SCCA VIDEO SPARKLER

Every year, SCCA sponsors an "Annual Meeting" for all of its members. Each region has its own meeting where they hand out awards for workers and drivers. For the drivers, it's all about who had the most points in their class in our region. SCCA has many classes of cars as you could tell by the pictures. We are the Central Florida Region. We are the second largest region with 2500 members. San Francisco Region is the largest. There are a lot of regions all over the country and we all have parties AND we all compete for the National awards. The National meetings are held in Denver and all of the top awards for best in the country.
It's really a huge end of year blowout party for all of the officials, drivers, crew, and family. We usually descend on a city on a Friday night and stay in a hotel through Sunday. There is a formal party and dinner for the awards. It's a big deal. Famous speakers, a band or a DJ and everyone sparkles. We usually race once or twice a month with these people but never get to see them in other than racing garb.

Previously, I had taken a vacation with Jeanie, her sister, and husband on a tour driving around California and Nevada. Did Vegas, Tahoe, Reno, Sequoias, and San Fran. All 4 of us have National licenses so we can work at any event in the U.S. We scheduled our trip so we could visit the S.F. Region and work at their track, Sears Point. When we got there it was misting a little rain. Not even enough to get wet. Unlike NASCAR, we run in the rain. Not in California I guess. They should have had 200 cars between all the classes but there were hardly any there. They were greatly over staffed with workers so we didn't need to work. It was a great social event meeting their officials. They treated us to a few hot laps (in race cars at speed!) and lunch.

Mandy was filming with an 8mm camera while I talked to everyone. I asked them what they thought about the Central Florida Region and they really picked on us albeit in good fun.
Ok, so the video... I worked at a company called Multi Image Group as a producer / director / creative talent for corporate business shows. Since I had all of the resources in house, I decided to make a video "sparkler" to run on a screen at the annual meeting. Being competitive (and a smart ass to boot), I decided to pick on the San Francisco Region, sort of lobbing an orange at them, a Florida orange. The regions are very competitive with each other so I took a film crew to Sebring for a National race on Labor Day weekend.

We filmed 2 full days. Many cameras, hundreds of hours of footage which we edited to a few minutes with graphics, special effects, and sound track. The interviews with SFR officials are a little difficult to hear but you'll get the jest - drivers of SFR are afraid to bring their cars out in a little rain. The soundtrack is Molly Hatchet that I got clearance from Sony to use. The song works well with this video. Two of our cameras were attached to cars. The last part of the video is one lap, 17 turns, 3.6 miles from a drivers view. Every driver said "Yep, that's what it's like!". The video was a donation to the club no charge and is still being used at recruitment booths at fairs and races. For full screen right click on the video and choose FULL.