the gap as they enter the workforce. Universities from across the globe accept the challenge to conceive, design, fabricate and compete with small formula-style race cars. The cars are built with a team effort over a period of eight to twelve months before reaching competitions where students are judged on their knowledge and vehicles are judged on performance.

The Detroit Region of SCCA provides sig-nificant support in organizing and running the event at Michigan International Speed-way every year.

Click here to check out what you can do to help.

Open Exhaust Volume MMXVII, Issue 1 © 2017 SCCA Detroit Region - All Rights Reserved Page 7

Go back to page 1

The Awards Banquet is held annually to present various awards for the previous year. This year it was held at the Italian American Banquet and Conference Center of Livonia on February 4th. Photos mostly by John Li.

Annual Awards Banquet

Hot wheels Runoffs were popular again!

Justin Hille, recipient of the Robert Collins Memorial trophy, as the re-gion's most outstanding road racing competitor with the most national rac-ing points, with Ralph Provitz, 2016 Spec Miata National Champion.

Is this a Trump handshake?

Motley crew!

What’s so funny? Kytasty and Nienhuis panning for gold?

Please don’t take my picture!

Open Exhaust Volume MMXVII, Issue 1 © 2017 SCCA Detroit Region - All Rights Reserved Page 8

Go back to page 1

TSD Road Rally School The annual TSD (Time, Speed, Distance) road rally school was held on Saturday, March 18, at CJ's Lounge in Whitmore Lake. There were 18 par-ticipants in 9 cars, making this one of the most successful Rally Schools in recent years, and was a great introduction to TSD Rallies organized by DRSCCA.

The school consisted of two classroom sessions, each followed by two short practice rallies.

The morning class covered an introduction to TSD road rally concepts and terms, such as how to follow the rally route using the provided route instructions, route following rules, and matching your car's odometer to the rallymaster's mileages. That was followed by a short rally with 2 controls, to practice following the correct route. No times were recorded so that there were no other dis-tractions.

Then, during lunch, instructors John Fishbeck and Mike Bennett focused on basic time keeping requirements and techniques, and checkpoint pro-cedures. The afternoon practice rally also had 2 controls and times were recorded, making this a perfect example of a Detroit Region TSD rally. Many thanks to Wiedbusch’s and Shiloff’s for manning controls; to Brian Thorpe for running sweep, and of course John and Mike for organizing and instructing.

Open Exhaust Volume MMXVII, Issue 1 © 2017 SCCA Detroit Region - All Rights Reserved Page 9

Go back to page 1

Rallycross #1 Crystal Rallycross #1 Crystal Motor Speedway

Held on January 7, the first Rallycross of 2017 was sold out as is be-coming the norm.

With temperatures in the single digits, everyone had to dress appro-priately to avoid freezing on the spot! Another effect of the cold weather was that the cones became very brittle and anytime one was hit (very often!) they shattered as shown in the photograph.

Fervor RallySport video Could this be another Civic suspension failure? Villemure’s hot Beetle

Open Exhaust Volume MMXVII, Issue 1 © 2017 SCCA Detroit Region - All Rights Reserved Page 10

Go back to page 1

Membership Meeting

An annual Business Meeting of Members was held on March 22 at the Automotive Hall of Fame in Dearborn.

Our Assistant Regional Executive, Ido Waksman, presented a summary of the clubs activities in 2016 as well as objectives for the future. Jennifer Glass, Treasurer, presented a report, showing that the club is on a sound and improving financial footing.

The Automotive Hall of Fame was a perfect loca-tion for a membership meeting with it’s display of memorabilia, and honoring people from all parts of the worldwide automotive industry.

One of the first things you see as you enter the building is this recently built copy of the original GT40 LeMans car. Beautiful!

Open Exhaust Volume MMXVII, Issue 1 © 2017 SCCA Detroit Region - All Rights Reserved Page 11

Go back to page 1

Rallycross #2 I96 Speedway

RallyCross number 2 was held on February 11 at I96 Speedway in Lake Odessa, MI.

It was a sticky mess and deteriorated as the day wore on. Attendees had to brave a staggering amount of mud and slick surfaces. Clean runs were a rarity and many cars were struggling to keep forward momentum.

Unfortunately, we had to cut the event short as times became meaningless and stuck cars were the norm. Those in the last run group, Stock Front and Stock Rear, who were unable to run, were given a full refund.

Check this link for some videos.

Sean Grogan: “

The right side has been hanging off the car for a year now. I was kind of surprised to see the entire left side come off first. That mud was pretty intense yesterday!

Daniel Hutchinson scrubbing off speed in his Civic.

Those boots were made for sliding!

A cone cleaning party was assembled later to get all that mud off.

Burke about to lose his tail

Open Exhaust Volume MMXVII, Issue 1 © 2017 SCCA Detroit Region - All Rights Reserved Page 12

Go back to page 1

Sno*Drift National Rally

The Sno*Drift Stage Rally, sanctioned by Rally America, Inc., took place on the roads of Montmorency County, Michigan from January 25-28, 2017. Rally Headquarters were in Atlanta, MI 49709.

The itinerary included 15 stages totaling 110 miles of recently plowed winter stage roads. There were 6 stages totaling 55 stage miles on Friday, and 9 stag-es totaling 55 stage miles on Saturday.

The route was compact and took place entirely within a 20 x 25 mile rectan-gular grid leading to easy service planning and convenient spectating. All stages on Sno*Drift were on unpaved surfaces, mostly snow covered.

The Detroit Region of SCCA had 5 of our own entered in the event: Nathan Usher/Marianna Langosch in their Subaru wagon, #121. Jimmy Pelizzari/Kate Stevens in their Mazda 323, #221 Kevin Schmidt/Brian Flint in their Mazda RX8, #174 Todd Tortorelli/Drew Rosek in their Subaru WRX, #514 Michael Engle/Brian Arpke in their Subaru RS, #666

Nathan and Marianna finished 3rd overall, Jimmy and Kate finished 10th, but the others had various problems and DNF’d.

Sneak Attack: We made it through the first day of Sno*Drift. We tried to drive conservatively, but still managed to set some fast times. We finished the day 2nd in regional open light, 2nd in national super production and 3rd overall. Thanks to Team Finn for taking care of our ser-vice. We did our best to make sure they didn't have to do much.

Jimmy Pelizzari: The car is back in the garage and after only a couple of adjustments it should be good as new-ish in the morning! We had a few spins, brushes, dives, and even an interesting fender bender... but we brought it back home to 10th overall! Camber is back in place, the trans is a little notchy but it's holding in there, we're down a fan, but it's still running well soooo...

Tortorelli video

Video of cars and drivers by Sunrise Cable

Results Fervor Rally Sport Video

Nathan and Marianna celebrate their 3rd overall position.

Mike Engle/Brian Arpke in “the Beast”

Nathan Usher video on stage 4

Open Exhaust Volume MMXVII, Issue 1 © 2017 SCCA Detroit Region - All Rights Reserved Page 13

Go back to page 1

More Sno*Drift National Rally

Todd Tortorelli: Day one was a little rough. Drew and I rebounded with a good Saturday.

Click here for a video of Kevin Schmidt at speed in his raucous Mazda RX7

Jimmy Pelizzari and Kate Stevens

Santiago Inglesias and Ryan Dunham in their BMW 328

Now that’s really sideways!

Open Exhaust Volume MMXVII, Issue 1 © 2017 SCCA Detroit Region - All Rights Reserved Page 14

Go back to page 1

Crazy Car Projects

As editor, I felt the need to start a new section I call “Crazy Car Projects”. I am starting the ball rolling but I know there are some crazy members out there who will have crazy stories to tell, so start writing for the next issue.

Anyway, my story goes all the way back to the time I was growing up on my Dad’s farm in Lincolnshire, England. I learned mechanical skills on the farm and developed a knack for tinkering! Old cars were easily had for 5 pounds if they failed the MOT test. This pre-war Morris 8 was no exception. I was only 15 so I couldn’t drive it on the road (had to be 17). I drove it around the farm but soon became bored with it. I painted it Ford Tractor blue on the bottom and ceiling white on the top. I have no idea what came over me, but one day I decided I wanted to make it into a pick-up truck! I attacked it with an axe, right by the B pillars. I managed to get the back half of the body off, but my engineering knowledge had not developed sufficiently to predict the collapsing of the frail chassis.

There was no other option but to rip off all of the bodywork. The next challenge was to make a “go cart” out of it. The rotten chassis was cut and replaced by a pair of 2 by 4’s held in place with lag bolts. The prop shaft was shortened by the village blacksmith. He nor-mally made plough shares and this was a challenge, but it came out OK. The power to weight ratio increased dramatically and 23 horsepower felt good! Of note is the Lucas generator which despite all the jokes and true stories, never let me down. One thing I can-not remember is why I turned the wheels inside out! As most of you are aware, the fun is in the tinkering. I didn’t get to drive it much

because gasoline was reserved for starting the tractors, and only a gallon or so was ever present (the tractors were switched to kerosene as soon as the special manifold was hot enough). That’s all I remember about it since it happened many decades ago.

Open Exhaust Volume MMXVII, Issue 1 © 2017 SCCA Detroit Region - All Rights Reserved Page 15

Go back to page 1

Congratulations to the following long ser-vice members who celebrated anniver-saries during January, February, March and April of 2017!

55 years

Karl Goering

40 years

Lawrence G. Jacobsen

Robert Lesage

Sandra L. Cole

Lawrence J. Rehagen

Rod Hahnerman

35 years

James F. Miller

Alan R. Scheidler

Charles M. Fortino

John H. Firment Janet L. Laird

Edward M. Murray

Patricia M. Pierson

Kevin J. Royce

30 years

Robert Joseph Kliffel Janice A. Roller

David A. Harmison

Mary A. Wentzel Robert Hofmann

25 Years

Susan P. Bennett David J. Pryce

Karen Pryce

Erik Smith

Sharon Smith

John McIver

Francis A. Dombrowski Gregory A. Lasnau

Erik Kukuk

20 years

Amanda Grimm

Yaron Krispin

Jeff LaVoy

David Rock

Lynn Bertin

Cynthia J. Kempton

15 years

Tom Feller

Elizabeth Tranter

Vaugn Scott Rick Myers

10 years

Loren Jacobs

Bruce Matthews

James M. Megel Jr. Azmath Mohammed

Mary Theresa Thompson

Ewe Reher

John Scheuing

Praveen Chavannar

5 years

Mark Edward Beyer

Kimberly Bowman

Kenneth Browde

David Caldwell Matt Davis

James D. Farley Jr. Thomas Hartsaw

Mattias Krause

Dr. Gary Mason

Kegan Scannell Steven Cole

Kevin Corrigan

Arthur Holmes John Sr. Rami Daman

Alan Kirk Dohne

Graham Dohne

Karl Peter Gubert Chris J. Histed

Samual S. Stanley

Charles K. Howe

Maxwell Spector

Susan Spector

Mark G. Vojtisek

Long Service Awards