Meridith Croucher, chairman of the Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally, has chosen the IMRRC as the caretaker for the organizational files for the annual rally along the challenging forest roads around Wellsboro, PA.
Croucher has served as event chairman since 2005. The collection she has established at the IMRRC includes entry lists, results, rule books, route books, programs and a vast amount of organizing materials.
Car #1 of Mark Lovell and Steve Turvey, Open Class, a Subaru WRX. (photo from the Bill Bauman Collection)
“It all shows what it takes to put on a rally of the magnitude of the STPR,” Croucher says.
Croucher says she chose to donate the files to the IMRRC collections because “it’s important to keep our heritage alive. And it’s good information for someone that wants to start a rally.”
Car #957 of Malachy Crawford and Mark McAllister, Group N Class, a Subaru WRX. (photo from the Bill Bauman Collection)
The collection also includes a lot of SCCA materials from the 1990s and early 2000s.
The STPR is organized by two teams – one in Wellsboro and one in the Rochester, NY, area – comprising about 18 volunteers. It is presented by a huge cadre of almost 450, Croucher says, also all volunteers. The rally attracts upwards of 70 entries and some 10,000 spectators.
The 2016 STPR will be Round Five of the Rally America National Championship. It will be the 40th running of the STPR, which is the oldest continuous motorsports event in Pennsylvania. This year’s dates are June 3-4.
Croucher, of Newark, NY, is a nurse when she’s not organizing or working at a motorsports event. She’s a member of the Finger Lakes Region of the SCCA and still serves as a race steward. A former regional executive, Croucher also flagged for the Race Communications Association. She was working for RCA at Watkins Glen when she met her husband, Dean.
The Finger Lakes Region SCCA was a founder of the STPR, and even though the event is now sanctioned by Rally America, SCCA members remain involved. That’s how Croucher became event chairman, she says. She was 2½ years into her tenure as Finger Lakes Region RE when the STPR chairman retired. Croucher was tapped as the next chief.
“I knew so little about it when I started. It was appalling,” she says. “I say now that I came for the cars and stayed for the people.”
Rallying has great appeal, she says.
“It’s one of the best-kept secrets in motorsports.”
(The photographs are from the Bill Bauman Collection and show the 2002 Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally Subaru Water Crossing.)