2023 season banquet recap
We had a great CMC banquet this past weekend. I want to say a huge Thank You to Craig + Pip for hosting and to AMCM for having CMC join the event. We have known the AMCM guys for many years now with most of them previously racing in CMC and AI. We have also gotten to share the track with them in the same race group for the last 3 years.
The event had 40+ people between CMC + AMCM and was an excellent time hanging out in Craig's shop. The food was amazing with Craig's smoked chicken, pork, and lamb. We also had tons of sides with potatoes, stuffed mushrooms, mac+cheese, green beans, potato salad, caesar salad, corn dip, and more. Dessert was an excellent banana pudding, cookies, and I'm sure more that I can't remember.
The drinks were the typical beer, wine, sodas, and an excellent hard cider that Craig and John had made.
Joining the current CMC racers in attendance was OG racer Rob Liebbe, Gary Robertson, Dan Allford, Jeremy Gunter, Sean Richardson, and Ross Smith.
Rob, Sean, and Jeremy still have their cars and we would love to see them back at the track soon.
Ross sold his car but it is perfect timing because it is for sale again by the individual Ross sold it to, sounds like an easy purchase for Ross to make back, haha.
Gary has recently built and tested his AMCM car and we are excited to see him back at the track in either car, preferably in CMC.
Dan recently did a shake-down run of his silver 4th gen Camaro and plans to be back racing with CMC in 2024!!!
We talked through the season awards with some available for hand-out and some that are still in the works and will be given out at MSRH in just a little over a month away.
3rd place in the season Championship and always a blast to race with and hang out with was Ryan McFall.
2nd place in the season Championship and also our 2nd place finisher at the National Championships was Steve Gernon.
1st place in the season Championship that came down to the final day of racing and also your Hallett Summer Shootout winner was Sam Crumpacker.
Rookie of the Year went to Todd Spickard for great racing all year and capped off with an excellent 2nd place finish in the ECR Race 1 rain race.
The Golden Helmet winner was Bryan Leinart for his spectacular off at Cresson in the rain. This award was originally the "Going the Distance" award and Bryan did exactly that sliding down 1/2 the staight sideways while coating his car in mud and collecting a few worms along the way.
The IRON MAN award was presented to Todd Spickard for starting and finishing every race in the 2023 season. Marshall made a 30 lb. man of iron trophy from various broken engine and car parts.
The Crew Chief of the Year award was presented to Steve for Baxter as he was the sweetest and best paddock dog around. Baxter was a friend to everyone, especially if they threw little balls of tire or any other object for him to chase.
Thank you all for an amazing 2023 season!!! We had a great growth this season with Austin Hample moving to TX from CO and joining our group. We also had Todd Spickard run a full rookie season as well as new rookies Nik Stokes, James Evans, Jonathan Valdez, and Chris Fleming.
We hope to have more growth next season with Clint Bell who has moved to TX from the Great Lakes region as well as Melvin Clay and Keith who are working through HPDE currently and already have race cars with Melvin's 4th gen Firebird and Keith's fox body Mustang.
