The "Past Vehicles Owned" thread got the 'juices' flowing, so some other background on me and a project I'm working on
:As some of you know, I'm originally from Massena, I moved to VT only 2 years ago (hey, today in fact
). In 1988, my father and I, with a small volunteer committee, (re)started the Massena Area Soap Box Derby race; I saw an article in "Car & Driver" about the national race - "Hey, Dad, guess what they still run?". It took almost a year and a half before our first race in June 1989. We had to do everything from scratch: Learn how to build the cars so we could teach others. Design and build ramps, figure out judging, bracketing, timing (I built the first set of digital timers used for the event from Radio Shack stopwatches and IR 'eyes' wired to relay boards from York HVAC units until we could afford to purchase national-event-quality units), and safety. Secure fundraising and sponsorship (corporate and individual) (IIRC the annual franchise fee is up to around $1700, but includes a $1 million insurance policy). Plan and budget banquets (1 pre- and 1 post-race), trophies, awards. Arranging transportation to Akron, Ohio for the winning cars and families, and on and on. Then as we learned, and secured better funding, we improved equipment: professional-quality timers were $1200, scales around $1600, trailer $2500, etc. One of our shining 'stars' is a set of all-aluminum ramps constucted, w/ their blessing, at the Alcoa machine shop, including what is believed (by Akron) to be the only set of 12 VDC actuated started paddles in the world (pat. pend., the German organization is really interested in being the first customers - no kidding). Another is the dozen or so cars owned and sponsored by fraternal organizations and businesses for use by less-fortunate families. Eventually we learned how to make the cars nationally competitive, things like aligning the axle spindles for toe and camber and axle mount tightness ('rock') under weight and load to .001". As a result we've had a top 3, a top 6 and a top 9 in the world, racing against cars from as far as Japan and Germany - and every racer there won to get there, so there's no 'slouches'. Oh, did I mention dealing w/ the occasional "over-enthusiastic" Dad? Anyway, the MASBD just ran it's 21st annual race this past June 7th, and I still go back to help (stepped down as Executive Director in 2005); we've won 2 national awards for the way the race is run, as well as 3 for car construction or preparation, as well as the placings mentioned above...
Now, the project: I also started, 14 years ago, a push to build a permanent racing facility in a under-utilized Massena park. A permanent facility would allow for additional events (Rallies, practice, etc) not available due to the nature of closing a public road, as well as the increased level of built-in safety - always most important when someone is trusting you with their child's safety in a home-built kit car reaching 30+ mph. Due to a depressed economy in a sparsely populated area, it lapsed into a 'coma' (for lack of a better term), until recently, when a major re-construction project of a state road through the village enabled the donation of fill, sub-base (the 'millings') and earth-moving needed to bring the project closer to reality. So I've been spending quite an amount of time on this recently - I missed the July SCCV mtg because the same evening I was presenting to the Massena Village Board - and have been working (again) with Village and Town governments (approvals and funding - just secured $15k from the Town for top-coat) and DPW's, NYS DOT (discovered a stash of guardrail - "But we only need about 2200 feet - and it's for the kids!"), private utilities (is sited within the ROW of - actually goes under - a National Grid 365kv line - those towers at Stowe are tiny in comparison), and am working w/ the Town Recreation Commission on an operational plan to include a it as part of a larger all-season recreation area ("Hey, why don't we ice it in the winter for 'luging'?)...
After (again) receiving approval from all the "interested parties" - all the same agencies as 14 years ago, just all different people, a week ago, on August 10th, I worked on-site with the Village Engineer to 'shoot' the centerline of the track for visualization, and received the 'final' OK from the Village Public Works chief. Earth-moving/grading begins this week, awaiting only my final approval of track surface elevations...
If all continues as planned, the track should hold it's first practice May 2010...
- it seems as the contractor for the street project learned the hard way what working for NYS DOT is all about; "There's no delays, in fact we're ahead of schedule (until we read the fine print)" - idk - so as it got later in the season it was brought up that if the street was not "safely plowable" by the village, the contractor would have to do it (= mucho $$$$) - but they could come back and finish in the spring. So, the "regrind" intended for the track sub-base got "recycled" onto E. Orvis St. for the winter; leaving a meeting the Supt. of Public Works asked the company prez if they were still gonna do the earth moving for us and he said they definitely would - :fingerscrossed: ...
(Thank You, Gary!). Our pavement (topcoat) cost may be going down a tiny bit (it actually gets lower everytime I hear a price, but I don't expect that to continue), plus the Village will be able to pave it themselves - the track is designed 20' wide and their paver is designed for that w/ it's wings installed. We've gotten ~1/2 our guardrail, and w/ posts (the posts are a bonus, I never even bothered to ask, just considering myself lucky I was getting the 'Armco'!) (the difference between us and 'highway' people?: they call it "W-beam"), and we may have an anonymous donation enabling the purchase of "geotex" stabilizing cloth for under everything...
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), National Grid then decided that we couldn't locate the track were we'd already been told we could locate it - running between the towers to get a better elevation drop (more speed); there's a buried ground cable that connects the towers, which we had assumed just went to ground rods. The depth we would have needed to dig might have interfered with those, sooo back to the drawing board to re-site it...
). Verizon and St. Lawrence Gas are on board with moving lines. Things (for the moment) are looking up once again...
