Norcal86 2015 Year in Review

[finch1750]

Our second year is in the books and it went by quicker then ever. Again big thanks to all of you as the NorCal86 community is the whole reason we are here. Props to the 2015 NorCal86 Board — @MyRx, @PMok, @BunnyRZed, @Pish for sacrificing your time to help everyone else enjoy theirs.

to start you can find the 2015 Profit and Loss document HERE

Let’s talk a little bit about some of the highlights from the past year for our group.

Nearly every month a large number of our Northern California community gets together for the Dublin Meet-N-Greet, which takes place the 2nd Friday evening of every month. We welcomed not just 86 owners but all types of cars to join us for a fun and casual meet atmosphere hosted graciously by our friends at Dublin Toyota/Scion. The next Dublin meet is coming up on Feb 12 so we look forward to seeing many of you there! For those who crave even more frequent meets, the SF/Peninsula group and the East Bay groups continued to hold several casual meets each month, typically on a weeknight. The South Bay and North Bay regions occasionally held local meets too. Board member @Pish also hosted a monthly gokarting meet for those who seek a little friendly competition with fellow 86ers at the local gokarting venues. During the summer months we saw some familiar faces and cars participating in several of the major car shows & gatherings in the Bay Area, representing NorCal86 proudly — Blox Evo2, Wekfest, Super Street at Edgie’s, and SPOCOM to name a few.

Undoubtedly one of the major highlights of the year for us would be our second annual Summer Kickoff that was held in June. This is what takes the most time, resources and planning to put together, especially when we are doing everything by the book. Yes, that means working with state and local authorities and paying the appropriate fees to secure a venue and ensure the freedom to operate. We had 110 cars and over 150 people come out to Lake Del Valle in Livermore for a killer show and BBQ. We had awesome support from vendors near and far in 86Cup and the Cusco/Winmax crew, CounterSpace Garage (who drove up from SoCal for the 2nd year in a row), SpeedElement, Meng Motorsports, Dublin Toyota, Legitt Styles, FT86SpeedFactory, and The Racers Line. These amazing sponsors provided us with fantastic raffle prizes from steep discounts on roof wraps, custom alignments, to HID kits and more. Furthermore they brought out some fantastic show cars and let us pick their brains all day on the wide variety of setups on display. With that said, this year's event was definitely a challenge and we learned a lot, which we hope to apply to make the next event even better.

We had a successful return of the Norcal86/Summer Kickoff shirts as well. Due to popular demand we had to reorder a second batch just like last year. Sales of these shirts, along with registration fees for the Summer Kickoff event, allows us to raise club funds and can help cover the costs of organizing future large events and securing larger venues as our participation increases year-to-year. Don’t forget you can also purchase a NorCal86 decal for your car, toolbox and laptop to show your support for our community.

Just a few short months after Summer Kickoff we gathered together in a surprisingly large meet to celebrate 8/6 Day! On a Wednesday night in Fremont we had over 100 cars show up throughout the evening in the name of celebrating our cars and their heritage. This meet did not go so smoothly unfortunately as security came and started hassling us. We made the best of a difficult situation and went to eat and held a quick raffle before the event was broken up, but there will need to be changes for this event moving forward. The cops were cool but we did have a few participants who didn’t help our cause. PLEASE BE UNDER CONTROL! We had a few guys driving way too fast as well as at least one driver chirp their tires. This does not help our conversation with security and the police. We don't like having to come down harshly on our own people but if we have to, we will take disciplinary actions and cooperate with local authorities, to enforce our rules and ensure the safety and enjoyment of all who attend.

86DRIVE held driving activities throughout the summer, with plenty of group drives, track days and autox events taking place for drivers to participate in and earn some stars. We wrapped up a rather lengthy driving season at Laguna Seca with the Norcal 86Cup/86DRIVE End of Season meet in December. Thanks to our generous prize donors including The Racers Line, Elite Performance, CounterSpace Garage, Cusco/WinMax, GT Radial, NCRC, and Scott Grasso Photography (@PWolf), we had a great assortment of raffle prizes to reward our active drivers for participating all year long.

2015 also marked the second season of the Cusco Winmax NorCal 86Cup Challenge, an amateur-level time attack series driving the FRS/BRZ platform. Drivers from throughout California met at various racetracks including Thunderhill, Laguna Seca and Buttonwillow to test their machines and their skills to the limit. Congratulations to the 2015 86Cup champions: Jeff Juanlu (Unlimited class), Wilson Wong (Street class), and Austen Chen (Stock class) for taking home the trophies with some fantastic driving all year. And thanks to NorCal86 Board member Jessie Sito @MyRx), who co-founded and continues to head the administrative efforts for this competitive series for the NorCal region.

An important principle of our leadership has been that we have to remember to give back to the communities we live in. We did this by hosting our third annual ToyDRIVE this winter. With the growth of the club we were able to benefit two organizations this year. In November we got together with Sac86 to benefit the Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services. One of Sac86's leaders graciously offered to host a potluck and let us gather our food and toy donations at his home. Then in December we gathered to support the Benioff Children’s Hospital – Oakland for the third year. A big thanks to SpeedElement for playing host again and members of the Board for running point the day of the event. Between the two events we donated almost 200 goods (toys and clothes) and 50 lbs of food! These numbers were down a little from last year but we still had great events and a wonderful showing from the community. We still have been able to fit everything in one car, so our target remains to surpass one car load of toys. The gauntlet has been thrown down, will you be a part of it when we achieve that goal?

Some sad news this year as well -- we lost a dear community member when young Matthew Maniti, the son of Arnold aka @mrmaniti passed away suddenly at the end of August. Matthew came to the Dublin Meet-n-Greet with his dad often and was a car guy just like us. He had just gotten a super clean WRB bugeye WRX that was his dream car. Together with your donations we gathered at the September Meet-n-Greet and a $100 donated from Norcal86 funds, we gave $230 to the Matthew Maniti Scholarship fund set up by his family in his honor. Further donations for the family or to a scholarship fund may be made to the Matthew Maniti Fund. For more information about donations, please contact Brenda McFarlane at brendamcfarlane@att.net, or contact me.

We continue to find new ways to reach out to existing and potential members, whether through the FT86Club Forums, 86DRIVE.com, on Facebook, or other social media like Instagram. No matter what you’re looking for, chances are you’ll find it if you connect with us through the many available channels.

We do this all for you, so please talk to us. Let us know what you like, what you didn’t like, how you think something could be made better. But please keep in mind that this all takes a lot of work and manpower, so come and get involved at meets by seeing how you may be able to help. We have achieved so much, but we can always do better. We all have something to offer to make this community better so don’t be shy, come talk to us, join us, be one of us.

So Happy New Year, thank you all for your support, and I look forward to seeing you all around in 2016.

[finch1750]

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