This year’s 46th Annual June Sprints offered a large helping of all the things that have made the event the biggest amateur road racing event of the season other than the RUNOFFS. Three days of glorious summer solstice weather (sorry, Thursday test day runners-it rained half that day), lush green Wisconsin countryside and manicured race course, the roar of the bratwurst and the smell of the crowd. My unofficial tally showed over 450 entries scattered over 8 race groups; some in pursuit of the newly established "Triple Crown" (win Sprints, Division and RUNOFFs for special recognition), many in pursuit of generous contingency offers, but all eager to test their skills at one of the country’s premier road courses against the best drivers from across this country and beyond. The event got off to an auspicious beginning when I received a call from George Kendall the day after I faxed my entry telling me my number 27 was already taken, and I had somehow dropped off the list of CenDiv reserved numbers. Turns out my number had been assigned to Michael Argetsinger, who I believe to be the grandson of Watkins Glen Grand Prix founder Cameron- one of SCCA’s original members. No way I could contest that situation, so I took number 29 and set out modifying my existing 27s. We received advance word from Jerry Szykulski about the extensive detour from Mauston to Oxford, so we cut the corner early at			Tomah to save a major hassle. There was another serious detour in Fond du Lac (we followed the Steve Thomson shortcut) and these added about 45 minutes to the normal drive. I found no notice of these problems on the Chicago or Road America web sites the week before the race, as they assume no one would drive from Minnesota. Many other Chicago Region traditions of the past have been remedied, as Registration is now a breeze with extended hours and friendly staff whisking people along their way. Tech is handled nicely in the new Skip Barber building with a quick logbook and helmet check, as only FA and FM were required to present cars for inspection. However, the paddock reservation system ball had been totally dropped due to the huge number of entries. Arriving at the track 6:00 pm Thursday and after consultation with staff (nothing left in the area I reserved) I headed way up the hill past the motorhome parking to the "west" paddock. Steve Beck noticed our plight and directed us to a nice grassy area he had been holding for a FC driver who hadn’t shown up. Chicago cashed my $15 reservation fee for this lack of service. I must note that while we were talking to the paddock marshalls down by the bridge, John Schaller ran the roadblock with his rig and sneaked into a prime paved area by the Thomson/Kraut spread despite my 911 call to have him brought to justice. Friday was a beautiful day and we quickly figured that our paddock was much closer to Gate 4 on the back side of the track, and entering under the tunnel allowed us to miss threading our way through the "normal" paddock mob. We were all set to run long before early afternoon practice.  Fubar, continued on page 4		LOL Board of Directors Regional Exceutive Greg Youngdahl Home (507) 332-0297 gregy@deskmedia.com Assistant Regional Executive Rob Woolston Home:(651) 739-7837 Robert.Woolston@Unisys.com Secretary Shannon Murphy Home: (612) 798-3575 blueflagger@yahoo.com Treasurer Mark LaBarre Home: (651) 407-7293 mlabarre@usfamily.net Members at Large John Daniels Home: (612) 377-8403 j.danielsjr@all.net Doug Dill Home: (612) 925-1731 dougd@edsonline.com Chad Lemmons Home: (651) 688-7976 John Niemi Home: (651) 766-8027 captmayday@aol.com Randy Van De Loo Home: (612) 729-1949 randy@winning.com LOL Web Page: http://www.scca-lol.org LOL Hotline: 612-885-6888

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Tonneau On-Line	August 2001	Page 2
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