More Ramblings of an Old Fart...
Carrying a grudge for 40 years....
One Reason I'm
Hot on Midwestern Council and Cool on SCCA
After completing college in the early '60s my automotive enthusiasm shifted from circle track and drag racing to sports cars. Dennis Holland, my buddy since high school, had gotten a new TR3A and we rallied it for a couple of years. Then I took the plunge for an E-Type roadster (A cream colored beauty with red leather and chrome wires. Sure wish I had it now!)Thinking we'd like to learn more about sports car racing, we went to Wilmot Hills, just over the Wisconsin border, where there was to be an SCCA race. There we got our first personal taste of the Sports Car Club of America.
Although we were decent looking chaps in a legitimate sports car, probably good membership prospects, there was no way the stiff-necked registrar was going to allow us to watch their closed event. I even invoked the name of Dave Dangler, my old neighbor, who was a founding member of the Chicago region, but it didn't help. We were sent packing in no uncertain terms!
Another fellow in line volunteered that Midwestern Council of Sports Car Clubs was having a race at Lynndale Farms that same day. So we drove a little further north to Pewaukee, Wisconsin.
The Midwestern Council reception couldn't have been more different. We were welcomed as prospective members and the overall effect from that day was very warm and fuzzy, compared to the freeze-out from the national group.
Shortly after that early contact I started racing in Midwestern Council, and I have been continuously active as a racer, worker, officer and ceaseless promoter for Midwestern Council for over forty years. And in and out of SCCA a couple of times when I had to be.
Would a welcome at that SCCA race those many years ago have directed this enthusiasm into the national group? Who knows?
Does SCCA care? I doubt it. They've got enthusiastic members coming out their ears. But one more couldn't have hurt.
Ross Fosbender
