RICK @ the RACES (27 Feb 2011)

27 Feb              Autodrome St Eustache, Quebec

This past weekend , I once again had to change my plans when one of my intended events got canceled. Back in January, the Motorsport Club of Ottawa were due to have an ice race in the parking lot of the Capital City Speedway, which had to be postponed due to a lack of ice. The make up date was slated for this past Sunday, and that was to be my destination. I had two events to choose from that day but this one in Ottawa had been my preference.

A few days before it was about to take place, I learned that once again it been canceled, which meant I had to put plan B into action. Luckily, also scheduled for the same day was an ice race at Autodrome St Eustache, just north of Montreal , so this became my new destination.

I was accompanied on this trip www.rickattheraces.com web master Craig Revelle who had never been to an ice race before, or the Autodrome St Eustache for that matter . Craig drove up from his home in Gananoque, Ontario to the Fifth Wheel Truck Stop in Cornwall where we met up for breakfast.

To promote his FINISH LINE WEB DESIGN business he’s had some sharp looking T shirts made, so on a frigid Sunday morning, I was trying them on for size out in the parking lot. After breakfast we headed for Quebec and after about an hour and half of driving we’d arrived at the Autodrome.

I’ve been to this track on numerous occasions in the past, but today I was going to gain a ‘new track’ for my TRACKCHASING totals. The reason for this is because in TRACKCHASER rules, different configurations count as separate tracks. In the past I’d seen regular racing on the oval but today they were using a ‘road course’ configuration.

On arrival we toured the pits and the first person we bumped into was Van Kleek Hill, Ontario racer Sebastien Chabot # 51 . He’d told me, the previous week at the Clarence Creek races that if his car was ‘still in one piece’ he’d be at St Eustache.

As mentioned in last weeks report, during the normal racing season Sebastien is one of the crew members on the Lee Ladouceur ESS Sprint Car Team from Alexandria (Ont). Today it was Lee’s turn to be ‘crew man’ and he was there in the pits helping out Sebastien.

Practice sessions were taking place at the time and after watching some of this we retired to the restaurant for a warm up. Racing was due to get under way at around 1-00 pm and just prior to start time I met up with another couple of my friends.

Fellow TRACKCHASERS Guy and Pam Smith had traveled up from their home in the Poconos of Pennsylvania to see this one. Guy, who is a weekly columnist in Area Auto Racing News was also celebrating his birthday at the races.

Once the action began, I took up position on the center to take some pics and was lucky to be in the right place at the right time when Sebastien won his race. Like most of the ice racing events I attend, I never stay for the full show ( it’s too damn cold ! )

so after another warm up at the intermission we made our departure.

The ‘road course’ configuration I saw at Autodrome St Eustache became track # 192 on my TRACKCHASING Totals.

Once we’d returned to the ‘Fifth Wheel’ for Craig to collect his car, I went back to my house to watch the end of the televised NASCAR race from Phoenix. From what I saw, the quality of racing looked slightly better than the debacle from Daytona the week before, and it was certainly refreshing to see Jeff Gordon back in Victory Lane after a winless drought of nearly two years.