Brockville Ontario
Speedway (13th May 2006)
My racing this weekend,
was reduced to just one show, by two famous Mothers, Mother Nature
cut short any hopes of action on Friday night while on Sunday, there
was a lack of events due to Mothers Day. ( For the benefit of my UK
readers, I must add that Mothers Day in North America does not fall
on the same day as over there) . This was the weekend when most of
the Canadian tracks had their season openers and , work permitting,
on Friday, I`d planned on going to Autodrome Edelweiss, Que.
It rained for most of the day, and Edelweiss was one of the many
tracks that had to cancel, so I didn`t venture very far that night.
Allow me to digress for
a moment ..If you recall from my last Rick @ the Races report, I
mentioned the fact that rain rarely causes cancelations in the UK,
but I`ve just had a message from fellow SHORT CIRCUIT MAGAZINE
photographer and writer, Dave "Smiffyman" Smith relating
to the ROLLING THUNDER SHOW at the Arena Essex track this past
weekend.... here`s what he says
<<
" Well we had a first for the
UK
last night, the monthly RTS was running well into the second heats
when a few drops of the wet stuff started to fall. By the end of
the sprint car race, the drizzle had turned into a torrent. The
rain was coming down like a tap and the track got flooded.
Normally this would not be a problem, but the sprint cars were going
around like speedboats. Slowly the pits started to fill up and
within 10 minutes there was over 10” of rain, making life very
difficult for the race teams. To their credit the junior
minisprints ran their final but as every lap ticked by, one by one the
engines conked out. The junior hot rods managed 10 laps but again all
but four cars stopped somewhere on the track. It was at this
point the organiser decided to cancel the rest of the meeting as
things were getting really dangerous. Probably a good call,
needles to say yours truly had long departed for the dry of the bar!
" >>
I
spent Saturday afternoon at the Cornwall Motor Speedway (Ont) with
one of the officials , not for racing, ( as their season is not due
to start until next week) but for some preparation work in the
control tower, as I have joined their team , and will be
working there this year. It had been wet and windy in Cornwall , so
a phone call to the Brockville Ontario Speedway was made to see if
their season opener was still on that night., and after hearing the
good news, I took off down HWY 401 for their show of 358 DIRT
MODIFIEDS, DIRT SPORTSMAN, 8 cyl Street Stox and Rookies. As you`d
expect for an opener, there was a lot of nice looking machinery on
show, from all the classes . There were too many for me to mention
them all, but if I had to single out a few, I`d have to say , from
the top division , the mods of Stephane Lafrance, Mark Hitchcock and
( back on the track after a lay-off ) Keith "Chico"
Dingwall looked really good, as did the Sportsman car of Chris Raabe
. It was a chilly night but the rain stayed away and when Kingston
(Ont) Danny O`Brien crossed the line to take the Modified feature,
it marked his 100th career win. Track time was also given for
demonstration laps by rookie Sprint Car driver April Wilson,
(daughter of Rick Wilson), and also for one of the Vintage
Stock cars, which will be an additional division at the
"BOS" this year . The car concerned, brought back fond
memories for me, as it had a similar shape to one of the BriSCA F1
stock cars I used to race back in the 70`s .... I`ll definately be
looking forward to seeing these guys more often in 2006.
PHOTO
# 1
A
photo by my buddy Dave "Smiffyman" Smith before the rain
at Arena Essex of a Vauxhall (GM) 16v 2 litre twin cam, Audi
bodied from the Outlaw Hot Rod division
PHOTO
# 2
Danny
O`Brien of Kingston (Ont) in victory lane at Brockville after
marking up his 100th career win in Modifieds.
PHOTO
# 3
Nice
looking Mods of # 96 Keith "Chico" Dingwall and # 95 Mark
Hitchcock at the Brockville opener.
PHOTO
# 4
Here
is the tidy 2006 Stephane Lafrance # 115 , Modified
PHOTO
# 5
One
of the Vintage Stock Cars that will be racing regularly at
Brockville in 2006
PHOTO
# 6
Another
excuse for me to show one of my old BriSCA F1`s , seen here in
the pits at the Brands Hatch Circuit in 1975
RACES
ATTENDED THIS YEAR
1st
JAN BROCKVILLE SPEEDWAY ONT (ICE ENDURO)
8th
JAN ST GUILLAUME QUE (ICE
RACING)
22nd
JAN STE GENEVIEVE DE BATISCAN QUE (ICE RACING)
29th
JAN MERCIER QUE (ICE RACING)
11th
FEB LAC CAYAMANT ,MANIWAKI QUE (ICE RACING)
12th
FEB BERTRAND FABI CIRCUIT ,SHERBROOKE QUE (ANDROS
TROPHY)
19th
FEB LAC LE MIRAGE, VICTORIAVILLE QUE, (ICE RACING)
19th
FEB STE EULALIE , QUE, (ICE RACING)
26th
FEB BEAUHARNOIS ,QUE (ICE RACING)
26th
FEB ST SULPICE , QUE (ICE RACING)
4th
MAR MINDEN FAIRGROUNDS ONT (ICE RACING)
5th
MAR LAKE ALGONQUIN,WELLS NY. (ICE RACING)
9th
APRIL CAYUGA COUNTY FAIRSPEEDWAY,WEEDSPORT NY
15th
APRIL FULTON SPEEDWAY NY
29th
APRIL CAN AM SPEEDWAY,LAFARGEVILLE,NY
6th
MAY FULTON SPEEDWAY NY
7th
MAY ROLING WHEELS SPEEDWAY PARK. ELBRIDGE NY
(SUPER DIRT SERIES)
10th
May CAPITAL CITY SPEEDWAY , STITTSVILLE ,ONT
13th
May BROCKVILLE SPEEDWAY ONT
