USARM Latest News
We still need over 100 more workers. Don’t worry about the due date on the application. I’m taking applications until I’m full. If you already signed up and have friends who want to work the race, have them sign up and say they want to work with you. Spread the word about the race. If we don’t get enough workers there might not be a race.
World Superbikes are returning to Laguna Seca in 2019. The Race is in July this year. We need a full crew of 232 Corner workers. MotoAmerica is also running a full schedule. It will be just like last year. This is USARM’s 60th anniversary, so we’re going to try to do something special at the Race. We fell short on Workers last year, so spread the word. Applications will be available on the website shortly after the New Year. If you need applications mailed to you, send your mailing address to twkuwada@earthlink.net and how many applications you need and they will mailed to you. Hope to see all of you at the Race this year
The applications for the World Superbike are out and we’re busy working on the race. Laguna Seca is busy with all kinds of improvements that are mostly infrastructure and not racetrack specific. Meanwhile, our board has also been very busy going through some changes.
We shared with you at the last General Membership meeting in 2016 that there were some financial issues left unaddressed by a former board member. It has taken us this long to work through those and determine how to proceed to ensure our club remained healthy. Due to the numerous outstanding issues, the associated costs and with recommendations from our corporate counsel our Board made the decision to create a new corporation. While it was quite a bit of work, it is better for our club to start fresh.
Our new name is not that different. We will be called the USARM GROUP. We had to quickly fill an opening on the board during this transition so the Board elected and assigned Elena Goldfoos who has been a member for about 10 years working primarily with Ted on the paperwork, organization and logistics during the races.
We did not have an election this past year due to all the corporation activities but we will have one at the end of 2018 and will be back on track with the corporate specific requirements. Just rest assured that we are back on track and in good standing again with the State of California and the Franchise Tax Board.
I want to thank all our board for their outstanding support as we worked through all these issues. You have a board whose heart and soul are dedicated to ensuring our club is healthy now and will continue to remain well into our future.
If you have any questions on these changes just let me know. You can drop me an email at – jan@usarm.org or JanKaufman52@gmail.com and I will get back to you ASAP.
See you in June!
Enjoy Livin’
Jan
WORLD SUPERBIKES 2017
I’d like to thank everyone who came out and worked the Race and supported the Club. I needed everyone I could get. We were short handed top to bottom. We didn’t have enough workers to run the landline. Everybody did what they were asked to do and everybody worked together to make things work. Over half of the workers were newbies or never worked with us before, so it felt good to see everyone working as a team with the goal of having a safe event. TM’s had double duty. They had to run the Turn and work an RC position without the help of a Communicator. You did a good job moving people around to fill holes before the Inspection. Thanks guys, especially Myles, Alex and Joel, who were new TM’s this year. Dragon Wagon kicked ass again, not sure how you did it with only 6 guys, but you must have tired at the end of each day. Gators covered the track Friday with only 3 of them. I had to use 2 gator drivers to Flag where 2 people didn’t show up. Thanks Sandy and Phil. Bev and Egor Thanks for filling spots in Race Control. My crew rocked again. Elena you help me so much, I don’t know what I would do without you. Jody, Rene and Scott, thanks for doing what ever it takes to get things done. Shelley, Thanks for coming out and helping me when I was in such a bind. I didn’t know what I was going to do before you showed up. I owe you one. I want to Thank my fellow Board Members for all the work they do behind the scenes leading up to the Race and while at the Track. Next year’s Race is supposed to be at the end of July, not the beginning of the month like the last 2 years. Not supposed to make the date public yet, but if you need to know for vacation planning or hotels shoot me an e-mail. The schedule usually gets released at the end of September if you can wait. The group picture on the hill for Nicky was awesome. Gill showed the picture to Nicky’s mother when she gave her the checkered flag we signed. Gill told her quite a few of the workers were here when Nicky won here in MotoGP. She was touched by the gesture. RIP Nicky. You’ll be missed for a long time………………. Thank You again to everyone. Be safe and take care. Hope to see everyone again next year.
Dear USARM friends:
I cannot thank you enough for being a part of the Motul FIM Superbike World Championship event this year. Your participation is enormously appreciated. The giving of your time is treasured, not only by my organization, but also the riders involved in the weekend, without you, this event would not happen
This year, we pay tribute to our own Nicky Hayden, the loss of whom will be felt for many years to come, both at Mazda raceway Laguna Seca and around the world.
Please know that my staff and I are always here to help and once again, thank you for your support.
Sincerely,
Gill Campbell
CEO/general manager
Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca
Congratulations everyone for a successful event. Things were a little tight leading up to the Race, worker wise, but we pressed and got enough workers to do the event. We had over 100 new workers this year. I hope they had a positive experience and want to come back next year. We were a little busier than normal on track, or it seemed to be. Maybe it was from all the multi bike crashes. Dragon Wagon Crew, you guys kicked butt again and took care of everything. We had a couple of new TM’s this year. Diego and Henry, thanks for stepping up and taking on more responsibility. Thank you everyone who worked Friday and made it work. It was tough Friday being so short on workers, but everyone worked together and pulled it off. Most of my complaints to Laguna after last year’s Race were addressed. The lunches were much better. We had more vehicles to get workers off track and down to workers camp. The time for getting workers off track are still too short, but they worked with us so no one got left on track. People who were here early at workers camp on Thursday got a surprise visit by Kenny Roberts and Wayne Rainey. They might do it again next year. Speaking of next year, the Race is July, 7, 8, 9 2017. I need more 3 day workers. We had 46 2 day workers. 3 day workers will get priority and have a better chance of working where they want. It’s too much work to make major changes to assignments for Saturday and Sunday. I want to thank my crew, Elena, Jody, Kenny, Rene and Scott. I couldn’t do it without you. Rick and Ryan, thanks for coming out early and help setup. Robert, Joe, Mike and ? (I didn’t get a name), thanks for pulling station signs for me after the race. One less thing I have to do before I go home. Let’s do it again next year. Thanks again everyone. Hope everyone has a good summer. Take care, be safe. See all of you next year.
- Ted
World Superbikes are back at Laguna Seca with MotoAmerica again in July. Applications have been mailed to those who worked last year and who I have a valid mailing address for. Applications can be found on the USARM website. You need to fill out a World Superbike Worker application and a Membership application. Send the applications back to me as soon as you can. If you need verification that you will work the event so you can make vacation / travel plans, send me an e-mail. If you have any other question do the same.
- Ted
Hello USARM faithful. It's that time of year again......Board member elections are right around the corner. This year three Board member positions will be elected. All current USARM members are eligible to run for these positions. Those who wish to run need to email a simple document stating their intention to run for office. It should include your race/track experience and have some details about yourself. Inclusion of a picture of you is not required but is highly recommended. Please email this campaign document to directors@usarm.org as soon as possible.
Scott
I want to thank everyone who came out and supported our club for the World Superbike / MotoAmerica Race at Laguna Seca. Gill Campbell asked me to pass along a big Thank You to the workers for another great weekend. Overall it was great weekend for the Club. There were lots of good things and few bad things. I’ll start with the bad. The lunches were horrible. I sent a lunch every day to the VP of Facility Operations to show him what we got for lunch. He agreed with me 100%. Jan tried to show the VP of Event Operations (who ordered our lunches) what we got for lunch, but she wasn’t around (numerous times). I vented my displeasure with Gill Campbell (CEO of Laguna) about the lunches in an e-mail. I’m with you guys. I was a corner worker. It’s been a few years, but I know what it’s like to be out there all day. Lunches are a sore spot for me. I eat what you eat for lunch (or tried to this year). Please don’t ever think I would feed you something I wouldn’t eat (on purpose).A couple of things we had no control of was the shower trailer was cancelled Wednesday night. I know because the couple who bring it down asked if they could work the race since they planned on being there and their daughters were working the race. The other one was we were supposed to get two more vans to take workers back to camp on Sunday night, but were unavailable to us because they were being used to shuttle family members to the hospitals. The last bad thing that happened was we lost two riders.For me, you never want to lose a rider. We’re out there for their safety. We all know racing is a dangerous sport, but that doesn’t make it any easier when you lose a rider let alone two. It was a racing accident and there was nothing we could do to prevent it. Godspeed Daniel and Bernat.Our thoughts and prayers are with your family and friends. RIP boys.
Now for the good. The worker count was up this year. Thanks to everyone who helped out when I asked. The Track Inspections Rocked again this year. Passing the Inspections makes my job so much easier. Impressing them on Friday almost gives us free pass the rest of the weekend. Thank you everyone. We cleared incidents quickly, got bikes off track and to the garages(for WSBK) and they were happy. We worked through rain in July at Laguna. In my 29 years of working bike/car races at Laguna this is the first time it has rained in July. It sprinkled once in August during the Historics. The last thing I thought we’d be doing was Hefty bagging it in July at Laguna. Race Control (WSBK, Dorna) was very happy with our overall performance. Laguna Seca was happy. If they’re happy, I’m happy. Everyone pat yourself on the back for a job well done. Let’s hope the County and SCRAMP work something out and have World Superbikes back next year. Thanks again everyone. Be safe, have fun. Hope to see you next year.
- Ted
World Superbikes and Moto America July 17-19 2015. It's that time again for Racing. Get your applications in ASAP. We need a bunch of workers still. Lots of positions to fill. We need Flaggers, Handlers and might need a workers camping crew if last years don't return. Don't wait for the last minute to send in your apps! Don’t worry about the due date on the Worker app. We're taking workers till we're full.
- Ted
First off I want to pass along a big THANK YOU from Gill Campbell for an excellent weekend. I’d like to second that. I’ve never had so many compliments about the Inspections and how well you guys did out there clearing the track from Laguna, SBK and the AMA Officials. When you guys perform like that it makes my job so much easier during the weekend. They are going to use video from our Track Inspections for training other tracks what a Track Inspection is supposed to look like. We got an A+ excellent rating on Sundays Inspection. Whenever a bike went down, you guys hustled out there and worked as a team to clear the incident. The SBK Officials were very impressed. To me it looked everyone stepped it up one notch for Race Day. I like that because that's when the rest of the world is watching and I think we represented our Country well (with help from our Canadian workers). Everyone pat yourself on the back for a job well done. I hope everyone enjoyed Jonathan Rea and Leon Haslam little visit to talk to us. I thought it was great they told you they rely on you workers out there to keep them safe. It's great to feel we’re all in this together. The autographs and group picture a huge bonus. No promises, but Valentina ( Dorna PR) told me said "it is possible to this again next year". Let's hope so. THANK YOU to everyone who came out and supported our club to make this a successful event from top to bottom. Everyone keep in the back of your mind what you can do better next year, because we have match or improve on our A+ excellent Track Inspection rating and our flagging and response. Don’t ever be satisfied with what you did last year, there's always room for improvement somewhere.
On another note. Everyone who was supposed to give membership and worker apps and didn't won't be contacted next year for the race. I need to put your info into our data base. Send it to me if you want to be contacted when we find out the date for next year. For some of you I only a first and last name.
There are some pictures of workers on SuperBikePlant.com and Crash.net has a video of all the WSBK crashes
THANK YOU again everyone. I hope to see you next year.
- Ted
USARM.ORG has been under construction since the beginning of the new year, and we apologize for the brief downtime.
USARM would like to thank Mick Housel and Doug Smith for helping us get back online.
Same old features...
... and some new features.
I want to thank everyone who came out and supported the club for the MotoGP weekend. We passed all the FIM Track Inspections. It was a great job by all the Workers new and experienced to pull together and make it a successful weekend. Thank You to all the TM's and experienced workers who took new workers under their wing and showed them how it's done. I got lots of positive feedback from lots of new workers about how much they learned and how much they enjoyed working with you. Good job, that's how we make our club stronger.
On another note, I want to thank all of you who were on a radio for your patience dealing with the issues we were up against all weekend. I voiced my concerns over the issues we had all the way to the top. They are working on a solution to the problem, because SCRAMP can't have another weekend with radio issues during a FIM / Dorna event, or they could lose the race(s). This is/was a very serious issue with SCRAMP and they were working on it all weekend. A big Thank You to Kenny, Scott, Rene, Shelley, Lawrence, Elena, Ryan and Alan for the late nights Friday (2:30AM) and Saturday (1:30AM) we had charging and checking all the radio's before we went to bed. It would never have happened without you.
Next up World Superbikes. If you applied for WSBK and worked MotoGP, you are working WSBK. It's automatic acceptance. If you signed for both and didn't make it MotoGP, drop me an e-mail and let me know you are going to show up at WSBK. I'll get around to contacting you, but it's better to contact me ASAP. I still need around 80 more workers for WSBK. If you know anyone interested, have them sign up. Disregard the deadline. I'm taking apps till I'm full. You'll get an e-mail confirmation and a mailed one like MotoGP. If you worked MotoGP , you'll only get the confirmation letter and anything new for WSBK. Most of the other things are the same for both groups, so hang on to your MotoGP packet.
Thanks again everyone. Let's get some rest and recharge the batteries because we're going to this again in less than 2 months.
- Ted