Spiel

FROM THE PRESIDENT BILL BAUER I'd like to hear from you at president@ pnwr.org or call me at 206.972.5639. About anything! Region Report The Zone 6 President's meeting took place in Great Falls, Montana this year, at our own Dave Cooley's house. Dave is our Zone 6 representative, a gregarious guy who usually holds this meeting in one of the regions. This time he graciously hosted us in his wind- swept rambler with a palatial view of Great Falls and a lot of Montana Big Sky. Perfect for representatives of 10 of the 13 Z6 regions to talk about our clubs, our issues, our ideas, and a liberal sprinkling of car tales. Our zone is by far the biggest geographical PCA region, and encompasses all of Wash- ington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, a smidge of Wyoming, British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. Whew! Consider this: the Cascade Region (southern Oregon) president drove to the meeting in a 2003 996 C4 Cab and covered more than 2,000 miles without visiting any of the Canadian regions. Our PNWR is the largest region by membership, with the region encompassing eastern Montana and northern Wyoming the smallest at 56 members. We are so! fortunate geographically. With Ridge Motorsports Park now open we have access to 7 tracks within a day's drive, a national-class kart track, and all kinds of wide and skinny roads. In the space of 2 or 3 days we can go from ocean to snow-covered peaks, rain forest to desert, from subtropic to subarctic, metropolitan Seattle to endless prairies, and other kinds of impressive extremes. Shouldn't we be driving all the time? (More later) I'm glad to report that we are doing very well compared to our fellow regions. We have a very active core group of volunteers and a membership that likes to attend events. Our number and variety of events is larger than everyone else, and we remain the only region with a monthly, full-color newsletter. I am also encouraged by our progress to continually freshen our events. Last year at this time I suggested the following objectives, and I think we are on the right journey: • Have socials at great destinations. The Triple X events are great because they are easy to attend, require little commit- ment in advance, and are always fun social gatherings. We need more of these kinds of meetings. • Weekday events. Not much prog- ress here, but I'm hoping. Weekends are busy, yet our summer evenings are long. Surely there's some things we could be doing. • Smaller, less formal, self-organizing events. There's a couple of members who have really lit up our Facebook page offering activities that they think are fun and want to share with others. Keep going! • Charities at every event – We recently agreed that that "Laps for Little Ones", which provides dental services to children, will make their pitch at our Driver Education, Driver Skills and Autocross events. We need more opportunities to give back. Skinny Roads, Part 2 Our Z6 leadership team formally endorsed the formation of a Zone 6 Grand Tour. No other region has developed such a tour, and it a truly ambitious undertaking. We agreed to start planning with a target date in 2014. Imagine the skinny roads you know in our region, multiply that by 13 Regions, include our vast geography, and the amazing variety of attractions – well, we may start the tour and never return home. More practically, the Z6GT will likely be a 7-10 days long. I think we will plan to have segments such that you could drive all of them, one of them, or as many as you like. Each region will select a route that represents a "best" drive, and the planning committee will have the task to bring all the segments into a unified tour. Stay tuned. Escape to our Neighbors? The Olympic Region, our Washington neighbors to the west, announced their intent to campaign for hosting the 2015 Escape. They have a significant groundswell of civic and business support, and have produced a very nice promotional brochure to convince the PCA powers-that-be. I wish them the best on their quest. See you on the road, at the track, in a club meeting, or at an event soon! Bill Ed Mitchell at the Ridge Motorsports Park on turn 16 just before the straight. Photo by Curt Smith 6 May 2012

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