Happy 2022! 78 drivers came out to the kick off the new year with great people and awesome racing! Welcome Fred & Joshua Ader, Chris & Gabe Powell, Jeremias Delos Reyes, Christine Lanning, and Priya Zollo!
Race #1 Results: http://www.sccahawaii.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-01-23_Race_1_Final.pdf
Our track designers made some tweaks to previous layouts, providing us with a new take on one of our longer courses. After a hard u-turn at the start, drivers were greeted with a fast slalom to the top of the course and three optional turnarounds. Take the slalom back down the course to the showcase turn to the finish line. Returning to his Chief position, we welcome back Rick Okazaki to the Chief’s Team! Rick has previously served our club as Chief of Security and most recently as the spearhead of the Formula Junior Kart program in Hawaii. Due to the disappointing cancellation of the Junior Kart program by the SCCA National Office, Rick stepped up as Chief of Track Design as Mark Shrivastava prepares to return to the mainland some time in 2022. With the assistance of Howard Shek, also a previous Track Design Chief, we are in good hands with our course layouts! Big Mahalos to all their efforts to keep us on our toes with innovative, safe, and challenging designs.
Some of the day’s highlights included checking out the new rides of some of our drivers, Larry Hoggan’s return to racing after a 9 year hiatus, watching the battle of the Porsches in A Street (Clay Konikson, Adrian Laposi, Ronald Yu), listening to Ty Sato’s finish and nudge of the timing lights, watching Howard Shek find the limit of his new tires, partaking in the Powell’s start of their autocross addiction, and witnessing Joey Battista’s reaction of his co-driver, Bill Wong, spin his car in the slalom. But the best part of the day was having our very own mascot, the SCCA Hawaii Cone, featuring none other than H Street’s Shasta Yamada! She made sure our drivers got to experience being hit by a cone, especially those who tend to be identified as cone killers.. *cough* Jon Matsushige *cough* Don’t worry, no cones, people, or vehicles were injured during these experiences.
I am very grateful we were able to hold a fun, silly, and safe event during this unique time in history. We, the Chiefs, appreciate everyone’s understanding, compliance, and preparedness with the COVID guidelines we have in place. Social distancing, masking, vaccinations/testing, etc. While we have limitations, there is no limit on having a good time, putting our driving skills to the test, and making new friends!
Speaking of new things, we have a few offerings in store for our drivers in the upcoming 2022 events. The Chiefs have voted to offer Supplemental classes at our local events! These are classes that help bring interest to our club by offering opportunities for certain types of car types to have their own class and breed friendly competition amongst them. These class may include but not be limited to CAM, XS, Heritage, EVX, and SST. These classes will be available during pre-registration for 2022.
In addition to our (3) remaining 2022 events, we would like to offer a Test-N-Tune event for our drivers! Be on the look out for a survey about this upcoming event so we can best cater to our drivers.
Race #2 is on 2/6/22 which means pre-registration opens this Saturday, 1/29/22! The MSR link isn’t quite ready as we need some time to incorporate the Supplemental Classes so be on the look out for the live link!
See you at the races!
Jennifer Parker
SCCA Hawaii Solo Chair
