May 12, 2006

To: ProSolo Competitors
From: Howard Duncan, Tasha Marlow, Cindy Jansen
Subject: Nationals Schedule Change; ProSolo Finale and Warm Up event

We wanted to take this opportunity to make you aware of a Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Championship press release that will be coming out later today regarding the 2006 event schedule, as it has the most impact on ProSolo competitors planning to run the Finale event.

The move of the event from Forbes Field to Heartland Park Topeka (HPT) provides a significant number of advantages and opportunities, as well as a handful of the inevitable challenges that always happen with any relocation. These kinds of challenges require new approaches as we all adapt to a new event setting. The general facilities at HPT will provide us all with a great new environment that will add to our enjoyment of Nationals, but the obvious big advantage of HPT is the wonderful pothole free pavement that will allow for truly unique courses from year to year. However, the shape of that great pavement presents some limitations if we try to conform to what has come to be thought of as the traditional schedule.

Although through many of the years in Salina we did not have a Warm Up event, the last few years in Salina and all of our years in Topeka we have, and now this has become an expectation for many of the competitors, especially this year on new pavement. So it is our desire to be able to meet this expectation. As most of you are aware, our years at Forbes Field did not allow us to have the space for truly championship caliber ProSolo courses. It was our expectation that this unfulfilled need would finally be met with the move to HPT and it remains a primary goal of ours. However, the shape of the Solo pad at HPT now means we have competing and somewhat mutually exclusive goals of wanting to maintain a significant Warm Up event AND championship caliber ProSolo Finale courses.

Therefore, the press release mentioned above will announce a change in the Nationals schedule to address these competing goals. The ProSolo Finale will move back by one day to be run on Friday and Saturday (September 22 and 23) and the Kansas Region Warm Up event will be run on Sunday, September 24, along with a new National Test and Tune event.

We understand the hardships this may cause for some, so we are taking actions to mitigate the inconvenience as much as possible. While the event may be starting on Friday with a regular first day event format of two heats and one heat and Challenges on the second day, the actual start time on Friday will be 10:30 AM (Saturday 8:00 AM) to better allow for late arrivals. Additionally, we will allow registration check-in to be extended for the remainder of Friday. The vast majority of Finale competitors have typically arrived by late Friday morning, so this extended registration period will cover virtually everyone. This will not allow competitors to make up for runs missed by a late arrival, but it will allow for the handful of folks that cannot make it to the site until Friday afternoon to still compete.

We know that some of you are thinking that you will be able to be there by late Thursday or very early Friday, as that was your original plan, but you will not be able to make practice starts that will now happen on Thursday afternoon, which by the way will start and finish later than usual. Well, to address that we will be offering a limited number of FREE practice starts on Friday morning, prior to Heat 1. Look on the SCCA web site (www.scca.com) in July for further details on the Finale.

This revised schedule provides the following advantages:

· The majority of Solo Nationals competitors could now come a day later and save a day away from home or work since the Warm Up will happen only on Sunday, rather than the previous two day format of Saturday and Sunday.
· The ProSolo Finale will finally have adequate space for championship caliber courses and the support areas (grid, impound, etc,).
· Will allow for a higher entry cap.
· ProSolo competitors will now be able to take part in the Warm Up event and/or the new Test and Tune event.
· Getting ready for the Sunday evening ProSolo Banquet will be more leisurely.
· Extended hours for practice starts on Thursday and limited FREE starts on Friday morning.
· More time to socialize with old and new friends.

We hope that this advance explanation has been helpful and that this schedule change does not cause you to change your ProSolo Finale plans.

See you at HPT in September for the best Finale ever!!!