As we have wound down a successful and marginally profitable 2012 season, I want to first thank all of our sponsors that made this season possible. I would also like to thank our Volunteers and Racers that supported our events and helped pull everything together.
I would like to make a note right off the bat, that by business standards this is the first truly successful and profitable season a racing club has seen in Canada for a very long time. Not only that, but we are running events that are pleasing sponsors and that are coming out a success. NEW communities are opening their arms to us when in the past we have been shut down. We have a great safety record to date and are working towards better organization both at the event level and business level so we as an executive can make TORC sustainable into the future. We have a formula that works, now we need to fine tune what we have, recruit MORE HELP, and continue to improve on items such as safety and tech so we can race safe, have fair competition, and can ensure we are following our insurers/cbf/our own rules so if there ever is an incident, we legally have our bases covered so we can continue to enjoy racing.
PEOPLE DIE RACING-Ok, this may be a bit blunt, and people often dig at me for this, but I need to tell you ITS TRUE. Everyone thinks things are good and safe till the inevitable happens, nascar and Dale Ernhart thought things were great till the moment a sport hero died. Our sport has seen NUMEROUS deaths this summer down in the US, drags most recently only a couple months ago, hydros, vintage, and T type boats have all had deaths, some this year, and many in the past. APBA has lost insurers recently, things have happened to really rock the sport and we all may not hear of this but I do. We seem to be one of the only areas that has growth in North America. So when I speak of safety, and enforcing rules, and keeping race sites tight with hot pits etc, its all of the love, so one incident doesn't scar what we have pushed so hard for.
I want to speak to the T group and Drag group discussions specifically as there are some items that I want to share my opinion on *note, my opinion*. We are far better off as the group of friends and competitors as we are all crossing between the genres of racing. No one person made all of this come together, its been a group effort. I would like to specifically thank and call out Andrew F. and Scott T. who at the CBF level and TORC level played a LEAD role in getting both Drags and T-Boats to approval.
Andrew's name often gets forgotten, as I specifically saw on a Drag thread about getting racing going. Andrew is one of the only reasons why TORC is still here, and when drags needed help to get off the ground, Rich was guided to Andrew F. who assisted in writing the rules to help bring it to approval. Without Rich, it wouldn't have happened when it did, but don't forget, without Andrew (remember, he was CBF at the time for us), this wouldn't have happened, it wouldn't have come to meet CBF approval as a class, and it wouldn't have been brought under TORC's wing to get on the water. Other people also had input along the way, mainly the core group of Drag guys and Paul K has always been a big help backing the racers and making sure guys had stuff to run. If anyone has any other people they want to mention that I am forgetting, let me know, but from my research gathering and personal recollection of this, and also being the guy doing much of the drag ground work at events, and on every start barge since its inception, I can hands down say this is how it is.
This bodes the same for T, Andrew, Scott Toole and Don Whittington as well as others REALLY worked hard with countless hours to bring this group back to life. Paul K again has supplied a massive amount of iron to keep guys on the water and the class growing. Don has been the one pushing T forward logistically, they had a bit of a resurgence 6 or 7 years ago that dropped as insurance was too much for the few FE guys to share around as OPC, than Don came to Andrew and Scott Toole to help write the rules to make T class a stock outboard class. It wasn't until this moment that T class got its opportunity to really come back under TORC's wing. This took almost a full year of effort from Andrew, Scott and Don as they wrote rules that were passed by CBF, APBA, and UIM to ultimately gain the ability to be insured as a stock outboard class at a lower rate.
Insurance is a REAL concern, again, if we don't follow the rules and guidlines that we set out for ourselves, that CBF sets out, and that our insurance company sets out, it may not even take an incident, but merely a simple insurance inspection which we are expecting and have been warned will happen to have our sport dropped. We are BARELY profitable now and costs as proven in the past can KILL racing.
So whether we all like to admit it or not, we are all in this together, and we owe it to those who had a vision to keep one thing in mind, this is an enthusiasts sport. TORC as a club has been around for 60 years now, and will always support ALL OUTBOARD RACING. Whether your kneeling down at 85mph on a 12' piece of 1/4" ply, dragging down the course with 300hp+ screaming behind you up to 100mph, or flying down the straight at 70mph in a wild chine walk, we all love the same thing... boats and racing. Ok, hands up if you like snowmobiling to....
