Congratulations to the 2022 Awards Winners
Every year at the New England Region Awards banquet – annual awards are given to members that go above and beyond in the previous year. Please join us in congratulating and recognizing everything that these 2022 recipients do for our region and the club.
Regional Executive Award
Scott Carlson
The Regional Executive award is presented to an NER member for extraordinary support of NER and its activities. This year’s recipient was presented to Scott Carlson for his years long role as the rally program chief. Scott has been a dedicated supporter and competitor in the NER Rally program. He has dedicated many hours of time and effort to support and grow the program, find new sites for us to run and organize a thriving rally program. Scott is stepping down from his current role this year. The board would like to recognize Scott Carlson for his outstanding contribution to the region.
Asst. Regional Executive Award
Trevor Hermance
The Assistant Regional Executive award is an award given out yearly in order to help recognize someone who’s work behind the scenes helps to support the region. This year’s candidate meets those requirements exactly. From working as a volunteer at many pro events to working for some of our most key tracks in the region this person is pretty well traveled. Responsible for maintaining our regions public virtual face this person tackles this thankless job head on. This year’s assistant Regional Executive award is presented to Trevor Hermance!
Gold Pass
Sterling Cole
Sterling Cole is a long-time member of NER, participating in Road Racing and most recently competing in GT3 at our Club Racing events. For the better part of a decade, Sterling was our region’s NER.org webmaster, volunteering significant time outside of events to helping make sure we had a presence on the web where we could be easily found and researched by those seeking to learn more about us and where our members could find a place to gather and find results quickly. In that time, he has also served on the NER Board of Directors and has even served as our Regional Executive. The New England Region Board of Directors is grateful for his service and this year awards a Gold Pass to Sterling Cole.
Gold Pass
Jojo Corrales-Kean
Jojo Corrales-Kean is a long-time member of the NER Solo community and in that time, she has been an amazing cheerleader and organizer for our club. For many years, she has been a leading presence on our social media platforms, welcoming new members and positively reinforcing member input. Every year, Jojo leads our region’s contingent including organizing and printing a region t-shirt for our members to all wear together at Solo Nationals, demonstrating our community atmosphere and signifying that we are a significant presence at the event. She has also organized the paddock spacing at that event for many, many years to make sure that we can gather as many of our members together as possible comfortably. She is a huge part of what makes our contingent a team and a family. Every year, she brings a solidly themed team to our Team Challenge Event showing her spirit for our club and activities. She and her husband Todd are busy training the next generation of New England Region autocrossers as well. This year, the New England Region Board of Directors awards a Gold Pass to Jojo Corrales-Kean.
Ma & Pa Philbrick Worker of the Year
Jennifer Ferreira
The Ma Philbrick Award for Worker of the Year is presented to a road racing worker for outstanding service to the region, chosen by the past recipients. As the most recent to receive this award, the honor of presenting this year’s award falls to me.
2021 marks our first full May-to-October season in the “Age of COVID”, which – though we are not finished with the virus yet – has calmed down enough for us to conduct our events. And what memorable events they turned out to be, including a field of 200+ at Lime Rock, but particularly our three events at Thompson: the remnants of Hurricane Elsa spoiling the fun at the Majors, a hectic but no less exciting Night Race to which Hurricane Henri showed up too late for the party, and finishing the season with a number of unpleasant (but thankfully manageable) “October surprises”.
Mostly confined to the tower as I am, I knew only that we had many excellent workers out there, but not necessarily who they were – and thus, I had to rely on the advice of the other past recipients to choose this year’s honoree. It was a difficult decision, as many of the names certainly embodied the spirit of the award. One began to stand out, however.
This person has worn many hats throughout the season, offering their assistance to a number of specialties, including Grid, Pit, Medical, and Start, and is also training to be a steward. And this is all while also being a driver. To quote Grid chief Karen Petersen, this person would “finish a race, change into whites, and jump into a specialty”. Our outdoor, up-close-and-personal specialties have had trouble getting people lately, but whenever anyone was short-handed, this person offered to help without hesitation.
Therefore, I am pleased to announce Jennifer Ferreira as the Ma Philbrick Worker of the Year for the 2021 season.
