Drissi and Lucas Oil Slick Mist Camaro Take Aim at VIR
Los Angeles, CA. - September 17, 2019 - Virginia International Raceway’s circuit is a favorite autumn race destination for Trans Am and SVRA teams and this year is no exception. Among those absolutely raring to go this weekend is 2009 Trans Am Champion Tomy ‘The Rockin' Moroccan’ Drissi who returned from an enforced spell on the sidelines in this year's Trans Am presented by Pirelli Championship TA Class with a fine podium third place finish at Watkins Glen earlier this month.
Drissi finished the race at the Glen snapping at the rear of Championship challenger Chris Dyson and the Angeleno pilot will again expect to be up with the pace at VIR having qualified his Burtin Racing prepared No. 8 Lucas Oil Slick Mist Chevrolet Camaro on the front two rows of the grid in every race he has competed in this year. Despite having missed three rounds in the middle of the season with a calf injury, Drissi has three podium finishes to his name in 2019 and has amassed 119 Championship points for a current standing of seventh out of the 29 Drivers to have competed in the prestigious TA, monstrous 850BHP, category this year.
”I can’t wait to get back in the car,” stated Tomy Drissi. “I thought we had a really good race going at Watkins Glen and it was great to be back on the podium. Looking forward to being at VIR this weekend - there are a lot of fans that show up for this event. This is a roller coaster of a ride at this track for drivers. High speed, high risk - very challenging track, very fast. The ascending esses are nuts, very crazy. I will really be putting the pressure on hard and for good results in the Lucas Oil Slick Mist Camaro. I know Burtin will have a great car for me!”
The Trans Am race at VIR is billed as the Heacock Classic and some of the best vintage and historic sports racing, Formula and Production GT race cars will grace the road course over the weekend. The grids are going to be featuring many of the best-known, and prestigious marques in racing, including: Lotus, Porsche, Shelby, Alfa, Corvette, MG and Jaguar. The American Racing Legends Charity Pro-Am will return, pairing veteran NASCAR drivers with amateur racing partners driving Corvettes, Camaros and Mustangs for a 45-minute race. The Hagerty Show and Shine Car Show will host over one hundred street and performance cars but few if any will outshine the stunning No. 8 Lucas Oil Slick Mist Camaro. The Trans-Am Series and Mazda Miata Heritage Cup will join SVRA at VIR as a part of their nationwide series.
As a further bonus, Trans Am returns to our screens September 15 at 5:00 p.m. ET on the CBS Sports Network.
The action on the track this weekend gets underway with testing on Thursday. Qualifications are scheduled for Friday afternoon at 5:10 p.m. and the 100-mile feature TA race on Saturday, September 21 at 5:15 p.m.
Follow Tomy Drissi online at tomydrissi.com and on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. @TomyDrissi and keep an eye on our social media for race weekend videos, updates and a look behind the scenes from the race track!
Website: www.tomydrissi.com
Video: In-car video below of Tomy Drissi and the No. 8 Lucas Oil Slick Mist Chevrolet Camaro at Watkins Glen International during the final three Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli laps of the race.
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Positive Coaching Alliance, a national non-profit, is now accepting nominations for the 2020 National Double-Goal Coach® Award presented by TeamSnap now through November 30th. Any youth or high school sports coach in the United States can be nominated by a parent, fellow coach, athlete, admin, etc. To learn more, visit: www.positivecoach.org/coachawards.
A Double-Goal Coach strives to win while also pursuing the more important goal of teaching life lessons through sports. One winner will receive $10,000 and four winners will receive an all expenses paid trip to California in the Spring of 2020.
The 2019 Grand Prize Winner, Charlean Crowell, was featured on Good Morning America: https://positivecoach.org/the-pca-blog/pca-grand-prize-winner-named-hometown-hero-on-good-morning-america/.
To spread the word with your community, consider posting this Tweet:
Positive Coaching Alliance (@positivecoachus) is accepting nominations for their National Double-Goal Coach Award. One coach will win $10,000! To learn more and to nominate a youth or high school coach from your community, visit: www.positivecoach.org/coachawards
About PCA
Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) develops BETTER ATHLETES, BETTER PEOPLE through workshops and resources for youth and high school sports coaches, parents, administrators and student-athletes. When sports are done right, sports teach. PCA ensures sports are ‘done right’ with programming that is research-based and designed to have impact at three levels in a youth sports organization or school:
YOUTH experience improved life skills and character development.
COACHES become more positive and increase their focus on using sports to teach life lessons.
YOUTH SPORTS ORGANIZATIONS AND SCHOOLS see their cultures become more positive and everyone involved has more fun.
Since 1998, PCA has reached thousands of organizations around the country, and affected millions of youth athletes. As a nationwide non-profit with 18 chapters, PCA has partnered with roughly 3,500 schools and youth sports organizations nationwide to deliver more than 20,000 live group workshops, reaching 19.2 million youth in 20 years of work. In addition to PCA’s live workshops, PCA also offers online courses and has over 2,000 multimedia tips and tools for coaches, parents, athletes, and leaders available free of charge on PCADevZone.org.
Through the years, PCA’s work has been recognized on a national stage. For 2 years, PCA was the nonprofit partner for FOX Sports Supports, earning free airtime during coverage of Super Bowl XLI.
Each year, PCA selects only 50 coaches out of thousands of nominations from across the US with the National Double-Goal Coach® Award, presented by TeamSnap. These coaches are recognized at PCA’s annual benefit, the National Youth Sports Awards & Benefit. In 2019, the first-ever Coach Grand-Prize Winner was also honored on ABC’s Good Morning America as a ‘Hometown Hero.’
Finally, PCA gains support from a National Advisory Board, including National Spokesperson and 11-time NBA Champion Coach Phil Jackson, and many other top coaches, athletes, organization leaders and academics who share PCA’s mission. PCA is proud to partner with the Boys & Girls Club, National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and over 35 professional teams across the United States.
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tah State University Sees Unparalleled Growth in Graduation Rates in 2018-19
Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2019
Contact: Robert Wagner, Vice President, Academic & Instructional Services, 797-0945, robert.wagner@usu.edu
Writer: Jeff Hunter, 435-797-1429, Public Relations Specialist, jeff.hunter@usu.edu
LOGAN --- Utah State University experienced an unprecedented jump in graduation rates this past school year, more than doubling the next highest growth rate from the past decade.
A total of 6,763 degrees were awarded by USU in 2018-19, with 4,537 of those being bachelor’s degrees. That represents a dramatic rise of 14.8 percent from the 3,953 bachelor’s degrees awarded by the university during the 2017-18 school year.
The nearly 15 percent increase from last year is more than double the highest percentage increase of bachelor’s degrees awarded over the past 10 years, with the largest previous jump coming in 2015-16 at 7.3 percent.
“Student success is our main focus, and this recent leap in degrees awarded suggests that we are retaining students at a higher rate and helping them continue along towards their graduation goals in a more efficient and effective way so they’re able to graduate sooner,” USU President Noelle Cockett said. “Attending college isn’t the only goal, of course. Graduating and embarking on a career is the principal goal.”
Utah State University officials believe there are two primary reasons behind this past school year’s sudden surge in bachelor’s degrees, the first being result of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ change in the age young men and women are able to serve missions.
In the fall of 2012, it was announced that the age for men to leave on missions would be lowered from 18 to 19 years of age, while the age for women was dropped from 21 to 19. Consequently, Utah State University saw a drop in enrollment in the fall of 2013, only to see enrollment numbers come back again two years later.
Since 2015, that “surge” of students returning from missions has been working its way through the university, culminating in many of those students graduating in May.
In addition, in the spring of 2014 Utah State lowered its plateau tuition level from 13 credits to 12 credits, leaving students to pay the same tuition when taking between 12 and 18 credits during a semester. That change included online classes, allowing students to save money while having additional options for taking courses.
“We’re making it financially advantageous for USU students to take more credits by providing multiple delivery methods that are easy to access,” said USU Executive Vice President and Provost Frank Galey. “As a result of that, we’re seeing more Utah State students graduating sooner, and those students are then going on to graduate school or entering the workforce.”
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BEE QUARTERLY COLONY LOSS
LAKEWOOD, Colo. – September 17, 2019 – In October, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) will contact bee keepers nationwide to gather information on colony loss, colony numbers and value as part of the Quarterly Colony Loss survey. The information helps evaluate conditions from year to year, and promote programs designed to ensure the viability of beekeepers and agricultural pollination services. “The survey results provide a statistical benchmark on honey bee colony numbers and death loss for comparison each year.” said Bill Meyer, Director, Mountain Regional Field Office. “By participating in the survey, the information will allow USDA, beekeepers and other interested parties to analyze data on a state-by-state basis, and compare specific quarterly losses, additions and movements.” “As is the case with all NASS surveys, information provided by respondents is confidential as required by law. NASS safeguards the privacy of all responses and publishes only aggregated data, ensuring that no individual operation or producer can be identified,” stated Meyer. Survey results will be published in the annual Honey Bee Colonies report August 2020. This and all NASS reports are available online at www.nass.usda.gov/Publications. For more information call the NASS Regional Field Office at (800) 392-3202.
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Exclusive: Edward Snowden’s First Adventures in Cyberspace
In an excerpt from the world famous whistleblower’s new memoir, Permanent Record, Snowden discusses growing up in suburban Maryland, his love affair with the nascent Internet in the 1990s, and the first thing he ever hacked:
“My curiosity felt as vast as the Internet itself: a limitless space that was growing exponentially, adding webpages by the day, by the hour, by the minute, on subjects that I knew nothing about, on subjects that I’d never heard of before—yet the moment that I did hear about them, I’d develop an insatiable desire to understand them in their every detail. My appetite wasn’t limited to serious tech subjects like how to fix a CD-ROM drive, of course. I also spent plenty of time on gaming sites searching for god-mode cheat codes for Doom and Quake. But I’m not sure I was able to say where one subject ended and another began.”
“As the millennium approached, the online world would become increasingly centralized and consolidated, with both governments and businesses accelerating their attempts to intervene in what had always been a fundamentally peer-to-peer relationship. But for one brief and beautiful stretch of time—a stretch that, fortunately for me, coincided almost exactly with my adolescence—the Internet was mostly made of, by, and for the people. Its purpose was to enlighten, not to monetize, and it was administered more by a provisional cluster of perpetually shifting collective norms than by exploitative, globally enforceable terms-of-service agreements. To this day, I consider the 1990s online to have been the most pleasant and successful anarchy I’ve ever experienced.”
ABOUT: Edward Snowden worked as a contractor for the CIA and NSA. Currently, he serves as president of the board of directors of the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
This excerpt will appear on the cover of the October 7, 2019, edition of The Nation magazine and is excerpted with permission from Permanent Record, by Edward Snowden, published September 17, 2019, by Henry Holt and Company.
Founded by abolitionists in 1865, The Nation has chronicled the breadth and depth of political and cultural life from the debut of the telegraph to the rise of Twitter, serving as a critical, independent, and progressive voice in American journalism.
===================
Exclusive: Edward Snowden’s First Adventures in Cyberspace
In an excerpt from the world famous whistleblower’s new memoir, Permanent Record, Snowden discusses growing up in suburban Maryland, his love affair with the nascent Internet in the 1990s, and the first thing he ever hacked:
“My curiosity felt as vast as the Internet itself: a limitless space that was growing exponentially, adding webpages by the day, by the hour, by the minute, on subjects that I knew nothing about, on subjects that I’d never heard of before—yet the moment that I did hear about them, I’d develop an insatiable desire to understand them in their every detail. My appetite wasn’t limited to serious tech subjects like how to fix a CD-ROM drive, of course. I also spent plenty of time on gaming sites searching for god-mode cheat codes for Doom and Quake. But I’m not sure I was able to say where one subject ended and another began.”
“As the millennium approached, the online world would become increasingly centralized and consolidated, with both governments and businesses accelerating their attempts to intervene in what had always been a fundamentally peer-to-peer relationship. But for one brief and beautiful stretch of time—a stretch that, fortunately for me, coincided almost exactly with my adolescence—the Internet was mostly made of, by, and for the people. Its purpose was to enlighten, not to monetize, and it was administered more by a provisional cluster of perpetually shifting collective norms than by exploitative, globally enforceable terms-of-service agreements. To this day, I consider the 1990s online to have been the most pleasant and successful anarchy I’ve ever experienced.”
ABOUT: Edward Snowden worked as a contractor for the CIA and NSA. Currently, he serves as president of the board of directors of the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
This excerpt will appear on the cover of the October 7, 2019, edition of The Nation magazine and is excerpted with permission from Permanent Record, by Edward Snowden, published September 17, 2019, by Henry Holt and Company.
Founded by abolitionists in 1865, The Nation has chronicled the breadth and depth of political and cultural life from the debut of the telegraph to the rise of Twitter, serving as a critical, independent, and progressive voice in American journalism.
