By Trevor Alexander Hermance – E-mail – Call/Text: 860-986-9613Hey all,

Here’s a heads up on what we’ll be doing on the marketing and publicity fronts during the “offseason” (not much of one with our pavement-indifferent rally programs!):

January 11-13, 2013
The Northeast Motorsports Expo and Trade Show

Augusta Civic Center, ME
The 25th Annual Expo will gather race tracks, sanctioning bodies, and fans for a chance to jumpstart the 2013 season with the latest news, products, and socializing opportunities! A fun pit crew competition is planned for Friday night. NER will have two club racing cars there courtesy Stephen Blethen and the RST Performance ITR #50 Mazda RX-8 team and Joel Arel’s STU #74 Evergreen Subaru WRX squad, but extra help representing our sports car lifestyle is always appreciated! If you’re able to volunteer, let me know; if not, at least consider stopping by on the weekend to hang out while we give the SCCA some recognition in the northeasternmost state. And if it’s too far north for you, then you should instead check out our season-opening event, the great two-day Stafford Springs RallyCross in CT!
See two versions of the event poster here and here.

February 8-10, 2013
The Racers Expo

Best Western Royal Plaza Hotel, Marlborough, MA

The big news for 2013 is our new format for the club’s Annual Meeting, held symbiotically with The Race Depot’s Bob Seymour’s annual Racers Expo. Like the other shows, this is a gathering of teams, tracks, and touring series with vendors that will benefit from more sports car involvement. The show runs three days and we’ll have a booth, but there will also be space reserved for NER which we’ll use to expose club racing, solo, and rally to a lot of the fans and predominantly oval-racing-centric participants there. The space will also be for our annual business meeting Saturday afternoon and “breakout rooms” where the programs can flesh out plans for the coming year. And on the evening of the 9th, the popular NER Awards Banquet will be held where we get to congratulate (with friends, family and fans) the winners of championships and regional awards from 2012. This will also be the awards ceremony for the 2012 North Atlantic Road Racing Championships. Dinner registration is online, and likewise, let us know in the forums if you would like to volunteer for the show hours! If you’d rather not stick around for Sunday’s added activity (a result of the blizzard), then drive up into some more snow at the Team O’Neil Test & Tune RallyCross!

March 2-3, 2013
Frank Maratta’s Auto & Cycle “Show of Dreams” and Motorsports Expo/Race-a-Rama

Eastern States Exposition Fairgrounds Better Living Center, West Springfield, MA

This show has a long history in Connecticut but now moves to the Big E site, of Race-a-Rama fame! It appears the event organizer (which has hosted NER venues Lime Rock Park and New Hampshire Motor Speedway as exhibitors for some years) continues to expand the racing side of its activities, perhaps even combining with another planned event at the location, the Need for Speed Expo. Yes, it is the same weekend as the SCCA National Convention, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get a squad from one of the areas most densely populated with SCCA members to get our name out there – and have some fun in a racing environment while we’re at it! The biggest feature of this is its always impressive collection of highly customized classic cars, trucks, and motorcycles. We’re looking for help. Let us know if you would be able to park your car in a booth for the weekend and help out!

March 16-17, 2013
Wide Open Expo

MassMutual Center, Springfield, MA

Now we have a place to strut our stuff in front of the “powersports” and extreme competition crowd, with the cars spread among the motocross cycles and snowmobiles of this new event in the heart of New England! We came on board somewhat late but won’t be alone, with some other varied race series and tracks also present (thanks partially to the February blizzard that blitzed much of The Racers Expo). We’re in desperate need of help here, we can fit two cars! There is an event poster available at this link.

March 30, 2013
New Hampshire Motor Speedway Open House & FANtasy Drive IV

Loudon, NH

Here one of our favorite places to play opens its doors for everyone to explore the wide variety of activities it supports, as lots of clubs and organizations fill the garages with displays. We’re allotted some space as always, and it would be to our best use showing off Club Racing (perhaps different styles of cars from open-wheel to big bore and between), Solo (ditto – A Mod to Stock?), and Rally/RallyX (lots of you showed up in full force in 2012!). You know what’s coming: tell us if you want people to ogle your car!

April 29-May 2, 2013
Formula SAE Formula Hybrid at NHMS
Loudon, NH

Formula Hybrid is one of several events not sanctioned by NER that we nonetheless have a large hand in conducting with our experienced and professionally-skilled volunteer base. Post in the forum if you will be able to support this event which trains the upcoming automotive engineers of the United States, and provides us a good opportunity to grow our participant base!

Other events will be coming down the pipeline as well, remember in 2012 we were represented by different members at car shows such as Stafford, CT’s Wicked Big Meet for Subarus, at the Lime Rock Park Historic Festival which runs on Labor Day Weekend, and at NHMS’ Automotive Career Day. For all of these, you too can have your competition machine on hand for the adoring fans to fawn over and take photos of, and you get to hand out stickers, PitTalk magazines, schedules and information to prospective new members who can net you SCCA credit. You may even get a free NER shirt! It’s fun to get out there and help inspire people and is easier than you think; plus, it’s another event to do for FREE! We need help for all of these, it’ll keep the club going.

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New England Region SCCA Annual Meeting to be Held in Conjunction With The Racer’s Expo