Wow, what a summer this has been!

As I’m sure all twelve of our regular visitors have noticed by now content more or less ground to a halt about the end of June. There are many reasons but the two that come immediately to mind are that autocrossers become pretty busy during the autocross season (who knew?) and I had way more trouble converting my trusty CRX from a faux EP car to a sort of legitimate GP car. I won’t bore everyone here with the details other than to say that the troubles began with the removal of the TWM individual throttle bodies and really hasn’t fully concluded just yet! While I was able to compete in the car at Nationals my fuel pressure problems bit both me (day 1) and my son Mike (day 2). Through all that I had the help and support of the Friends of the Rogues and especially John Fessler, Chris Raglin and Robert Chrismas. Thanks guys (and girls, you know who you are!) you all helped Mike and me turn a disaster into a memorable event!

After all that I fully intend to continue the build series on my CRX. I now know what is wrong and everyone will be able to see how it gets fixed. I also know now that just stripping the interior from a CSP CRX and putting 6″ wheels with slicks on will not be enough to get the job done. What everyone feared would be a complete pummeling of the newer cars over the older cars just did not happen. There is a lot of life left in those cars and the new GP cars are going to have to work a lot harder!

I can’t tell you how impressed I was with the new Lincoln site. The size of the place is enormous. While there are a few issues that will need to be addressed I have no doubt that the event chair and the various chiefs have already identified all of the trouble spots and have taken steps to get them corrected for next year. The only real downside of the whole event was the Awards Banquet arrangement but as in everything else I am confident there will be improvements. I have been around long enough to remember the first years in Topeka and Forbes Field were not as good as everyone now remembers them (you know, that familiar saw the older I get the faster I was syndrome)! One final note: The Haymarket part of downtown Lincoln was just awesome!

Our Thursday night cookout was great and many thanks go out to Paul Magee for bringing along his grill and acting as a very capable chef for everyone in attendance. Hopefully we will be able to expand on this for next year. We would also like to be paddocked near those Atlanta and Texas folks too. They were A LOT of fun. Huh, Sean?

We are now hard at work getting our profiles lined up for all of the 2009 Solo National Champions. We are also going to be taking a closer look at some of the others in the field in other finishing positions. Things will quickly be back to normal here and we promise to keep the material flowing!

Following a long, protracted period of negotiation Jack Burns Race Wheels founder Jack Burns announced today that the entire assets and business of long-time competitor Huck & Chuck Enterprises has been acquired. Founded in the late 1990’s JBRW has long been known for a non-existent line of competitive race wheels. The product line has consisted of nothing more substantial than gilded vaporware. The expanded entity will be known from this point forward as Jack Burns Race Wheels and Huck & Chuck Enterprises or JaB/RaW/Huk/ChukE.

The acquisition of Huck & Chuck Enterprises promises to expand the product line by adding the non-existent clothing and performance vehicle parts as promoted by Huck & Chuck Enterprises. It is hoped that this merger will result in a more cohesive product line and strategy for the twenty-first century.

In a follow up to this piece, Huck & Chuck co-founder, Charlie Davis, was unavailable for comment but was last seen crying in his beer because he was an abject failure as an autocrosser as well as a horrible business man. Jack Burns was also unavailable for comment but was last heard talking to his wife, “Christ, Pat…�

IT’S OFFICIAL!  WE HAVE A SOLO SERIES IN THE GREAT LAKES DIVISION!

After a couple of months of meetings and phone calls, we are pleased to announce that the Great Lakes Division has a Solo series!

The Series schedule is as follows:

May 16-17    Ohio Valley Region at OSU
June 6-7        South Bend Region at Grissom
June 28          Northwestern Ohio Region at Toledo Express
July 18-19     Detroit Region/Saginaw Valley Region at Oscoda
August 8-9    Great Lakes Divisional Championship at Grissom

The sponsors for the Series will be SoloPerformance.com, AXWare, Mid-Atlantic Motorsports and The Tire Rack.

The soloseries.org website will be sporting some changes to it as well in the near future.  Make sure that you check out that site.

The committee for the series is comprised of the following competitors:

Velma Boreen – Divisional Solo Steward
Marlene Obenour – Division Solo Steward and Bulletin Editor
Don and Steve Elzinga – Website Administrators
Kim Bollinger – Schedule
Travis Robuck – Pointskeeper
Andy Bell – Regional Liaison
Grayden Obenour – Rules Enforcer

One of the biggest changes that is taking place for 2009 is that points will be given for each day of competition.  This will allow a competitor to come to just one day of a two day event and potentially get more than just 20 points, which is the amount that they would have received previously.  For event trophy purposes, the two day events will still be combined time events.

The Series has the backing of the SCCA National office so the hope is that all of the Regions in Great Lakes Division will encourage their members to attend at least one of the events and have so much fun that they will come to more of them.  The step after that is getting people to attend The Great Lakes Division Solo Championship or a National Tour and then making the trip to Lincoln, Nebraska for the Solo National Championship event in September!

The Regions that are hosting events in 2009 have proven track records and the competitors know that they will be participating in a quality event when they attend one of the Series events.

Any questions – check the soloseries.org website and the contact information for those on the committee will be there.  Feel free to contact anyone on the committee.  They are there to help.

Let’s just get this out of the way and start with a rumor. Word on the street is a new site has been selected for the Solo National Championship in 2009. The talk at the Peru National Tour was that someplace called Blytheville, Arkansas would host this event. There is a semi-active National Guard base located there and, yes, that means a return to CONCRETE.

As for lies, it remains a mystery to me why attendance at Peru has declined to such levels since the National Championship shifted to asphalt. Peru remains a viable site and if indeed the rumor is true that the Solo Nationals will return to concrete in 2009 you had better get your entry in for Peru as soon as it opens up in 2009 because the entry cap will be reached. I like Peru and have always liked Peru. Over the years various course designers have used some creativity in bringing a fresh perspective to a site layout that is in essence shaped like a narrow fan. Seat time is still seat time and the composition of the surface really doesn’t change the equation all that much (IMHO).

As for ruminations I will say this. People ought to be careful what they wish for. The crying and carping since the Solo National Championship moved to Heartland Park Topeka has gotten tiring for me. In my view, everyone all has to run on the same surface and and the true test of a champion for me was how that champion was able to adapt to the circumstances at hand. Is the surface sandy? Yes. Does it have as much grip as concrete? No. Was the surface better than Forbes Field? Um, let me think about that for a minute… Hell Yes! While the surface was a challenge it was the same challenge for everyone. Buck up. The quality of the facilities at Heartland Park was better than Forbes Field. The staff at Heartland Park were ‘getting it’ as concerns Solo. Improvements (vast) were made from the first year to the second and I expect there will be improvements again this year.

I guess in the end it is not going to matter where the Solo National Championship is held and I know a lot of people have worked very hard on everyone’s behalf to address everyone’s concerns. It will be interesting to hear what the take on a change in venue will be in fifteen months or so. My guess is there is still going to be a lot of bitching!

Here is an in depth look at Blytheville (Airfield is in the NW corner and I have added lodging to the map)
View Larger Map

Welcome to rogues-racing.com. In my initial words here I would like to welcome everyone to what we hope will be an enjoyable destination. Mike, Paul and I have arrived here sort of by accident and the reasons why are long and varied. Suffice it to say what we are doing today is not what we thought we would be doing at this time last year.

This site has been in our thoughts for quite some time and the time it has taken to get it to this point was more than we planned for. That said, what you are seeing can be considered Ver. 1.0. We are in the process of doing a site design that will better fit what our long-term goals are. Our purpose now and into the future is to offer our visitors relevant information and insight into what autocross is, what it ought to be and what we would like it to be. This site is intended to be interactive which is why we have chosen to build it on a WordPress platform. A quick look at the site will also reveal that we have included a forum for our visitors to participate in. Our intention is to evolve into more of an online magazine format bringing you information and articles on the events, background and especially the people who contribute to our enjoyment of the sport of autocrossing.

So, sit back, take a look around and please offer your input on what you would like to see as far as editorial content. In order to keep some order here and to control the chaos everyone needs to send one of us a request to be registered to either post responses to articles or join the forum. Our contact information can be found on the About Us page.

Welcome to the home on the world wide web of Rogues Racing.

As the site grows and evolves you will find that there is a lot of good information if you are interested in the sport of Autocross.

Please take a moment and click on the About tab to see how we came to be and if you are interested in becoming a part of this community send one of us an e-mail telling us a little bit about yourself and why you consider yourself worthy to be a Rogue!