RE: the return of sunriser? - From the horses mouth
I regret that I've not spent much time watching for interesting stuff on SpecialStage for a while, but had someone visit the CORC site a fire me an email that I might want to see what's being said about Sunriser..
SO - Here is what is real, and what is "maybe" from Dick Paddock:
First, the Sunriser and Tulip events were put to bed about 6 years ago when we ran into problems with our relationship with SCCA, and also found ourselves fighting some local bad PR due in part to the Fatal that occurred in Vinton County(service crew hit local while left of center), but more significantly our inability to keep service crews and competitors from speeding on transits. We'd promised the Ohio Highway Patrol & Sheriffs that we would immediately exclude anyone they reported to HQ for speeding or a moving violation - by the competitor or their service crew.
In 1995-1996 we had significant problems with SCCA in enforcing this, and to be honest I could not, in good faith, tell the OSHP Major that things would improve. (Particularly difficult since I worked for the Ohio Department of Public Safety and saw these guys pretty regularly as part of my State job.)
So - having run into those snags, we tried a Divisional event to try to regroup and got 4 entries. With a $20,000 road bond / fee to pay that didn¡¦t work so the 1997 event was canceled and we all went off to raise kids, and other similar stuff.
So - Now its a few years later, I've retired and have my own company doing traffic safety stuff and am at a point of having some extra time on my hands. Last December my wife Tammy (medical coordinators for Sunrisers) and I went out to Laughlin so see what the story was on the new USAC Series - largely because I don¡¦t think that SCCA would EVER support another Sunriser / Tulip event no matter how much we paid them.
We were very impressed with the USAC commitment to the new series, and were treated VERY well. (BTW - How many of you remember PROS - PRO Rally Organizer's Society - and the meeting we had with USAC about an alternative to SCCA in the 80's). At any rate, I came back from NV with a bug to see what I could do about re-organizing Sunriser. I'd received some informal support for the idea of a 100% paved event, as I was given the impression that a mixed event like the old Sunrisers would be a problem.
WHERE IT IS:
Today Tammy & I spent the day driving the old stage roads iN tar Hollow and Scioto Trail. Although I'd been told there was a lot of new asphalt, there was actually very little new pavement. We think we have a good TSD event to be run under the CORC banner on October 18 that will follow what "might" be the route of the first day of as future stage event. (four legs of about 50 miles each out of a Chillicothe setvice area with about 20 miles of stages in each).
The CORC event will be a basic mileage-tulip SLOW TSD (remember the speed limit in the forests is 20-30 MPH) but will go over the roads and allow me to get a feel for some of the local attitudes about bringing Sunriser back. Check out the Central Ohio Rally Club site (
www.corc-rally.org) later this week for more information on the TSD event.
WHAT MIGHT BE:
I place the following after a very big, bold "IF"...
Given that ther were a mechanism that would allow us to put on a shorter event like the above route to try to get a committee working again, train some new people, and begin re-builing the local political subdivision support-
And Given that I can get a few people to com out of retirement and / or find replacements for the missing slots -
And Given that OHIO DNR will allow us back in without ALL the old restrictions (maching local road milage, no gravel twice, etc.) -
And Given that my company stays healthy so we can afford to subsidize the event until there is income to start a bank account -
Then you might see the re-birth of Sunriser in a year or so.
I plan to be at Cherokee Trails during the week (probably not Sat) to feel out the possibilities of working with them on insurance / sanction, etc. for a 'breeder event'. We'll see what the next few weeks yield.
If you would like to offer comments directly, feel free to email me at
[email protected]. I'll be trying to get the old Sunriser web populated with some basic information and a comment form over the next couple weeks at
www.tsass.com/sunriser400.
Thanks for all the well-wishes I've gotten since Eric started this thread.
Dick Paddock