The 2010 SCCA San Francisco Region race schedule has been released.  It starts with the annual free test day around New Years, which will be a good opportunity for me to test out the engine and see if I’ve finally moved beyond the cooling issues.

The first regional race weekend isn’t until April.  That’s a long time from now!  And, unlike past years, it’s at Thunderhill instead of my favorite track, Infineon.  In fact, we only have one weekend listed at Infineon, and it’s not until August!  That sucks.  Maybe that’s a good reason to do a couple of NASA races this year too.  I’ll have to think about it.  The good news?  All the weekends are doubles.  Same number of races, but fewer weekends.

The preliminary entry list is out for the San Francisco Regional season opener at the end of the month, and doesn’t look like the economy has been TOO hard on the program.  193 entries on the list for the opener isn’t too bad at all.

Some bad news though:

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The event schedule for the SCCA regional season opener has been published, and it’s right here.  I can’t wait, this seems like a very long off-season!

The SCCA’s 2009 Road Racing schedule has been posted, and it looks pretty good to me.  A total of 8 weekends: 3 races at Laguna Seca, 2 at Infineon, and 3 at Thunderhill.  Like 2008, it’ll be 12 races + one bonus race, plus the 4-hour enduro.  Hopefully we’ll have an IT Triple Crown race again (we’re working on that.)  I would still like to try out a BMWCCA race, but I just don’t know if there’s really going to be enough free weekends to do it.

So the season won’t start until late March.  That’s kind of a drag, but since I’m making super-slow progress on the off-season to-do list, maybe that’s a good thing.  Seems like every time I start one project, I end up with 2 more on the list.  But the car is here at home, in the garage, so that as I get a little time I can get things done.

I’m really looking forward to next season.  It’s been only 6 weeks or so and I’m feeling some withdrawal symptoms!  We’ll have at least one more new ITR car around, Mike Uhlinger in his Prelude VTEC.  The build of the car is in progress and it should be pretty nice and fast when it’s done!

As I mentioned in when I told you about my updated season schedule, the new plan includes running the 49th annual 4-hour RDC Illgen Enduro at Thunderhill on October 26th.  This race follows a regular SCCA race on Saturday.

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All season long, I’ve been planning on trying out a couple of BMWCCA races this year. There is one coming up (with SCCA Vintage) at Infineon on September 20-21, and another at the same track October 25-26 (with NASA HPDE).  But … after consulting with the family, I’ve decided to change the plan.

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NASA NorCal published the schedule for the April race weekend, and I have to say, it’s pretty lousy.  Each day, there’s a 10-minute practice, a 20-minute qualifying session, and a 20-minute race.  And those times are TOTAL, including pace car laps, cool-down laps, etc.

The SCCA weekends have 30-minute practices, 20-minute qualifying, and 30-minute races — and those are the actual durations of those events.  SCCA includes a buffer between each race group to get one group off the track and another one on.  NASA includes no such buffer so the published times have to include those group setup times.

The preliminary entry list for the upcoming SCCA race was published this week, and I’m very pleased to see 3 ITR competitors for the season opener!  In addition to the two regulars from 2007, a big welcome goes to Michael Courtney in an E36 BMW 325.  Bring ‘em on, I’d love to see more!

This weekend was the 2008 season opener, and it was a lot of fun and a little bit exciting! The weather was absolutely fantastic for any time of year, but especially for February. It was only in the low 40s early in the morning, but 70 in the afternoon, and bright and sunny all day with a very gentle cool breeze. Beautiful.

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This morning I replaced the 2007 version of the home page with the all-new 2008 version. The significant thing is what I’ll call the “final draft” of the 2008 race schedule.

It includes 10 race weekends, from February through November. Pretty full season.

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