CHAIR CHATTER: I'm so excited!

Tomorrow is race day y'all!

I'm so excited for the 2021 ERCU Racing Season to get underway. Jerry and Paul Dunlap have a great day planned for us at the Champion Spark Plug Regatta tomorrow, back at it's regular home - Fort Borst Park in Centralia.

Several of us will be there early with Steven Taylor delivering the club trailer right around 7 a.m., Dunny, Paul and I arriving around the same time. The goal is to have the race course set by as close to 8 a.m. as possible, and we'll get the pits and the official barge set up early too.

Knocking on wood while I type this: It looks  like the weather will actually be decent this year, too! Overcast skies and a high of 61 degrees are in the forecast - and have been for a few days now.

I wanted to share just a few thoughts as we all pack up our rigs for tomorrow's big day:

PRE-REGISTRATION: While it's not required, it seems to have been pretty popular so far. Thanks to those who have chosen to pre-register and pre-pay for the entry fees. Online pre-registration for the Champion Spark Plug Regatta has already accounted for 26 1/10 scale boats! It is pretty easy to imagine that there could be 30 or more 1/10 scale boats at tomorrow's race! If you'd like to pre-register, click here to do so. Again, it's not required, but it should save you time on Saturday morning, and it helps the club be prepared as well.

THREE MINUTE CLOCK: Just a quick reminder that we will again be using a three minute clock for all racing this season. Because we're anticipating big turnouts during the 2021 season, and we're thrilled to add the 1/7 scale starting at the Diamond Cup in Longview, race days will get much longer than they've been in the last few years. For this reason, once the three-minute clock starts, it will not be stopped for any reason other than health and safety. As usual, we will be sensitive to back-to-back heats, boat retrievals, etc., but please do your best to be ready for your heat so we can keep the day moving along.

HEAT DRAWS: Starting tomorrow, we'll begin again posting printed copies of the heat draws and/or use a big screen monitor so you can stop by the scoring tent to check out how the day is going. This posting will be at the official barge (scoring tent) to make it easy for everyone to have the updates. It's been suggested that we try to figure out how to push the heat draws out to members phones as well. That's something we definitely aspire to do, but may not be ready to do at tomorrow's race.

INSPECTIONS: If you have a new boat, or one that's undergone significant change during the winter that has not been inspected yet, please be sure to arrive early enough that you can have your boat(s) inspected prior to the drivers meeting. Inspections are primarily done by the club inspector - Robbie Roberts - but can be done by any board member if Robbie is unavailable or too busy. Boats are only required to be inspected if they are new to the club, new construction, or have had significant repairs and/or modifications since the last time it ran in the club.

NAMBA MEMBERSHIP: In order to race, you must be a member of NAMBA, which means if you haven't yet renewed (or obtained) your NAMBA membership for 2021, today's the last chance to do so. If you do it today, please print out the confirmation page and/or email you receive from NAMBA proving you've paid for your membership and bring it to registration at the race. There is also the option to purchase a single event insurance from NAMBA, but you can only utilize that once a year. Click here to take care of NAMBA membership online.

COVID PRECAUTIONS: We say it a lot, and we know all of you are cautious and smart about it, but please do pay attention to the club's Covid Guidelines. We will be watched at our events, not only by the jurisdictions that allow us to use their parks, but also by the public, so let's be smart and careful about the club's guidelines. It would be awful to lose a race site because we weren't following our own guidelines. Even worse if someone in our club got Covid. Yuck!

I think that's it from me today. I'm looking forward to being with you all again, and getting the boats wet. Let's have a great race day and may the best driver win!