Summit Point Motorsports Park  ·  Labor Day Weekend MARRS, 2026

There is a particular kind of joy in a race paddock on Labor Day weekend.

Heat coming up off the asphalt at Summit Point. Somebody’s engine barking to life two rows over. The smell of race fuel and hot brake pads, and, if you time it right, a buffet dinner. Fold-up chairs. Coolers. Kids in oversized team shirts. A sky that spent all afternoon threatening and only followed through a little bit.

This year, Rally4Vets got to stand in the middle of it all, and we didn’t have to buy a ticket to do it.

The Washington D.C. Region of the SCCA named Rally4Vets, the flagship motorsports program of the Disabled Veteran Empowerment Network, as the charity recipient for its 2026 MARRS Labor Day competition.

To everyone at SCCA WDCR: thank you. We were honored to be picked, and we don’t take it lightly.

His name is Sammy

Here’s exactly where the money goes, and it’s not a slide deck.

Every dollar raised this weekend goes toward Sammy, our service dog currently in training.

Raising and placing a service dog is a long, patient, deeply unglamorous process. It is months of repetition. It is a dog learning to plant herself between a veteran and a crowded room, to interrupt a nightmare, to pick up the thing that hit the floor, to be a reason to get out of the house on the days when there is not another one. Nobody films the boring parts.

The boring parts are the whole job.

Then one day a dog walks into a veteran’s life, and something that had been stuck for years starts to move again.

That’s what yesterday’s SCCA drivers funded. Not overhead. Not a banner. A dog, a veteran, and a second chance at independence.

The People Who Made it Happen

Racers are not a wealthy demographic. Anyone who has ever fed a set of tires into a race weekend knows the money goes out faster than it comes in. Which is why it means something that so many people stopped at our tent, listened, asked good questions, and gave.

Thank you to the drivers, the crews, the families, the corner workers, the grid and timing volunteers, and the paddock neighbors who wandered over to look at the white WRX and stayed to talk.

Thank you to the folks who ran the food line. Thank you to the young man who came by, took a “Never Forgotten” sticker, and stood for a photo with an old Army helicopter pilot. You made my weekend, and I hope that sticker ends up on something fast.

The Rally4Vets WRX has crossed this country from Los Angeles to Washington, DC. It has covered 7,000-plus miles and 14 states this summer. But it has never been parked in better company than it was this weekend.

Now Let’s Talk About You Joining the SCCA

Here is the myth I’d like to retire: you need a race car to do this.

You don’t. The Washington D.C. Region has been at this since 1948, runs roughly 2,000 members across the Mid-Atlantic, and has an on-ramp for basically every level of “I think I might like this.”

•     Autocross — cones in a parking lot, one car at a time, top speeds around 60 mph. Your daily driver is welcome. This is where an enormous number of racing careers quietly begin.

•     RallyCross — the same idea, but on dirt, gravel, grass, and occasionally mud. Conditions change all day, which means the fast driver and the consistent driver are not always the same person.

•     HPDE (High Performance Driving Events) — no competition, no trophies, just instruction and seat time at Summit Point and Dominion Raceway. You will learn more about your car in one day than in five years of commuting.

•     Time Trials — your first taste of real competition, timed, with points on the line. A natural next step out of advanced HPDE.

•     Road Rally — a contest of precision rather than speed, run on public roads at legal speeds. Bring a navigator and a sense of humor.

•     Hill Climb — one car, one mountain road, no cones to forgive you. Bravery and discretion in careful proportion.

•     Road Racing / MARRS — the main event, one of the largest and most successful club-level series in the country.

•     Virtual Racing — because the Mid-Atlantic winter has to go somewhere, and a PC does not need new tires.

And if you’d rather not be the one strapped in: volunteer. None of this happens without flaggers, timing and scoring, grid, tech, and registration. It is the cheapest way into the sport and, ask anyone who’s done it, some of the best seats on the property.

Start here: wdcr-scca.org — then join at scca.com/pages/membership.

Full disclosure: I’m a proud SCCA member, both in WDCR and SoCal in California.

Veterans: There’s One More Grid You Belong On

We were handing out more than stickers this weekend. We were also talking to veteran drivers about Vet the Vote.

Vet the Vote is a nonpartisan campaign from the We the Veterans Foundation to recruit veterans and military family members to serve as poll workers. Since 2022, more than 165,000 have signed up. The goal for the 2026 midterms and beyond is 250,000.

The pitch to my fellow veterans is short, because you already understand it:

Elections, like race weekends, do not run themselves. They run on ordinary people who show up early, follow a checklist, maintain chain of custody, stay calm when the line gets long, and treat everyone in front of them the same way. That is not a political skill. That is a duty skill. We spent our careers doing precisely that.

Most jurisdictions provide training, and many pay $150–$300 for the day.

You’ll meet your neighbors. You’ll walk out understanding how the machinery of your own county actually works, which is more than most people can say.

We took the oath once. This is a very small, very concrete way to keep it. Sign up at vetthe.vote.

Next Apex

Our season isn’t over. The 6th Annual Top Dog Championships run Saturday, September 12, 2026, at Dominion Raceway. Come out, bring the family, and look for the white WRX with the stars on the flank.

To WDCR SCCA: Thank you for the weekend, for the welcome, and for putting a service dog in training one solid step closer to the veteran who’s waiting for her.

See you at the next green flag.

Robert

U.S. Army (Ret.)

Founder & CEO, Disabled Veteran Empowerment Network / Rally4Vets

Never Forgotten.

rally4vets.com