2022 Lapping day details can be found at https://shannonville.com/car-lapping/

Joining St LAC has never been easier and once again, we ask all members — new and returning — to join through the CASC portal.  This will require that you ‘join’ the site and then login.  If this is a problem you can drop us a line at st.lac.club@gmail.com
(And don’t worry if it’s a problem for you.  Your secret will be safe with us.  Maybe.)

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Consistently the first to renew a corporate sponsorship in support of St LAC and 2022 is proving to be no exception for Brack Driving Concepts.

Speaking as a graduate of their Learn-to-Race program, I would not hesitate to encourage your (or someone you know) participation in just such an event or any other of their other skills courses.

You can find out more at http://www.brackdriving.com/

When St LAC member Ian Crerar isn’t on the water chances are you’ll find him behind the wheel of one form of racing car or another.

And that’s not just when the weather turns better.  Ian will be participating along with a full field of 75 entrants in the kickoff to the Rally season in the French Alps that is the 2022 edition of Rallye Monte-Carlo.  (Of additional interest is the inclusion of 11 Hybrid cars.)  This is the second time Ian and team has participated in this event.

His competition interests stem from boats to motorcycling to all kinds of auto events.  Many of you will be familiar with Ian’s VARAC entrants and, of course, his rally 911 which he’s fielded since 2019.  For this event, however, he’ll be behind the wheel of a Renault Alpine.

About the Alpine Rallye car
Renault describes the Alpine as a “pure racing car, powered by a 4-cylinder turbo-charged engine that delivers over 300 bhp. It contains lots of modifications designed for rallying: revised engine torque curve, 3-way shock absorbers with hydraulic tappets, Brembo brakes, integral roll-bar and SABELT bucket seats with six-point harnesses.Its centre-mounted rear engine (ideal for weight distribution and drive), aluminium chassis and low weight form a perfect basis for versions specific to the different types of competition.”

– source:  https://tinyurl.com/ycz2ehxn

Results page available at: Rally Monte Carlo 2022 — Ian Crerar

RedBull TV is offering Live Streaming of this year’s race.

Greetings to all of you, it’s hard to believe St Lac is entering its 69th year.  I still feel like a relative newcomer when I think of my history with the club that began in the late 80s when I first attended the club’s slalom events at the Woolco parking lot (the Frontenac Mall) and on the parade square at CFB Kingston.  Looking back it was certainly a more innocent time without cell phones, social media and the perils of global warming ;but what hasn’t changed is the inclusiveness the other club members offered me when I joined the club  and the friendships that followed.  Based on the recent membership survey those same core values are still the reason St Lac is prospering.

In terms of social media and increasing the Club’s presence on platforms like Facebook or Instagram I wasn’t surprised by the ambivalence towards expanding our messaging — in reality  this reflects our older age demographic.  I think the clubs’ website is also fantastic and more than sufficient for news as our webmaster at large continues to provide up-to-date event news and general news of all things car related in Eastern Ontario.

St LAC is proud to announce that Dan Gray has volunteered to replace Dan Wilson as our outgoing President. Traditionally, the membership would be asked to vote the new executive into position but again Covid has scuppered any kind of normalcy with in person meetings to do so. We are likley skirting our constitutional rule book by appointing Dan but in practice the past voting was limited to the small number of members who were present so bending these rules is kind of like speeding in my humble opinion — nobody really gives a $hit.

Guilty party singled out by longtime member

Many of you will recognize from our Picton events he is a natural organizer, energetic, reliable and youthful (sorry folks, but he’s spoken for). Who knows maybe he’ll blow the social media door open as he said to me today he’s looking forward to adding President to his LinkedIn profile.

-DC

Hello St Lac Members, I hope you are doing well as it’s been a while since reaching out to you all. Just a warning if you are reading this on your phone I apologize in advance for the length of the email to come as I find at work these days if I write anything longer than a paragraph colleagues don’t realize there is more content to come when reading on a tiny screen. So you might want to check back from a laptop or tablet as the club needs your advice and opinions on where to focus our efforts next year. You’ll find at the end of this email a link to an online survey and we are counting on your help to fill it in to provide us with important feedback for the 2022 calendar and proposed events. So unlike your internet provider, utility, or workplace we actually give a $hit what you think about the Clubs’ activities so please take a couple of minutes to fill it in. Roger who graciously accepted the challenge of finding a free survey tool ( as survey monkey now charges a steep annual fee) says that if we receive 10% feedback we are doing well with an above average response- I for one hope we can do much better and i will be disappointed if we don’t hear back from you. The survey tool is active for one week so please make an effort because there are some great things brewing for next year and we need a collective point of view to move forward with our planning.

2021 was a very busy year for the Club despite Covid and the roadblocks it created and as it turned out getting together at the race track (SMP) or at Picton for our annual Regional Slalom were almost normal with the exception of social distancing. For me it was a great privilege in fact and an opportunity to meet many new members and extend the tradition that St Lac has provided since 1953 — bringing like minded car enthusiasts together to have fun and improve their driving skills. As previously mentioned the membership grew to 112 members this year. So well done everyone for sharing your enthusiasm among friends as we are a grassroots organization so keep recruiting like minded gear heads as its a collective effort and the results showed this year. Again it was gratifying to see teenage drivers among our ranks this year and their friends showing up to see what all the old farts were doing. It put a smile on my face.

So let’s get down to the plans for 2022 (the year of the Tiger). Firstly, St Lap III is already in the planning stages and our goal is to expand the experience. In case you missed it, St Lap is our monthly evening lapping session at Shannonville which takes place traditionally on the third Thursday of the month for the ridiculously low fee of $265.00 for the 5 evening lapping pass. One of the complaints this year was the discrepancy of watching two open wheel cars tootle around for 15 minutes while 20 street car drivers awaited their turn to queue up for a more crowded next session. With this in mind we are now looking at a dual pass system – a racing pass and a street car one. To make this work the Club is looking at renting SMP at noon on our lapping dates. The afternoon sessions would be dedicated to open and closed wheel race cars and would run until 5:00 at which point we’d switch to the street cars that currently populate the majority of St Lap pass holders. This plan is in the working stages and is not a done deal by any means. The goal is to draw racers from other CASC affiliated clubs and we now have the support of the CASC race director, Ray Arlakas, to reach out to them on St Lac’s behalf. In addition the steering committee member Brian Graham, for the Toyo F1600 Series, is supportive of this scheme. Ed Luce, who many of you will know as a long term St Lac member also sits on the Varac board of directors and will be speaking to the other decision makers within Varac to garnish their support. Varac has the largest group of racers so hopefully this will be a win win for all the local clubs with race car owners. We are also awaiting some details from SMP before we can plan a calendar as it might be necessary to mix up the dates somewhat to accommodate all the regional race series dates- what’s clear though is there is a definite interest to provide a value packed race car pass.

The second interesting development this fall is that the Race Director for BEMC (Canada’s oldest organized car club) has asked St Lac to poll its membership to see if there are any individuals among us that would be willing to volunteer for BEMC’s Casc sanctioned race weekend at Shannonville next June 4-5th. So if you have ever dreamed of marshalling at the F1 race in Montreal here is your first step. There are a wide range of voluntary positions that are open to mentorship and training over the weekend with the goal of having you continue to volunteer at other regional events – for example there are grid marshals, mock grid marshals, paddock marshals, pit lane positions, registration roles as well as coveted ones like driving the pace car or being the starter. From my own racing experiences the volunteers are a wonderful crew and are welcoming to newcomers like myself so I hope we can stir up some interest among you all. In a similar vein we have been asked by the organizers of the 2022 Kingston Corvette Invasion to ask our membership for voluntary help over their weekend event in June but those details will be released in the New Year; but my understanding is that this event rivals the Poker run for the revenue it creates for the local area. I am looking forward to this weekend and hoping the Kingston police might sanction driving the C4 on a street cruise- that would be fun…

Please note I will be updating the membership once we tally the poll results and move forward with the dates and details for 2022- sadly it look like the Picton event may be in jeopardy but i am not writing that venue off yet. All the best everyone and stay safe.

Tickets can be had for a number of events now: