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Todd Covini
11-30-2006, 12:52 AM
(Reposted from the Racing Forum for General Interest communications)

Look, guys...
I'm going to be candid here and not hold anything back.
I hope I don't offend anyone, but, Here's my "Top Ten" style of responding to 7 pages of posts here....

1) Mike had a valid question as to whether we would be running any 40 min. races next year.

2) The real question at hand we (Clifton/Shannon/Todd) intend to have worked out prior to January is...how many races per weekend should AI/CMC anticipate? (TBD)

3) The # of races per weekend really should be our first priority, and the length of them should be secondary. 30 min races are a good compromise (between 20 & 40 min), but I don't think we need to decide length of races before R1...we do need to decide # of races before R1. FWIW...I'm not offended in any way that folks have decided to contact NASA directly. NASA TX has an "open door policy" and value customer service as a high priority. I too have been in touch with all the NASA folks working thru all of these things in parallel, so there have been no surprises or backfires.

4) It's amusing to watch us debate a restructured NASA weekend schedule...3 months before the next event. Can we debate how Smith, Pedersen/Marvel and Burch should prepare their cars next season now too???

5) I'm no where near retiring...and just gettin' started!!!

6) I'm dumb & stubborn and stay with things for the long haul...in good times and bad...even moreso if I love 'em and believe in them!!!

7) I'm a NASA groupie from way-back, hung with the band when they were playing in garages...and will stick with NASA & NASA National as we march forward.

8 ) Our Texas AI/CMC goals & objectives from Day 1 have not changed. We've had a very successful formula so far and I'm not about to change anything major. We've obtained our 20-car field goals and our objective will always remain to have our own AI/CMC race group. We'll revisit that when the day arrives that we approach 40 AI/X cars and 40 CMC cars...and then our objective will be to separate AI and CMC fields and run them separately back to back on the schedule.

9) 2006 was a year of compromise. We all need to put our General Interest hats on and recognize that until Kevin & Jaybird (and the other racing groups) get their act together and get a full field of ~20 GPC/ETC cars together, the possibility will exist that they run with us. This will get looked at prior to each event on a case by case basis and hopefully K-Mix will spend less time on the AI/CMC forum and more time growing and nurturing his own series so we can take his training wheels off and let him ride solo with his own run group of 20+ cars. <<smack>> We lub ya' Kevin...but I had to say it! (Kidding aside...He's in transition and probably had the highest GPC/ETC car count to date at the last MSRH event...we should applaud his efforts...they can't be that far away from their own run group!!! Right??? Right???

10) The 2007 Texas AI/CMC Leadership Team is in place and ready to go. All discussions with those directors/coordinators and NASA, regionally and nationally, have taken place and all systems are a go. We'll certainly miss the efforts and contributions of Richard and Adam next year, but the people coming in to replace them will have more roles, more responsibilities, more authoritity and, as such, more effectiveness in these new positions. (And they'll be able to cover my ass when I'm away for any extended periods of time!!!) In the next week I'll announce more details of my team and how we're going to manage Texas AI/CMC for 2007. For those of you that were around 3 years ago, it'll look very familiar. We're gettin' back to basics and anticipate an awesome 2007 Texas AI/CMC Championship Season!!!

IMO...2007 will be a year of "make it or break it" for Texas AI/CMC. There isn't a single person I've talked to that wants to "break it"....and therefore...we're going to MAKE IT!!!

Stay tuned and Happy Motoring!!!

-=- Todd Covini

PS- Those new CMC rules should be out any day now...I think things got fairly settled today!!!
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Texas AI & CMC Series Director