Wow, very cool Mick! I remember a few years back when you told me that 1986 was the founding year.... 30 years of racing, onroad and offroad!
A few early timeline memories for me:
1. I joined IROCC in roughly 1991 when I was 14 years old and IROCC was offroad racing at the Hartland track in the summers. I distinctly remember visiting the track for my first time one evening and only Thomas and his mom were there. Haha, Tom's social skills at that age were funny.... I'm glad I gave him a second chance as he turned out to be a real RC mentor and friend over the years - helping me with a lot of RC projects and non-RC projects too.
2. My first IROCC Speed Weekend was 1992 I think, and I remember absolutely crushing the usual track record in my first buggy qualifier on the Saturday morning. As I was running the qualifier, I was like "I'm killing it!". Then all the other racers and heats proceeded to also dominate the track records and I realized that the Speed Weekend track grooming was worth quite a few tenths for everyone!
3. My first IROCC road trip was 1993 I think. Many old school IROCCers (Daryl, Kevin, Matt, Tom, Gord, Nicholas) traveled together to the Randy Shantz Raceway in North Vancouver. I remember sucking pretty badly myself but cheering on the other IROCC contenders as they represented our club.
4. My first onroad racing with IROCC was in 1996 or 1997. Craig and Daryl organized carpet racing in Duncan and I learned to race 12th Scale there. What a blast it was to race all evening in Duncan, then return to Craig's house in Langford and watch the video footage in slow motion, and then drive home to Sidney for bed at about 5AM!
I'm not even close to an IROCC original, but I have been fortunate enough to have been a part of the family for about 25 years. The RC hobby, the IROCC club, and most importantly, the IROCCers themselves have had a pretty big impact on my life and I feel very lucky about that.
Let's do another 30.
Blake
