The Return of the Pocket Rocket (The Weekly Blog) 29th of Aug 2021

Weekly Blog    (29th of Aug 2021)  

This weeks report starts once again on a Tuesday, when on the 24th of August I spent an evening at the Cornwall Kart track.

I was out of bed early that day, and had nothing much to do, so before heading to the races, I spent the morning looking around the Lachute Flea Market.

It runs every Tuesday and is great place to go on in the summer. I got lucky that day and picked up a Dinky Toy diecast I’d been looking for. 

A  British Rail  Hindle Smart Helecs truck. that I’d been after for a long time. Made in Liverpool, UK over 60 years ago,

Once back in Cornwall , I headed across town to the Kart track.

Mother Nature was kind to the racers on this occasion and it turned out to be an enjoyable night.

We were still going through some  very hot and humid temperatures , so  I was spending a lot of the time indoors with the AC cranked up.

Thursday the 26th turned out to be a Rick @ the River kind of day. I’d seen on line that a couple of tug boats were hauling an unusual cargo up river.

So I went along to the banks of the St Lawrence at nearby Upper Canada Village, to watch a piece of bridge section being taken to Toronto.

In the evening, it was another one of Rick & Don at the Race Shops,

My buddy Don Simpson is a qualified portrait photographer, and that night his subject matter was Ryan Stabler.

Ryan is one of our local Sportsman drivers, and his shop is in the suburbs of Cornwall.

We  were made very welcome by his family as Don did his thing.

Friday was Autodrome Granby night , and once again the two of us would be heading up together.

Don picked me up at 2-00 pm and we were up there by 4-30 pm.

The head line event that night was the final round of the Canadian Big Block Series. 

As usual my good friends from the Bruno Cyr Pro Stock team allowed me to leave my camera bags in the race car hauler.

On my pit wander , I spotted a couple of my local drivers who were up there with their big blocks. 

Brianna Ladouceur 

and Jarrett Herbison was there helping out Ryan Arbuthnot .

Carey Terrance was also there from Akwesasne.

My good friend Josee Fortier was busy checking the legal details of the Crate engines.

We also met up with our friend, and former DirtCar official Kathy Caldwell.

Once the racing began , I took up position in my favorite shooting spot on turn 1 and 2,

During hot laps, my friend Bruno Cyr broke the lap record for Pro Stocks. Nice one Bruno !

There were only three divisions on the big track that night, and the inner oval was being used for the Slingshots 

 Only three divisions helped things to move along swiftly , and the Pro Stock Feature was quickly run before intermission.

Pascal Payeur won this won.

The Sling shots had their races during intermission.

The Canadian Big Block Modified Series race was next,

As in the previous rounds, my local drivers , Terrance, Ladouceur Whitteker and Arbuthnot  were up there near the front, but it was Steve Bernard that made the early running.

As the race moved towards a conclusion, track expert David Hebert in the # ONE car , passed Bernard with Terrance on his tail.

That’s how they crossed line, with Hebert getting yet another Granby win.

Carey Terrance took the series championship.

The final race of the night was for the Sportsman.

This turned out to be a good one for my friends, the  Gauvreau family , of Gatineau .

Before the races I had been talking with Eric , who is Cedric Gauvreau’s father. He told me it had been a last minute decision to come to Granby. They were there just on a family day out, with his wife and father in law ‘Salad’.

So it was nice to see them get the win.

During the Victory Lane presentations, Felix Roy was awarded the Sportsman Rookie of the Year championship. 

The show was all over by around 10-00, but we stayed in the pits for a while , socializing.

I was late getting home that night. 

Originally , I had thought of staying up in Quebec  and attending the RPM Speedway at St Marcel, on Saturday, but the media gossip during the week changed my mind and made the Brockville Ontario Speedway my destination.

News came to my attention that Danny O’Brien ‘The Pocket Rocket’ would be making a return to racing in the Randy Slack # 3 car.

Danny has been the track champion at the B.O.S many times since I started going there in 1995.

He was Track Champion that year,

About three years  ago he decided to quit, so it’s big news, that he’s making a come back.

I was at the track early on Saturday night to get some pictures of him and Randy in the pits.

There was a big schedule to get through that night which included a rain delayed Sportsman feature from July and all the other regular divisions.

Starting the night ,  was the ‘make up’ Sportsman feature where Bobby Herrington got passed long time leader Dylan Kirkland for another win.

Rain was expected later , so the races were hurried along as quickly as possible.

The first of the regular nights features was for the Rookie Sportsman which went to Justin Cyr.

Next up was the Street Stocks where Todd Raabe got the win.

There were two more feature races before the intermission and next one up was for the Mini Stocks ,

This gave a Victory to, Metcalfe, Ontario’s Hayden Brown. 

The final race before the break was for the Sprint Cars (or Track Packers)  as a few us like to call them.

There were only five cars in attendance , so it was more like a ‘dash for cash’ than a feature.

This was won by Ryan Poole. 

While Ryan was in Victory Lane , Mat Billings was also presented with his 2021 Track Championship award. 

Still with no sign of rain, a longer than expected intermission followed.

This time was used for some ‘make up’ presentations. Back in the Spring of 2020, the B.O.S would normally of held its awards banquet to honor its 2019 champions.

RYAN ARBUTHNOT 2019 Modified Champion

 

 

Ryan Scott , 2019 Sportsman Champion

COVID 19 restrictions put a stop to that , so this was a good time to do it.

The Modified Feature followed this

It was great to see Jeremy Lasalle back on track after being absent for a few weeks,

Brockville Ontario Speedway 28th of August 2021 Rick @ the Races

 Without too many stoppages, it was Ryan Arbuthnot  who took the win.

The Final race of the night was the Sportsman feature, and this turned out to be good one.

All though the expected rain never happened,  the RPM track in Quebec (my original plan) got rained out early.  That allowed the two Racine brothers to attend the B.O.S.  William in his Sportsman # 35 and Even in his Modified #54 .

It was great to see William giving Bobby Herrington a good run for the money for first place,

At the checkers it was Herrington , making it six out of seven feature wins at the B.O.S this year.

It was a mid night finish so by the time I got home it was another late one. 

I slept until 12-30 pm and by the time I woke, it was pouring with rain and my evening date at the Cornwall Motor Speedway had already been canceled.