2001, Volume 6 - Porsche Club of America

Pueblo 2001
by: Kathy Fricke
Rich Winnick leads Walt Fricke out of the corner
with others in hot pursuit.
The Rocky Mountain Region made the decision to
carry on with its 10th Annual Club Race at Pueblo,
Colorado, on September 15 & 16. This was not an easy
choice to make with all of the horrific events that took
place on September 11th. It was very trying for all of us,
but I must say everyone present at the race showed their
true colors in the best way. This is what the Porsche Club
and the Club Racing program is all about. We did pause
and have a memorial service. This gave the drivers and
workers the opportunity to have a moment of silence in
memory of all who lost their lives on September 11.
We did have some adjusting to do. Deni Knight and
Dick Ward, our timers, drove over from Utah instead of
flying, and racer Phil Blackstone transported the timing
equipment as planned, but things weren't so simple for the
other national personnel. We did not know until Friday
that our Steward, Jim Coshow from Portland, Oregon, and
Scrutineer Ray Pruitt, from Calgary in Canada, were not
able to get their flights into Colorado. As it turned out we
had two National Stewards signed up to race: Vicki
Earnshaw and Brian Henderson. Vicki gave up her racing
to do the steward's job. Brian did the orientation meeting
for rookies and others required to attend. Scrutineer Bob
Jones of Salt Lake City was also racing. Bob
superintended scrutineering, and former steward Pat
Moyle volunteered to be the black flag station man
(wearing a black T shirt with the top ten excuses drivers
who are black flagged give). Bob told his competitors
they should expect their cars to be impounded and closely
scrutinized, though of course no such thing happened.
We had the scrutineering test equipment, but no tech
stickers. We were indeed fortunate to have Hank
Godfredson, one of our National Sponsors, racing. He
lives in Colorado Springs, and was kind enough to bring
some of last year's GT Racing Tech stickers. He said they
were not the right color, but Bob Jones said they were our
color for this weekend.
Because of the special circumstances of the week,
refunds were given to all who could not make the event.
This would have hurt our region financially, but the
generosity of our local sponsors, Prestige Imports, Inc. of
Denver, and Eurosport Ltd. of Englewood, covered the
operating loss.
The weekend and the two races for each run group
were a resounding success for the 66 PCA racers who
made it to Pueblo. The event was almost incident free
(one minor, as well as the usual car problems). The
weather cooperated - the last race got threatening skies
Hank Godfredson of GT-Racing (#5) and Paul Bonham (#30) match skills on the track.
12 CRN November/December 2001