CENTRAL AUTO RACING BOOSTERS HALL OF FAME HISTORY

Part 4

Membership

 

On December 27, 2012 the Internal Revenue Service approved the 501c3 creating the Central Auto Racing Boosters Hall of Fame and Museum. Elections were set for February 2013 to elect the Officers and Board of Directors, even though temporary President Karen Darling had been handing out business cards ahead of the elections stating she was already the president.

It is best to take a moment and explain what just occurred on December 27, 2012. The original Central Auto Racing Boosters are a 501c7. The C.A.R.B. Hall of Fame is a 501c3. Remember our goal was a permanent building, pushing for the 501c3 was simply a way for us to ask for donations and they would be tax deductible to the giver. The 501c3 is the only tax-deductible code in the 501c tax code. A 501c7 tax code is for social clubs what the Central Auto Racing Boosters were formed under in the 1970s.

I know this creates confusion because there are two groups with one membership. The division should only be in the tax code, but as you will see some are power hungry, apparently.

Remember in my previous edition I stated this is the worst mistake I made in pushing for the 501c3. My intentions were good and they were never intended to divide such a great organization as the Central Auto Racing Boosters. I always pictured we could all work together as one group but amazingly in this article and the next you will discover how some members of the current C.A.R.B. Hall of Fame and Museum Officers and Board of Directors have worked to destroy the original organization of which they were formed. All I can say is selfishness and jealousy in my opinion are causing this angst.

After the General Membership Meeting in February 2012 the Officers and Board of Directors of the Hall of Fame and Museum were President Karen Darling, Vice President J D Cormack, Secretary Linda Howell, Treasurer Diana Green, Board Of Directors were Debbie Bergman, Darrin Christy, Lowell Christy, J D Green, Tom Ketchum, Skip Richardson, Randy Sears, Robbie Skipper, and Terry Wantland.

Remember our goal was to construct or purchase a permanent building! This is very evident in our first meetings of the first Officers and Board of Directors of the C.A.R.B. Hall of Fame and Museum. See the next paragraphs for a donation letter prepared and approved by the Board of Directors in July 2013.

Dear Member:

We are moving toward our goal of a permanent home for the Hall of Fame and Museum. We currently have a temporary display at Lakeside Speedway in Kansas City, Kansas and we still have the Hall of Fame trailer that is used at all CARB nights. However, we cannot stop there.

As you can image, the costs associated with buying or building a building are HUGE. We have estimated that, before we can move forward, we must have at least $500,000.00 in our account with an additional $500,000.00 to maintain and operate that building for the first year.

Speaking of money, this organization was started with $33,000 plus collected by all the Central Auto Racing Booster (501c7) fund raisers such as the drawing for an El Camino, the two Auctions, and the candle sales as listed in the previous blog. My understanding since I have not attended meetings since January 10, 2015 is the Hall of Fame and Museum group now has over $56,000 in the bank. Financial reports are not published publicly from this group and even when I asked for one in writing a couple of years ago I received back from Randy Sears a hand written financial report which is also where it was discovered they had sold the Hall of Fame trailer.

In 2014, things started going sideways. Actions speak louder than words. I know I have hashed this before so here is the quick version. Joan Ellis wanted to purchase a building for the Hall of Fame. President Karen Darling invited everyone on the Board to visit the site on a Saturday morning except Diana, myself, and Tom Ketchum. All I will say is if it was oversight it was not taken that way and no apology was ever provided.

The following year elections were held and the nominees for President were Karen Darling and myself. Memberships were bought to come vote for Darling and she won. Diana and I quit going to meetings and especially after I was talked into going to the January 10, 2015 C.A.R.B. Meeting held in North Kansas City at the American Inn. At this meeting the General Membership approved new term limits for the C.A.R.B. Hall of Fame. Also at this meeting Rick Darling stood up and made a motion of which I am sure was aimed at me. The motion was to suspend a person’s membership if he was printing something about C.A.R.B. which could be taken negatively. Hmm, like a guy who writes a blog. Fortunately, cooler and smarter heads prevailed and realized a person has a First Amendment right.

Diana and I removed ourselves from the Central Auto Racing Boosters. After all our accomplishments over the years it seemed we were always accused of creating drama. With us out of the picture it only allowed the true drama queens to arise. We were accused of being a clique, yet we were no longer there.

Fast forward to today. Last Saturday at I-35 Speedway I was in the pits and it was mentioned what the C.A.R.B. Hall of Fame and Museum Board was up to in that they wanted to remove the organization from the founding group. I could not sleep much that night and at 6:15 Sunday morning I awoke set straight up in bed and knew I had to come to the computer and start writing. By that night over 700 people had seen my blog.

Since that time, I have been contacted by several people who were around and very involved in C.A.R.B. when we created the Hall of Fame, they are not happy. I have heard Karen Darling would not and never did acknowledge C.A.R.B. President Skip Richardson at the Legends Dinner this year. I have heard from three different people that Randy Sears did not like one of the Hall of Fame Board members selling C.A.R.B. Memberships at the Legends picnic. I was not there when these events happened, this all second and third hand reports so I can’t say whether they occurred or not but again actions speak louder than words.

The next blog will list the proposed C.A.R.B. Hall of Fame and Museum Bylaw changes. You will see they want to the remove the very C.A.R.B. Membership which formed the Hall of Fame and Museum. They have a meeting this Sunday at 1:30 to vote on their bylaw proposals. The meeting is at the Library located at 8900 Flintlock.