When MiDiv’s Chief Driving Instructor Bill Allman and I started talking about the idea of an easy,
non-traditional SCCA Driver’s School, we had no idea
two of our first students would be young men who
would excel almost immediately. Ben Wolf was the first.
He went on to win the Midwest Division Championship,
Rookie of the Year for Kansas City Region, and his
ARRC race, among other awards in his IT7. Now, Nic
Hammann, another Kansas City Region member, has
upped the ante.
In 2010, Nic, then 16, attended a non-traditional
school at Mid-America Motorplex near Omaha, Neb.
After racing a few SCCA events each season while
he finished high school and his first year of college,
he entered the Nissan GT Academy competition. He
was one of several hundred thousand who logged
thousands of miles on the PlayStation’s Gran Turismo
game to qualify as one of 32 “racers” to make it to the
Nationals in New York City. At the Nationals, he was
one of 12 to qualify for a week-long competition at the
Silverstone circuit in England. This competition was
their first in real cars; tests of physical strength and
stamina were also thrown into the mix. That week-long competition was taped and shown online and on
Spike TV. The shows can be viewed at www.nissanusa.
com/gtacademyshow.
Spoiler alert: Nic went on to
win the overall competition and
was then flown to Dubai to
compete in his first race as a
professional driver for Nissan in
the 24 hours of Dubai. Since his
win in September, he has
remained in Europe earning his
FIA license by running 14 club
races and training for the
upcoming season. At Dubai, he
drove the Nissan GT-R GT3 to a
second place finish.
TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS
I read paper newspapers,
paperback books, and real
magazines, but I also
acknowledge the limitations of
the printed word. That is why
I am no longer going to
comment on fluid situations in
this column.
RACING ROOM
WORDS Jim Wheeler, Chairman, Club Racing Board
IMAGE Courtesy Nissan
The Spec Miata community might have noticed that
my comments about the future of Spec Miata heads hit
the mailbox about the same time as the announcement
that was totally opposite from what I had written. So, of
course, I used the online forums to let everyone know
my column in SportsCar was wrong. It helped that the
final outcome was what almost everyone seemed to
want, so the fallout wasn’t too bad.
At a recent SCCA Board of Directors meeting in
Topeka, Kan., I presented the Club Racing Board’s
agenda a few days after the CRB had met in
Indianapolis. Since it was the last meeting for BoD
members Robin Langlotz and Mike Lewis, and the first
meeting for their newly elected replacements, Lee Hill
and K.J. Christopher, I started my presentation by
saying, “The CRB had 567 letters since our last
meeting with the BoD.” Actually, there were more. “For
the new members,” I continued, “I would like to discuss
them all individually.”
I picked up a big pile of papers and said, “OK, letter
number one,” and watched the two new members turn
a bit pale. Fortunately for all concerned, that’s not how
the system works and we were able to handle all the
CRB business in short order.
Before the CRB portion of that meeting, the BoD had
discussed changing the GCR to create a Class
Compliance Chief position. The new rule reads: “When
assigned to an event by the head of Club Racing or his
designee, the CCC works with
the event technical staff to
provide consistent compliance
checking across all the events in
the designated class(es).
Decisions made by the CCC
regarding compliance are
non-protestable.”
Keeping everything in line
between the BoD and CRB are
our liaisons. Todd Butler returns
as one of the BoD liaisons to the
CRB. Steve Harris, who helped
us in 2014, is moving on to
other assignments, and Bruce
Lindstrand will be the second
liaison for 2015.
This will be used, initially (and
starting immediately), for Spec
Miata compliance, but could be
used for any class in the future.
If a car is found to be non-compliant by the Compliance
Chief, it’s a done deal.
Now, Nic Hammann,
another Kansas City
Region member, has
upped the ante”
GAME ON
Nicolas Hammann took advantage of
the non-traditional SCCA Drivers School
program, and a few short year later won the
GT Academy (ABOVE) and is competing in
professional races with Nissan (LEF T).
