SupermileageUSA Progress
A committee of Supermileage State Leaders met March of 2007 during the Wisconsin Technology Education Association Annual Conference at Chula Vista Resort in Wisconsin Dells, WI. The topic of this initial meeting was to begin discussions towards a regional event for all state Supermileage teams to participate in. Some of the tasks discussed in that regards included; a standard set of regulations, larger sponsors/partners, legal entity, governing board of directors, location of such challenge and much more. Upon leaving this meeting, the committee had hashed out a first draft set of "Standard Regulations." Each state took the time in the next couple months to review those regulations and make notes of what they liked or did not like.
In July of 2007, the committee met again in the Chicago area to look deeper at the draft regulations. Present at this meeting included representatives from; Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and Wisconsin as well as two corporate guests; Greg Higdon of Autodesk and Steve Fox. The committee came together for a second draft of regulations for the state's to begin reviewing again. Out of this meeting also came the direction of thinking Nationally for the direction of this push. The name chosen for the National Organization and National Event was SupermileageUSA. Some of the goals set were to have the regulations trial ran in the 2008-09 season with a possible National Supermileage Challenge in the Spring of 2009 located in the mid-west United States. Tentatively set, to attend the National Challenge, local state's teams would have to place in the top 10 of their Entry Class, (i.e. Stock or Modified.) This would allow 20-30 teams to register from each state for the National Challenge. Discussion mentioned that this number would start out high until states and teams began to acknowledge and support the National Challenge to the point that there might be 20-30 states sending teams to Nationals. At that point, teams may need to place in the top 3 at their local State Challenges. It was discussed that the National Challenge would be a three day event in the summer months. The challenge would encorporate an "Engineering Presentation" for every entry similar to that of the SkillsUSA Engineering Challenge contest, which would take the place at the National level of the Proposal Packets. Teams would still be required to turn in Proposal Packets to their State Challenges.