President’s Post: Last Track Event of The Year Yields New Dummkopf

Dear GGR Members,

We just finished the last event of our track series, six HPDE weekends with Time Trials and seven Club Races at our four regional tracks. This month I’d like to focus on a couple aspects of our Time Trials at Laguna Seca.

First of all, the series is growing, TT#1 at Thunderhill had 11 participants, TT#2 at Thunderhill had 16 participants, TT#3 at Buttonwillow had 17 participants, TT#4 at Sonoma had 22 participants, TT#5 at Thunderhill had 25 participants, and TT#6 at Laguna Seca finished the season with a record 30 participants! I believe the growth of the TT series is because the track team has been doing a good job of promoting it. The other reason is that drivers are getting less intimidated by the idea, they are starting to realize that TT doesn’t have to be a super competitive thing. We have our core group of competitive TT drivers, but we are starting to get certified students, intermediate drivers, and ”first time at this track” drivers participating as well. You can participate for the points or you can just enjoy the track all to yourself for a few glorious laps.

Another aspect of the Time Trials series is that it yielded a new Dummkopf Award recipient. The award goes from past-President Ed Hunter to track driver Andy Brian. Andy has been a long time track participant and he always brings his beautifully prepared 1972 914 with a nice flat-six engine in it - Andy is fast! So this is how he earned the Dummkopf:

During the Laguna weekend, I think a few of us were encouraging Andy to try the Time Trial, so when Sunday came, he signed up, attended the TT drivers meeting, and we all went out for the timed runs. When you come off the track, we have volunteers that stand by the track exit to look at your timing equipment and write down your lap times. Timing equipment can be a Garmin Catalyst, an AIM Solo, a smartphone with an external GPS unit… you get the idea. So Christian Stangier, Paul Thompson, and I were standing there at the track exit, writing down the lap times for all the drivers coming off track. Then we see Andy’s silver 914 come off track. We ask him, what are your times? He jokingly rattles off a few random numbers. Then we are like, ok seriously, what are your times? Andy looks at us a bit confused and says aren’t YOU supposed to tell ME what my lap times were?

At that moment, Christian, Paul and I realized that Andy never read the TT Rules and just assumed the Club would be recording his lap times for him! We had a good laugh and sent him back to the paddock. It's funny because Andy was such a good sport, went out and drove his heart out for two hot laps, coming off the track full of anticipation to find out how he did, only to be greeted by blank stares and realizing that there were no lap times to be written down. I hope you all agree that this is a pretty good reason to receive the Dummkopf. Hopefully Andy will get an external GPS for his phone and come back for TT#1 in 2026 and start gunning for season points!

I wish you all safe travels and laughter with friends and family.

Sincerely,

Howard Yao

president@pca-ggr.org