FOPIR Thanks Volunteers

The August IndyCar race at PIR marked the conclusion of “FOPIR” road racing events in 2024. Starting with NASCAR and Formula E in June, and  followed by the Rose Cup Races in July, hundreds of volunteers have worked tirelessly to ensure these big spectator events were a success.

Here is the email that recently went out to workers:

Dear Friends of PIR workers, volunteers, members and friends,

IndyCar, NASCAR, Formula E and the Rose Cup Races have all successfully wrapped up for 2024. It feels like just yesterday that we had NASCAR officials in town to do firefighter training, but that was way back in May – a lifetime ago.

On behalf of FOPIR leadership and your specialty chiefs, I wanted to say a big THANK YOU to the hundreds of workers who volunteered at these events. As far as we know, we are the only track that relies exclusively on volunteers to do everything from flagging to firefighting and everything in between. On top of that, IndyCar and NASCAR love all of you and your professionalism. So thank you for your support, expertise and passionate commitment to excellence. We could not do this without the support and effort that each of you give.

Many of you have worked many events already this summer – Well beyond the four “FOPIR events” and you have more to go before ending your 2024 race season. We hope that FOPIR made the pro events + Rose Cup fun for you and hope you join us again in 2025. We will be having a review session with our chiefs, so if you have any feedback on how we can make things better in 2025, please let your chief know.

An additional shout out to Cascade Sports Car Club and Oregon Region SCCA leadership. FOPIR couldn’t do these races without them. Thank you to to Kristen Moore, Brian Anderson, Linda Blackburn and all of the CSCC and ORSCCA board members for their support.

One last thing, just to prove how much the pro series love you guys, here is a thank you note from Bill Armitage (Race Control Communicator for IndyCar) to those who were part of the IndyCar event:

Thank you to all the marshals for all their hard work during the IndyCar Portland Grand Prix….everyone brought their A game and seeing the number of marshals for the event made everything go so much easier. The quality of flagging and communications was top notch. We had a lot thrown at us during the USF sessions which made everything a lot more interesting. All of the Race Directors for each series were very impressed with the flagging and communication information provided. Special thanks to Bud Mansur and Assistant Chief Dan Olson for their leadership all weekend, as well as all the specialty chiefs. Everything went very smooth all three days. Looking forward to returning to Portland in 2025. See you down the road.

If you would like to see photos from the 2024 FOPIR events, Doug Berger (dbpics.com) has graciously compiled all the photos into this site: 

https://friendsofpir.zenfolio.com/photos

We’re looking forward to the 2025 race season with you all!

Sincerely,

Darrell LeBlanc, Kim Kuzma McFarland, Mike Smith – FOPIR Board Members

Brett McKown, Emily Pixley, Dan Twomey, Jim Coshow, Chris Heinrich – Event Race Chairs