Just an update for all—we are filled up for the Tuesday night dinner.

We have seating for 64, we have reached that number, so unfortunately we will not be able to add any other diners.

We have the capability of moving off site and accommodating more for the dinner, and I expect we will consider this again next year, but so far, our members have preferred staying on the Road America grounds, as that makes it easier to include their family and crew.

Feel free to weigh in with us on your opinion.

We are looking forward to the dinner with great anticipation; it will be a fun evening.

Don Knowles

Hard to imagine but the SCCA's 47th annual Runoffs are coming up on us fast – September 20-26 at Road America.
Here is a quick update on the members who will be competing - along with details of our Tuesday night Dinner, and an update on the Mark Donohue Award selection process.

_{RRDC VP and Treasurer John Fergus will be going for championship number seven in his Sports 2000}

RRDC DINNER TUESDAY NIGHT, SEPTEMBER 21 - LIMITED SEATING: FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED -  RSVP BY MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6.

Thanks again to the efforts of Tom Dehn and Toni Haynes, we will have the RRDC Dinner at the Briggs and Stratton Motorplex in the infield on Tuesday night September 21st.  Dinner starts at 6:30.  Looks like it may be prime rib or walleye.  Cost is $25 per person, cash bar.  Please bring the correct cash or a check, as we will not have charge card capability.

The room limits the size of the dinner party to 64 folks—first come, first served.  There is no fairer way to do it.

_{RRDC Co-Host Tom Dehn at last year's Dinner}

_{Jim Haynes works the crowd}

_{The infamous RRDC Cheesecake}

Please let us know three things:  Who is coming, how many will be in your party, and how many of your party wants prime rib and how many want walleye.  RSVPs to Tom Dehn, at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , with a cc to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and another cc to John Fergus at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Don  will be out of the country from September 2-12, so if you need to reach him, be a little patient and he will try to respond to all emails.

RRDC MEMBERS COMPETING.
By our very rough calculations, RRDC members have won well over 200 National Championships - and that number could well increase this year. 
The following members are shown on the SCCA.com website as having entered the Road America event, September 20-27.  Hopefully we haven’t overlooked anyone but if so please let us know.

Niki Coello -  FC   (Firman)
Jim Dentici  -  GTL   (Honda CRX)
Jim Downing  -  CSR
John Fergus  - S2   (Carbir)
Jim Goughary  - GT-2  (Nissan 350-Z)

John Heinricy  - T1   (Corvette)
Carl Jensen  - GT-1 (Corvette)

Don Knowles  - T2  (Pontiac Solstice)
Pete Peterson -  GT-2 and GT-3 (Toyota Solara and Celica)
Kent Prather  - GTL  (Mazda Miata)
Tom Schwietz  - FB  (Citation)

THE MARK DONOHUE AWARD
As you know, since 1971 the Road Racing Drivers Club has honored one driver in the annual SCCA National Championship Runoffs who RRDC members feel has stood head and shoulders above the crowd in terms of personal spirit and performance behind the wheel.  It is not necessary to be a Runoffs champion to win the award. 
We are asking all members in attendance to get together during the week and compare notes about the races, looking for the Donohue Award winner.  I will have a press pass again and plan on watching all the races I can from the tower, which has the track feed on monitors.  I will be on my email and cell phone at the same time, so please get in touch with me if you have a favorite nominee.  We can discuss further at the Tuesday night dinner.

See you there—Don Knowles

The Monterey Historic Races (newly renamed The Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion) kick off this weekend, and on hand will be an all-star group of RRDC members including: Dan Gurney, Stirling Moss, Carroll Shelby, George Follmer, Bob Bondurant and Hurley Haywood.

Dan Gurney will be the featured guest and will be honored with displays of Eagle race cars spanning his career - including Formula One, Indy cars, Trans-Am, Can-Am and IMSA GTP prototypes. He'll also have a public interview and autograph session called “Dan Gurney--The Cars He Built, the Cars He Drove.”

Sir Stirling Moss OBE will race his recently acquired 1961 Porsche RS 61 Sports Racing Spyder for the first time - a sister car to the one he raced in the Targa Florio. Sir Stirling’s return to racing after his serious fall down an elevator shaft in March is testament to his remarkable conditioning regimen. His return will be in race group 1A against an impressive list of Porsches, Listers, Lotus’ and Maseratis on August 13-15.

“To have Sir Stirling make his return to racing at Mazda Raceway is an honor,” said Gill Campbell, CEO/general manager of Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. “It will be a wonderful treat for our fans to see him in his first drive in his newly acquired race car, and equally so for his competitors who are in the same group.”

The Porsche race car is similar to the RS 60 Sir Stirling raced during the 1960s, in which he nearly won the 1961 Targa Florio.

On Friday morning at The Quail from 10:30 to 11:00, celebrated Porsche driver Hurley Haywood, 1972 Can-Am champion (Porsche 917/10) and Shadow driver George Follmer, Shadow team owner Don Nichols, along with McLaren and Lola Can-Am driver Bob Bondurant will join photographer Peter Harholdt to sign the  book “Can-Am Cars in Detail”.


Then from 1:30 to 2:00 the legendary Carroll Shelby will be joined by his 1965 World Manufacturers Champion driver Bob Bondurant, Shelby GT350 development engineer Chuck Cantwell, and Shelby sales representative and drag racer Don McCain to sign “Shelby Cars in Detail”.
The Monterey event is using a new name this year as it will be run by the Sports Car Racing Association of the Monterey Peninsula (SCRAMP), after more than three decades of oversight by Steve Earle and his General Racing company.

Almost 20 years have elapsed since the Team USA Scholarship was founded with the intention of assisting talented, young American race car drivers in the early stages of their careers, and the RRDC has long been a proud supporter of the program.

^{Team USA allows young American drivers to race with the world's best.}

Jimmy Vasser, a newly-elected member of the RRDC, was selected as the first scholarship recipient in the late summer of 1990. Then a promising youngster who had enjoyed some success in Formula Atlantic but had taken a step backward into F2000 in order to move his career forward, Vasser carried Team USA’s patriotic red, white and blue colors in the prestigious end-of-season Formula Ford Festival & World Cup at Brands Hatch in England. The results were nothing to write home about but Vasser created an excellent impression and, above all, returned to California with a fresh outlook on the sport.

^{Jimmy Vasser at the 1990 Formula Ford Festival}

"I couldn’t believe how cut-throat it was over there," he recalls. "I knew it was going to be competitive but it really opened my eyes."

Vasser went on to enjoy a successful career in the CART/Champ Car Series, winning the championship for Target/Chip Ganassi Racing in 1996, and is now part-owner of the KV Racing Technology IZOD IndyCar Series team.

Among the many other accomplished Team USA Scholarship alumni are Bryan Herta (1991), who, in addition to winning a Firestone Indy Lights Championship, is among a select few drivers to have won races in CART Champ Car, the IZOD IndyCar Series and the American Le Mans Series, and is now a race-winning Firestone Indy Lights series team owner; 2004 Indianapolis 500 champion Buddy Rice (1997); 2007 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year Phil Giebler (2000); Champ Car race winner-turned-NASCAR Sprint Cup contender A.J. Allmendinger (2001); NASCAR race winner Jerry Nadeau (1993); Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series GT Champions Paul Edwards (1998) and Andy Lally (1999); and 2009 Firestone Indy Lights Champion J.R. Hildebrand (2005).

^{Team USA's A.J. Allmendinger interviewed in 2001.}

The accolades have continued to accumulate this year: Allmendinger claimed his first Sprint Cup pole at Phoenix International Raceway; Lally already has earned three Rolex GT wins, plus one in the ALMS’ GT Challenge class last weekend at Lime Rock Park; Conor Daly (2008) currently leads the Star Mazda Championship Presented by Goodyear by a handy margin by virtue of winning four of the first five races of the season; Joey Hand (1999) has emerged as a front-runner in the ultra-competitive ALMS GT category at the wheel of a BMW-Rahal Letterman Racing M3; and Josef Newgarden (2008) recently claimed his first pole in European GP3 competition, a feeder series for the FIA Formula One World Championship.

The alumni have been garnering headlines in other arenas, too. For example, in addition to his racing successes, Lally is regarded as one of the leading protagonists in the extreme sport of street luge after winning a world championship last year in Australia, while Memo Gidley (1995), in addition to being a regular contender for Doran Racing in Rolex Grand-Am Series Daytona Prototype competition, has emerged as a front-runner in the hotly contested DJSA Outlaw personal watercraft racing series after winning Rookie of the Year honors in 2009.

^{2009 - Team USA's Brett Smrz and Connor DePhillippi.}

Looking forward, Team USA Scholarship officials expect to announce candidates for the 2010 season within the next month. The intention is to select two gifted youngsters and afford them the opportunity to travel to Europe to contest both the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch and the Walter Hayes Trophy Formula Ford event (won by Team USA’s Daly and Connor De Phillippi in each of the last two years) at Silverstone.

The Team USA Scholarship, now in its 21st year, is supported by Doug Mockett & Company, Road Racing Drivers Club, Cooper Tire & Rubber Company, Robo-Pong, Highcroft Racing, "The Road to Indy," American Honda, Silicon Salvage, McMurry Inc., Dyson Racing, Metalore, The Gorsline Company, Integrated Performance Technology, Robertson Racing, PitFit Training, Sparco USA, Cruden America, iRacing.com, OnCars.com, eFormulaCarNews.com, Speedstar Management and Manifest Group.

Michael Argetsinger has written a pair of fascinating books that belong in the library of every self-respecting RRDC member. One is the biography of Walt Hansgen and the other of Mark Donohue, and together they masterfully chronicle the glory years of road racing in America – from the early days at Watkins Glen through the Can-Am era.

_{Donohue and Hansgen - two former RRDC Presidents}

Walt Hansgen was one of America’s greatest road racers in the 1950’s and 60’s, driving the world’s fastest sports cars for Briggs Cunningham and John Mecom. He also distinguished himself in F1, the Indy-500, and NASCAR.

Mark Donohue was his protégé and enjoyed an equally illustrious career driving in the 60’s and 70’s for Roger Penske. He was a Trans-Am and Can-Am Champion and Indy-500 winner.

Both were active RRDC members, served as Club Presidents, and proudly sported RRDC logos on their helmets. Naturally there are multiple references to the RRDC and its activities in both books. In Hansgen’s case they center around his attempts to mediate battles between the purely amateur Sports Car Club of America and the drivers who wanted to see their sport turn professional.

_{Walt and Mark share the cockpit of a Lola T-70}

One interesting excerpt comes from an article that Donohue authored for Sports Car Magazine in 1964 explaining what was required to become an RRDC member at the time: “ One must be a competent and accomplished driver, a sincere gentleman, and well-liked by the existing members”, he wrote. (Clearly those requirements have been somewhat relaxed in recent years – ed)

_{Walt driving a Lotus F1 car at Watkins Glen in 1964}

_{Mark on the grid at Lime Rock in his Lotus 20 in 1965}

Both books are filled with great inside stories and Michael Argetsinger is ideally suited to tell them. The son of Watkins Glen Grand Prix founder Cameron Argetsinger, he was the proverbial “fly on the wall” at many of the events recounted. And he has backed this up with meticulous research along with extensive interviews with many of the key players.

And like his championship-winning subjects, he has received many accolades for his efforts - including this year’s International Automotive Media Award for best biography, best book, and best overall 2009 – for the Donohue book. The Hansgen book took best biography and best book honors in 2006.


Walt Hansgen – His Life and the History of Post-War American Road Racing.

Mark Donohue – Technical Excellence at Speed.

Both are published by David Bull Publishing and can be purchased at www.bullpublishing.com

TD