Just to make sure credit goes where credit is due - the entire group of Board members and chairpersons of the IRDC has been working for months to make sure this race went as smoothly as humanly possible for the attendees.
The current President of the IRDC, Dave Haire, laid a ton of groundwork and worked his butt off all weekend to make sure this event was a success. He deserves a majority of the credit that people have been accrediting to me.
Frank DiMiceli is the fantastically organized and personable IRDC race chair that I have had the pleasure of working with for the last three years. I have always found him so easy to work with that monumental problems just turn into things that we handle on the fly. My personal thanks to Frank for his service to the club. For those of you who haven't had a glimpse into the controlled chaos that goes into putting on a Conference race, thank your local race chair.
Scott and Debbie Morton and Ron and Bonnie Johnson do unbelievable amounts of work for the IRDC and you can't even get them to complain! Clubs run on the energy and good will of people like these. I can't even thank them for specific things as they just pick up anything that is undone, do it efficiently and silently, and mve on to the next undone thing.
The volunteers who are committed to supporting us are just so incredibly professional and humble that when I was thanking them as they came in from wherever they had been working on Sunday they acted like it was no big thing. It is a HUGE thing that corners, communicators, timing and scoring, pre-grid, registration, drivers services, and the dedicated Walt and Tim down at tech and scales volunteer their time to make our races possible. I got non-stop compliments about the volunteers this weekend. Thanks so much!
In case you didn't see them, the wine with custom labels and special openers for first place finishers were prepared by Marie Fjellanger and Bruce Boyd and came out fantastic.
Also - in case you didn't notice it, one of our own IRDC racers and, incidentally, one of the owners of the Ridge was right out there racing with us as well as circulating through the paddock to make sure we had whatever we needed to insure a successful event. That guy out there in the black stock car with the flames on it in group 4? That was Joe Manke. That guy out on the sweeper making sure the track was cleared? Also Joe. Think the track was cool this last weekend? Wait to you see the facility it is on it's way to being!
Last but not least, thanks to every one of you who came out and supported our race. We know you have lots of choices on where to spend your money and valuable time - thanks for coming out and spending it with your friends at the IRDC. It was a hot weekend and we jammed a whole lot of people into a confined space and it was the positive attitude and help from the participants that made the jigsaw fit together. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed the historic first Conference race at the Ridge.
Thanks everyone!
