OMRRA Membership,
Thanks to those of you that were on the meeting call last night. While there were essentially zero questions or comments brought up, aside from one question asking if we would be discussing our plans for the April round, we appreciate you being there to listen. Because the BoD had not had any real opportunity to discuss the final plans for April as a group, we needed to use last night’s meeting/call to do so. Being that it was a two-part meeting and that the bulk of the 2nd call was with our Attorney (not at all related to April or Coronavirus), we chose to discuss our April round after that portion of the call. Because the environment around this issue is constantly changing, and because we were all looking for every opportunity to make April happen, we took until what we considered to be the last minute to reach our conclusion, though it had just been made for us.
To cut to the chase: We tried hard to save it because we all want to race, but there are some factors out of our control that will keep us from racing in April.
On the brighter side:
- We will attempt to reschedule our missed round later in the season
- All remaining race rounds are currently under review (not cancelled). If it’s possible for us to race, we will
The main reasons why we won’t be able to operate the April race event are:
- The PIR staff is upholding a Portland city ban of gatherings over 10 people, whether indoors or outdoors. Previous understanding of these types of bans suggested that the large and open area at PIR would allow us to spread out adequately, but this city ban now applies to all events regardless of social distancing space
- Portland Metro hospitals are now operating on a disaster response system, which is similar to what would happen if a large earthquake hit our region. Under this condition, ambulance service providers stop all non-essential ambulance services. OMRRA’s insurance requires the presence of 2 ambulances onsite to operate a race event, but an ambulance parked at a race track is a non-emergent standby service and therefore ambulance services cannot currently be provided.
A few notes for consideration:
- The balance typically due to PIR at this time to hold an April event will be excused given these extreme circumstances. There is no financial loss to your racing association due to cancelation
- Knowing a rescheduling or cancellation of Round 1 was possible, we did not bind event insurance coverage at the time that we typically do, and we will not bind it until we know we will have a round happening. This saves us money over insuring all of our rounds
- Our track day partner, OPRT, is in alignment and understanding of the cancellation of April. If you purchased a season pass, OMRRA will refund $174 (25% the total pass cost) for the cancelled event, at your request
- Plans for New Racer School are pending, so please expect more communication about this when we know more. We are working on different strategies that will allow our new racers to become licensed
- Generally speaking, in an effort to preserve our opportunity to race, we are only making decisions as we absolutely need to. While the duration of the economic impact of the Coronavirus is currently unpredictable, we feel that maintaining this strategy allows our best opportunity to stay nimble and run our events when possible
Any questions or comments can be sent directly to [email protected], or you can call or text Mark Wilson directly at 360-907-1792
Sincerely,
Your OMRRA Board
