Howdy Spokes folks! We have crossed the halfway point of the season, and there are great battles brewing in several classes.

In BS, Mat Beck started the season strong, but is under fire from a hard charging Jerry Centanni who is now just a few points behind. Reinaldo Pena is currently in third place, also within striking distance. In HS, Blake Vignaud seems to have a stranglehold on the lead, winning every event this season. Vanessa Lau and Mark Reed are currently in second and third. You have to be named Tom/Thom to usually be in the the conversation for STU, and Thom Hardy is indeed currently leading over Tom Cook. But will Shawn Hale continue to rise and shake up the top of the heap?

The always hotly contested Novice class has a slew of capable drivers vying for the season victory. Charles Gillan currently leads with two second place finishes. But Juan Silguero, Chris Hamilton, Duval Retana, Andy Klein, and Nick Gruendler all have one win. This class will likely (as always) come down to the wire.

X/Pro class is looking to be a two man contest between Vivek Goel and John Hale. Vivek currently has a slim lead on total points, but they are tied when accounting for dropped events, each of them with two victories and two second place finishes.

We have had a Spokes Facebook Group for many years, and it has served as a great place for conversation, banter, questions, picture sharing, etc. For the privacy of Spokes members, we keep that group private/closed, and you have to request to join.

We now have a public Spokes Facebook Page through which we can publicize the club and our events more broadly. The page does not replace the group; it supplements it by allowing us to broadcast certain information outside of the private group. Go “like” the new Page so that you see those posts on Facebook.

We have had a couple of changes to the Spokes for 2018.

First, we are moving to a 1 year membership (365 day) instead of the calendar year membership.  We will no longer offer a discounted membership rate mid year.  The change is to improve our ability to communicate with the membership via Axware emails.   Anyone who has already paid their membership fees for the year have been updated with this new policy. The end date for your membership is 1 year from when you paid, instead of previous date of 12-31-2018.

We are also offering a new package deal at the Tech Day and Membership drive.  The package consists of Spokes single membership and all the Spokes run events for the year entry fees for the price of $295, with a $5 discount for cash/check.  This offer is good at the Tech day, Feb 03 at Winding Road Racing.

We are also making changes to our passenger policy.  We will be changing the requirement from 16 years old and a valid drivers license to the SCCA policy of “no younger than twelve (12) years old or is at least 57” tall”.  This change will have some procedures going forward that will be required.  Namely, we will need the parent(s) to contact the President of Spokes and fill out the minor Waiver form prior to event day.   Watch for a future update at a later date when we have the rules finalized.

Spokes will also be requiring all SSR, Street Prepared, Street Modified, Prepared, and Modified classes use the “R” class if running slicks or less than 200TW tires.  For those cars using 200TW or greater tires will need to run the “T” Tire class.  These classes were previously optional.

Finally,  we will now count Novice entries as participation for Year End Trophy eligibility.  For example, if you ran Novice E Street for 3 times, and then 3 more times in Open class, will meet eligibility requirement if we have 12 events.  The rulebook will be updated with this change shortly.