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A Race Director’s Thank You
I would like to start off by saying how extremely impressed I am by our racing community and proud of our club Carolina-Virginia Racing Association. We had the best race this year out of the three years since we returned to Hinton, a nice solid turnout of 110 entries on Saturday. We also had drivers from Regions 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and 14 represented! And we had some of the closest and most competitive racing on Saturday you can imagine (especially Eric Vanover and his "brother Austin"), Nationals contenders going head to head heat after heat. The J and AX classes were also extremely well attended, as shown by Grant Hearn’s victory in AX Hydro on Saturday with 11 entries and taking home the coveted Travis Pond Trophy. Saturday’s weather was perfect and we got the entire day’s schedule in, running 36 heats. I have so many people I’m indebted too that made this race successful, but it would take too long to list them all. However I wanted to especially thank and recognize a few individuals.
I would like to thank our club and the way we all got together, both in setting up and braking down the equipment, but also in the efficient and swift way we got the entire Judges Stand moved down to the end of the point so we could run on better water Sunday (the wind was playing havoc with us).
I want to thank Abby Pond for all of the help, wisdom and diplomacy she brings to our races and again to the local Hinton committee. We also could not run our race without our scorers Joyce Golley and Aimie Pond! A huge thank you goes to Dave Augustine and John Howard for the hard work of Referee. To Nikki Burwinkle, Jill and Kaitlyn Glossner, who are always helping on our Judges Stand, thank you. Thank you to Tom Burwinkle for keeping up with the radios, and Matt D’Agostino for tirelessly setting up and re-setting our course (not always easy with the Hinton winds). Jimmy Warren did a very efficient job as inspector. I must also make a special mention and thank you for the hard work of one of our newer members, Jesse Swain. Jesse was a veritable jack-of-all-trades and performed so many tasks; equipment handler, Referee assistant, announcer, turn judging, rescue boat driver, water condition tester and “singer/dancer” at the Saturday night after-dinner party. A quick thanks to Bill Pavlick and his invaluable advice at the Judges Stand. Lastly, I would like to thank a couple of special friends whose mentoring and advice are so valuable to me, John Runne and Jerry Davids Sr.
I must express my deepest appreciation to Hinton’s W.V. Water Festival Host Committee, without whom we could not have our race. They do so much for us I cannot even begin to list it all here. But they are the best, LuAnn Whittaker and Eddie Fernatt and his great young boys along with Kent Bartgis have provided everthing from power and golf cart type vehicles, trophies and a couple of RV’s in the pits for our use, to all the infrastructure needed in the pits!! In addition, a big thank you to Chris Meadows, for his help with the agencies and insurance companies, making sure this race happened. To Mary Lou Haley with the Hinton Chamber of Commerce, who coordinated and provided for us the fantastic dinner for our Saturday night awards banquet. Lastly thanks to Joe, Chris, Pat & Karl for working the course beautifully all weekend.
Sincerely,
Chris Johnson
I would like to start off by saying how extremely impressed I am by our racing community and proud of our club Carolina-Virginia Racing Association. We had the best race this year out of the three years since we returned to Hinton, a nice solid turnout of 110 entries on Saturday. We also had drivers from Regions 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and 14 represented! And we had some of the closest and most competitive racing on Saturday you can imagine (especially Eric Vanover and his "brother Austin"), Nationals contenders going head to head heat after heat. The J and AX classes were also extremely well attended, as shown by Grant Hearn’s victory in AX Hydro on Saturday with 11 entries and taking home the coveted Travis Pond Trophy. Saturday’s weather was perfect and we got the entire day’s schedule in, running 36 heats. I have so many people I’m indebted too that made this race successful, but it would take too long to list them all. However I wanted to especially thank and recognize a few individuals.
I would like to thank our club and the way we all got together, both in setting up and braking down the equipment, but also in the efficient and swift way we got the entire Judges Stand moved down to the end of the point so we could run on better water Sunday (the wind was playing havoc with us).
I want to thank Abby Pond for all of the help, wisdom and diplomacy she brings to our races and again to the local Hinton committee. We also could not run our race without our scorers Joyce Golley and Aimie Pond! A huge thank you goes to Dave Augustine and John Howard for the hard work of Referee. To Nikki Burwinkle, Jill and Kaitlyn Glossner, who are always helping on our Judges Stand, thank you. Thank you to Tom Burwinkle for keeping up with the radios, and Matt D’Agostino for tirelessly setting up and re-setting our course (not always easy with the Hinton winds). Jimmy Warren did a very efficient job as inspector. I must also make a special mention and thank you for the hard work of one of our newer members, Jesse Swain. Jesse was a veritable jack-of-all-trades and performed so many tasks; equipment handler, Referee assistant, announcer, turn judging, rescue boat driver, water condition tester and “singer/dancer” at the Saturday night after-dinner party. A quick thanks to Bill Pavlick and his invaluable advice at the Judges Stand. Lastly, I would like to thank a couple of special friends whose mentoring and advice are so valuable to me, John Runne and Jerry Davids Sr.
I must express my deepest appreciation to Hinton’s W.V. Water Festival Host Committee, without whom we could not have our race. They do so much for us I cannot even begin to list it all here. But they are the best, LuAnn Whittaker and Eddie Fernatt and his great young boys along with Kent Bartgis have provided everthing from power and golf cart type vehicles, trophies and a couple of RV’s in the pits for our use, to all the infrastructure needed in the pits!! In addition, a big thank you to Chris Meadows, for his help with the agencies and insurance companies, making sure this race happened. To Mary Lou Haley with the Hinton Chamber of Commerce, who coordinated and provided for us the fantastic dinner for our Saturday night awards banquet. Lastly thanks to Joe, Chris, Pat & Karl for working the course beautifully all weekend.
Sincerely,
Chris Johnson
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