RICK @ the RACES (19 Jan 2008)

ARENA ESSEX RACEWAY ( 19 January )

This is the fourteenth Canadian winter I’ve experienced since moving from Milton Keynes in the UK to Ontario, in 1994. My first one, was quite severe, but since then , they haven’t been so bad. This year, the clock seams to have turned it self back, and huge quantities of snow have fallen. Several feet of the stuff, followed by warmer temperatures have caused many of the ice races I intended visiting to be canceled. Watery slush is no good for racing.

My original plans for the weekend of 19/20 January were to attend the ice races at Laviltree near to Montreal, Quebec, but an e-mail message I received a few days before Christmas changed all that.

With my father’s 80th Birthday was rapidly approaching on January 16, and my brother Chris, and sister Anne had no idea what to get him for a gift, and thought that a surprise visit by me would be the perfect solution.

If I could arrange for some time off work they would pay for  my plane tickets.

A short weekend visit was arranged and my ‘secret arrival’ was planned to be unveiled at the celebration supper on Friday Jan 18.

Everything had to be ‘hush-hush’ not to spoil the surprise.

The plan was to fly out from Toronto’s Pearson Airport to London Heathrow on Thursday night and return on Sunday.

Of course, me being me, I quickly checked out the internet to find out if there was any nearby racing taking place on Saturday .

I struck gold when I discovered that Vince O’Connors, ROLLING THUNDER SHOW was presenting the 2008 OVAL RACING EXPO at ARENA ESSEX, Thurrock.

THE TRIP

Pearson , is not the ideal choice of departure airport if you live in Eastern Ontario ( It’s a about a five hour drive from Maxville) but it was all that was available for a reasonable price,  at such short notice.

I set off on Wednesday evening heading to Belleville, some three hours away from hom, where I’d arranged to leave my car. My buddy, Jim Clarke the KAWARTHA SPEEDWAY announcer, who lives the city, had offered to put me up for the night, and then run me to Pearson the next day in his Chevy Impala.

Wednesday night was spent sampling a beer or two with Jim and his buddy , Rick Kevin, a media guy and presenter on Belleville’s ROCK 107-1 Radio Station.

On Thursday, following lunch at the Boston Pizza on Yonge Street , Toronto,  Jim dropped me off at the Airport.

The flight was running late due to a crash that had occurred earlier in the day at Heathrow .

A British Airways Boeing 777, just like the one I was flying on, had an engine failure while landing, and ‘belly-flopped’ on to the grass, just short of the runway.

Luckily brother Chris who was picking me up,  had checked the arrival times , and had made plans accordingly. He was there waiting for me, on Friday morning, once I’d cleared customs.

The rest of the day was spent at his place in Dunstable,  keeping out of sight,  and catching up on sleep until the celebration meal took place at The Plough Inn, (a local village pub and eatery) at Wingfield in the evening .

Chris had insured me to drive his VW ‘minivan’ , so during the afternoon I took a drive in to the old town of Dunstable where I grew up as a kid. What a pitiful place it is now ! and a shadow of it’s former self, with many factories closed down and a shopping center that seamed to be ‘lacking’ in something. After buying a supply of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Chocolate to bring home to Canada, I was back on the road ( I know , it’s made and sold over here, but like most Brits, I prefer the taste of the real thing) . Soon after leaving the store, I had a momentary lapse of concentration, and scared the living daylights out of a poor old lady in a Honda, as I drove towards her on the wrong side of the road. It’s been few years since I’ve had to drive on the left, and I forgot what I was doing ! Luckily I realized in good time to avoid an accident.

The Birthday Party went well and turned out to be quite emotional as our dastardly scheme unfolded.

The Menu had something for everybody and the food was excellent. I had Prawn Cocktail for starters, Steak and Ale Pie for the main course, and Chocolate Cheese Cake for dessert.

After Mum had quickly made up the spare bed, I now based myself in my former home in Totternhoe for the next two nights.

One of the few people that I’d shared the secret of my trip with, was my long- time friend Lynn Edwards, who drove up from Hampshire in her new set of wheels, (an impressive Porsche convertible), for our prearranged lunch date. Over the past few years, Lynn has visited Canada on a number of occasions and joined me for racing at the CORNWALL MOTOR SPEEDWAY (Ont) AUTODROME EDELWEISS (Que) ROLLING WHEELS and SYRACUSE (NY) for SUPER DIRT WEEK. We dined at The Cross Keys in Totternhoe , the same little pub, which we’d frequented in our teens.
Following our lunch, Colin Herridge, another old buddy, who I’ve known for many years, arrived in Totternhoe to ‘taxi’ me in his Vauxhall Vecta to ARENA ESSEX for the afternoon/early evening races.

Here’s a little bit of info about ARENA ESSEX

ARENA ESSEX is located to the East of London, beside the capitals orbital motorway ( M25) at Thurrock. At this point you will find the last river crossing of the Thames before it joins the North Sea. The Dartford Tunnel has been there for many years, but in recent times the Queen Elizabeth Bridge has been constructed too.

The track has a paved quarter mile oval for car racing with a shale (dirt) inner oval for motor-cycle speedway. It was built in the 1970’s on the site of the former Tunnel Cement quarries by top 1960’s BriSCA F1 driver and promotor # 1 Chick Woodroffe.

It has been in the hands of his son Tony, since Chick sadly passed away.

The event we were there to see was the 2008 OVAL RACING EXPO presented by the ROLLING THUNDER SHOW. This had previously been a static indoor car and trade show  held in nearby Brentwood , but has since moved to ARENA ESSEX where actual racing taking place.

There were plenty of Formulas on the program and a lot to see.

On arrival, I met up with fellow SHORTCIRCUIT MAGAZINE contributor and good buddy , Dave ‘Smiffyman’ Smith, who’d arranged photo access for me. Dave is one of the best photographers in the business and as well as his work appearing in the UK’s leading oval racing mag, it has also been seen in Canada’s INSIDETRACK MOTORSPORT NEWS and AREA AUTO RACING NEWS in the USA. He introduced me to another SHORTCIRCUIT MAGAZINE staffer, Pop Christie who takes care of the technical pages.

I also got the chance to meet up and have a good chat with announcer Nick Knowles who I bumped into at the DIRT Modified races at the VOLUSIA SPEEDWAY in Florida last February. He’s a native of Suffolk, and lives not far from my home town of Ipswich.

Following the afternoon practice sessions the actual racing got started around 5-00pm. The show was run in a very slick manner with non-stop action and no messing around for unnecessary delays. The Superstox were my favorite division where Steve Walters # 50 won each of the three races. Two other formula’s I’d been looking forward to seeing, were the Autograss Specials and the Reliant Robins. I’d heard a lot about them but had never seen them in action before. The Autograss Specials reminded me of a scaled down version of Stateside World of Outlaw Late Models, with the way they were thrown sideway’s from the end of the straights all the way through the bends. They were really entertaining.

For the benefit of my North American friends let me explain what a Reliant Robin is. For many years three wheeler cars were made in Europe and the British built fiber-glass Reliant was one of the most popular. The Robin was the predecessor of the earlier Regal model. ‘Plastic Pigs’ as they are affectionately known, became the butt of many jokes, and were featured in various comedy shows such as ‘Mr Bean’ and ‘Only Fools and Horses’. Reliant Robin races have emerged since I moved to Canada and this was the first time I’d seen them. They were lots of fun with two of them rolling over on the opening lap.

It was also great to see third generation driver, Becca Dance # 70 in action in the Euro Rods. Fourteen year old Becca is the granddaughter of the late ‘Foxy’ Dance # 70 who was one of the top southern personalities during 1960/70’s . Not only has she retained her grandfather’s number, but also races with the famous fox mascot on the roof. I had a chance to chat to Becca in the pits, and she explained to me that it wasn’t the original mascot, as that one was getting a bit ‘tired’.

Whilst on the subject of nostalgia, I must mention the bar at ARENA ESSEX which is decked out with many photos and paintings featuring the racing career of track founder # 1 Chick Woodroffe.

When I became a regular race fan as a school kid back in the mid 1960’s Chick was one of my hero’s, and I was in his Supporters Club. When I decided to take up racing in the 1970’s , it was at the SNETTERTON CIRCUIT (Norfolk) , which was one of his tracks that I made my debut. In later years prior to my emigration I renewed my association with Chick through the VSCA (Veteran Stock Car Association) . So for me, this was the perfect place to ‘sink’ a pint before heading back to Totternhoe.

We left ARENA ESSEX at around 8-00pm and I was back in the Dunstable area by 9-30pm in time to spend the rest of Saturday evening with the family.

Sunday morning I accompanied my Dad for a drive into Leighton Buzzard on a ‘grocery shop’ where I picked up a packet of Mr Kipling Cherry Bakewell Tarts ( another food item I miss in Canada) .

At around mid day my sister Anne arrived at Mum and Dads place to take me to Heathrow. Once checked in, I used up the rest of my loose change buying even more Cadbury’s Dairy Milk ! before the plane took off for Toronto.

I landed at Pearson just before 7-00pm and phoned Jim, who was on his way from Belleville. The roads were bad with snow and ice which made him a little late. My plans were to be back in Maxville before mid-night and return to work on Monday morning.

Road conditions were still slippery at Pickering , east of Toronto when we got a blow out on the front-right tire.

It occurred in the Express Lane of the 401 and we became marooned on the shoulder while we waited for a CAA tow truck to arrive. We had an emergency ‘donut’ tire in the trunk but it would have been too dangerous to try changing it in the location we were in.

During the half hour time period that we waited for the CAA to arrive, we had four ‘vultures’ turn up. ( they are the ‘renegade’ tow trucks that sit beside the highways waiting to pounce on the unfortunate motorist), The first guy wanted 100 bucks just to tow us to the next exit which was about one mile up the road !

Once the CAA truck arrived we opted to be towed all the way to Belleville in preference to driving about 160 kms on a ‘donut’ in poor conditions.

The car was dropped off at the Service Dept of the Belleville Walmart at around 11-30pm where we called for a taxi to Jim’s place. I phoned my work to let them know I wouldn’t be there in the morning, and another night was spent at Jim’s.

On Monday morning I drove Jim to Walmart in my car before heading back to Maxville, where I arrived home at lunchtime.

So my first racing event of the year turned out a little different than expected. Instead of the frozen lakes of Canada, it was the dry paved oval of ARENA ESSEX.