Street Survival 2020

These events have been cancelled for 2020.

The dates for the Mossville Street Survival are now on the calendar for September 26th and 27th (2 classes, one each day) and open for registration.

Several Lincoln Trail members volunteer for this and have since the beginning.  We always need more volunteers so if you can spare some time to help young new drivers learn car control please contact Rick Largen. We have many volunteer jobs from registration and managing the various course obstacles to in-car coaches.  The Illini BMW Club with support from Lincoln Trail, Kauth & Mayeur, and Caterpillar (and many others) have been hosting the Street Survival in Mossville Caterpillar building AC parking lot, and using the Caterpillar AC building and auditorium, since 2011.  This is a great way for car people to give back to the community.

Driving events on the calendar already

It's still January but car clubs are already busy getting driving events on their calendars.

Autocross

The biggest autocross club in Central Illinois is the Champaign County Sports Car Club.  Here is their autocross schedule they just posted.

The Central Illinois Region (CIR) of the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) also hosts autocrosses in Central Illinois, including Mossville.  I have not seen their 2020 schedule yet though.

High Performance Drivers Education (HPDE)

Some of us LTR members have already signed up for the CIR PCA Spring Brake HPDE at Putnam Park April 24 - 26.  This is a great event for all from beginners to experts.

The dates for the St Louis Region PCA HPDE events at Worldwide Technology Raceway at Gateway are:

• April 24-26th - Registration opens 2/29
• June 5-7th - Registration opens 4/4
• October 16-18th - Registration opens 8/15

More clubs will be adding events soon so this is just the beginning.  You can search for driving events at Clubregistration.net and Motorsportreg.com too.

Car stuff in Central Illinois

Here in the Midwest we enjoy a rich car culture. Even in Central Illinois, away from the big cities, we have plenty of car related things to do. We also have many activities within a few hours drive from here as well. I wanted to share some key website to get people started. 

Social Events and Groups

• One of the larger social groups is the Central Illinois Automotive Enthusiasts group on Facebook.  
• Peoria Cars & Coffee and Friday Night Lights events.  These events draw hundreds from all around and feature every kind of car, 4x4, rat rod, classic, custom, sports car, pony car, etc.
• Bloomington/Normal Automotive Enthusiasts group.

Driving Events

There are 2 main websites to find and register for automotive events, Clubregistration.net and Motorsports.reg.  Most PCA, BMWCCA, SCCA, Audi club, and others use one of these two sites so they are a great place to find events. 

Autocross

The Central Illinois SCCA has the most autocrosses in Central Illinois.  As with many clubs, they use Motorsports.reg for their event registration. 

Street Survival 2019

Several LTR members participated in the Street Survival at Cat Mossville AC this weekend.  The local newspaper printed this article about it too.  This was our 10th year offering this event and its going stronger than ever.  If you have never been involved in one of these I would highly recommend it.  At a minimum, all new drivers should go through it.  My daughter did it twice.  We are always looking for volunteers.  We will be doing this again in the Spring, generally May-ish.

Be All In with LTR

I have heard from several members off and on that they are not aware of what is going on in the region.  I decided to create this post so people know when things are happening, both LTR events, and other car events around the region.

1. Make sure your email is up-to-date on the PCA national website!  We used this with our emailer to send notices out to the members.  You must have an up-to-date email in the PCA national website in order for this to work.  Go to the website: https://www.pca.org/, login [Member Log-in], select the [Edit] tab, and update your information.  If you change email addresses make sure to update this.
2. Connect to our calendar.  I created a blog post for this a while back.  It explains how to connect the LTR calendar with your Google calendar so you can see LTR events.  http://ltrpca.blogspot.com/2018/02/add-ltr-calendar-to-your-smartphone-or.html. I believe you can connect this to other calendar types as well.  
3. Connect with us on Facebook.  I know, I am not a big fan of Facebook either but it is the most popular social media platform.  The LTR has a page and a private group.  Lets use this to share events around the region, tips, etc.  Start here: https://www.facebook.com/ltrpca/.  I have a link to this right on the LTR website for your convenience.
4. The LTR website.  This is our main place to connect with our region.  I have links to all the above on the website.  I also have an additional calendar showing other car events around the region and in nearby regions.

Please take advantage of these so you are aware of what is going on and can hopefully participate in some club activities and get the most out of your LTR membership.

HPDE opportunity for first timers

The St. Louis region PCA has a special high performance drivers education targeted at people who have never done one before.  This event is 1/2 day on Saturday July 28th at Circuit of St. Louis Road Course (Gateway).  It is $100 for intro students.  You can see more info and register for the event here: https://www.motorsportreg.com/events/st-louis-pca-taste-of-track-summer-2018-gateway-motorsports-park-642075

Add the LTR calendar to your smartphone or PC calendar

The St. Louis region has a helpful page to explain how to add calendars to your phone or PC here: http://stl.pca.org/add-region-calendar/.  This will also work for the LTR calendar with the following changes:

Our LTR ICAL address is: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/s52gdanf8jvh397ak62i9d2ars%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

Our LTR calendar ID is: s52gdanf8jvh397ak62i9d2ars@group.calendar.google.com

You can also get to it with this URL: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=s52gdanf8jvh397ak62i9d2ars%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America%2FChicago

You can also scan this with your phone:

When it opens on your phone, click the link at the bottom right with the + sign.

I have added Chicago Region PCA and St. Louis Region PCA calendars to our website as well.  They show up in the Central Illinois Car Events calendar on our home page.