Tweet
As I reflect on the US Title Series Mechanics School held this weekend, I want to thank a few folks who gave up their Saturday and sit in wonder how you draw over 50 drivers and crews in the middle of winter to this. Better yet, I sit here in awe at the educators we had this weekend who gave up their time and talent to help folks they are going to have to beat on the water yet this year. They did it for the love of the sport and their fellow competitors, there can be no other reason. For this we are grateful for them and the learning opportunities they provided in the school.
This can only make the USTS stronger as an organization and our drivers more informed and competitive this summer season. I know we heard a lot of interesting ideas and tips and should be of great help to all. of us. We look forward to USTS Mechanics School II and take what we learned on how to put this together and enhance it from the feedback we received from the attendance as to their needs for the future.
Interesting that we had a number of drivers and crews from other than the Pro discipline at this school and they have commented that they learned a ton, and will be back to the next one. The beauty of this school also allows the drivers in Stock and Mod to come over, have a look at what we do and the equipment, and the help available should they want to try Pro at some point.
Our biggest thanks to Dan Kirts for providing such a wonderful venue with lots of room to maneuver and tools to accomplish the teaching aspects. Dan also along with Brian Dygert helped in providing coffee doughnuts and lunch Saturday and Sunday meal and what a job they did to help us put this on, our thanks to them for a job well done.
We want to give thanks to the educators who were able to provide excellent help and education to their specific areas of expertise
In the motor pool were:
Mike Schmidt, who helped with the Rossi motors. As you might remember Mike's Son Eric won the 250 and 350H USTS National championships against stout fields in both categories'
Mike Thirlby, the magic wrench with the Konny's for his expertise, and how do argue when you look at the number of championships that his drivers, Andrew Thirlby and Austin Van Over have won with those Konny's.
Gary Buskirk, also known as Buzzy. Buzzy also demonstrated how to setup and shim a racing lowerunit. Buzzy spent hundreds of hours learning from his idol Ed Thirlby. He still spends hours working in the boat shop with Mikey. Also a national champion, you can see the hours of love spent on his equipment.
Mike Wienandt, helped out with engine tuning and specifications. Some of you might not know of Mike's prowess in engine building snow machine engines and winning not only boat racing championships, but snowmobile championships as well. Mike owns and operates Wienandt Performance Technology and actually gave up a snowmobile race weekend to help us, Thanks Mike, as it turned out race was snowed out.
David Jones, owner of many National championships came in to give us tips on taking care of our lower units, maintenance and setup tips.
Craig Dewald, I think everyone knows what Craig does and how good his props are. There are not too many races where Craig is at that someone isn’t looking for him to help them get that last mile an hour out of that rig.
Steve Roskowski comes over from the IOA club, and is a wizard at composites and was able to give out tips and ideas. Steve has worked in the industry with both NASCAR and INDYCAR experience
Bill Boxler, worked with the guys who are hungry for DATA. Bill setup his display geared towards anyone using or interested in a Mychron 5! He downloaded data for drivers, help configure setup pages and the basics.
Dan Kirts Dan is a multi time World and National Champ
and anything he says you know your going to learn something. He continues his quest for championships each year with the Title Series. Danny is currently working on a crank project and building motors.
Derek Gesler, current VRP dealer had new VRP inventory set up on display. Owner operator of GMW ran things from behind the scenes this weekend answering questions one on one.
Again our thanks for those who taught and for those who chose to grow. It was an exacting day of learning, fun, and productive time spent with our friends. We look forward to taking what we’ve learned from our first one, expand for the second one, and be able to help more of our competitors with issues, questions, support and Projects.
Join us this summer, the best of USTS! We look forward to seeing you on the water.
Derek
