For starters, let me apologize with the lateness of this first Director's letter!  For those of you who do not know me, my name is Ryan Bakeman, your CRS Director. I am part of the Rodnoc Racing team that puts on Rallycross events in Southern California. We also host California’s only regional stage rally, The Ridge Rally! I have been a part of CRS since 2016, grown up around the sport and the folks that have been part of CRS since its origin. Enough about me though, this is about membership and our sport. So let’s start off with recapping how 2024 has started off so far. 

2024 started off with our CRS Rally School. The rally school introduced 34 students to the addiction of our beloved sport of Rally. Students participated in zoom class instruction, in car instruction, in person car prep, opportunities to speak with current and past competitors, and actual co-driving practice. A special thank you to all that came out, the instructors, competitors, and members that made this possible! 

For Rallycross, the year started out a little rough with weather forcing cancellation of multiple events due to flooding. However in March, Rallycross was kicked off in full force at the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds! Since then, we have had 2 CRS events, one in The Antelope Valley and another in Marysville. Fresno Rallycross is holding their first CRS event next week on May 12th. Visit their social medias or head over to https://sidewaysdata.com/event/21/ to check out more information on how to sign up! 

Can you believe that we are only 2 weeks away from The Oregon Trail Rally!?! Who else isn’t packed or still working on the race car? Just me? OTR is our first stage Rally on the CRS calendar. Currently 62 cars are registered, and I’m sure all are extremely excited for 3 action packed days that kick off the 2024 CRS Stage Rally Championship. For those of you that want to go or get involved but don’t have a race car, you should volunteer! Head over to https://www.americanrallyassociation.org/oregontrailrally for more information! 

Olympus Rally in Shelton, WA. was 2 weeks ago, where we saw Brandon Semenuk and Keaton Williams bring the Subaru Motorsports WRX to 1st place overall! Congratulations to both Brandon and Keaton and to their team keeping them going. Also, a congratulations goes out to all teams who finished the race! 

New this year was the running of the Wild West Rally for the America Rally Association (ARA), and it was won by Sam Albert and Krista Skucas in a Prancing Horse V8 Subaru (Yup, you read that right)! Congratulations on a successful event, hopefully an event that we can add to the CRS calendar in the future! 

We’ve all heard of the American Rally Association or ARA but, some of us may not know what ARA does. ARA is the sanctioning body for all the scheduled Stage Rallies for CRS. To simplify everything they do; they bring the insurance, the team, and provide guidance to organizers to facilitate a safe event. Many rallies are scheduled through ARA, and if you are curious if there is one in your area head over to https://www.americanrallyassociation.org and click on schedule! 

Now regarding membership, please help us push membership out to all of our competitors! We want to grow this sport and grow CRS. The only way we can do that is by talking about what we love and getting people to join! I am very excited to see what comes in the near future and I’m very proud to be a part of this community! 

Have fun, drive fast, and be safe! 

Ryan Bakeman 
CRS Director

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