Weekly Report (4 March 2019)

Weekly Report (4 March 2019)

The last week of February was a quiet one for me, except for a night out on Thursday watching my local Cornwall Colts Hockey team who were hosting  the Navan Grads.

Anyone who has read my reports over the years will know I’m an Ottawa Senators fan, and have often remarked about their fortunes. Well, I have to admit that this season , I have lost a lot of faith in them. Decisions by the ‘top management’ to trade off many of the star players have been demoralizing for us fans. We’ve had to sit back and watch as the team has fallen from classy cup contenders at the end of last year, to a team that now finds it difficult to get a win. The excuse we keep hearing, is that it’s a time for a rebuild, but in my opinion it’s a demolition. To make things even worse, the head coach was fired this week. So, that’s why I’ve kept quiet recently. Hopefully things will eventually get better.

On Saturday 2 March, I had some racing to attend, at a track I hadn’t visited for over 12 years.

Back in June of 2007, a new racing circuit opened in the Calabogie Peaks of Ontario.

It’s a neatly paved track situated in beautiful countryside that  winds its way through the trees and hills. I found it very similar to the Mont Tremblant Circuit in Quebec and some of the European racing circuits.

On that occasion I was there to see a typical road course diet of single seaters and sports cars.

This weekend I was there for something a bit different.

Last Saturday (23 Feb) while I was at St Zotique watching the Lawn Tractors , the Calabogie Motor Sports Park had it’s first ever Ice Racing event. Unfortunately , I never found out about it until it was too late, but luckily for me, it was such a success that a second one was scheduled for this past weekend.

I made an early start from my home in Cornwall, and was at the track by 11-30 in time to watch a a few practice laps before the break for lunch.

The racing was taking place on a specially laid out track on the frozen ice and snow of the circuits paddock. that sits alongside the principle track. Temperature was minus 3 Centigrade which made it quite comfortable to be outside.

I met up with my friend and organizer Greg Van Dalen, who told me of his hopes that winter ice racing would take off and become  regular fixtures to the  winter events there.

Things got under way at 1-00 pm with 15 lap races of about a dozen cars. The favored vehicle seemed to be Suburus. After each race there was about a 10 minute break before the next one began.

I watched a few races before making my exit, and heading for home .

The Calabogie Ice Track was a new track for me and becomes # 237 on my TRACKCHASER totals