Weekly Blog  (11th July 2022)

Well that’s another busy week behind me. I’m not complaining, winters are long here, so when the race season arrives you have to grasp the opportunity and get as much as you can.

Four racing events in four days, but luckily for me, all were at my local tracks,

Things got started on Thursday the 7th of July with a mid-week Big Block Modified special at the Cornwall Motor Speedway.

The CMS isn’t a DIRTcar track this year , so this was an unsanctioned independent show.

Regardless of this, it still attracted a few big names from south of the border. I arrived early in the afternoon and already two of the top US teams were there.

I first spotted Mike and Mandee Mahaney checking out the track, then shortly after this Matt Sheppard and Jordan Lynch were doing the same thing..

In the past Matt has won plenty of DIRTcar races at my local track.

On my pit walk-about I came across the Mat Williamson team.

I stopped for a while for chat with him and his crew.

Although the show was advertised as a Big Block show, it didn’t exclude small-blocks, provided they made the weight. It would be fair to say, the majority in attendance were small-blocks.

As well as Modifieds, the program consisted of Sportsman and Rookie Sportsman.

The first Feature of the night was for the Rookie Sportsman where Josh Jock got another victory.

The 80 lap headline event followed this, and it was a good one.

Chris Raabe was chased to the line by Tim Fuller and Erick Rudolph. 

Each of the first three cars had small blocks .

To end the night , it was the SPORTSMAN feature,

This was another excellent race, that was won by Cedric Gauvreau.

DAY 2 of my four in a row, was a regular Friday night show at the Mohawk International Raceway.

No Modifieds were on the program, as Sportsman and Pro Stocks became the premier divisions.

Bandits , Mod Lites and Rookie Sportsman were the support classes.

The first feature was for the Bandits and it was a first time win for  Jacob Fountain.

Next up was the Mod-Lites where Keven Boucher from Quebec took the checkers.

During the Intermission I met up with long time Track Chasing friend Allan E Brown and his wife Nancy from Comstock Park in Michigan.

Allan was the was the former editor and publisher of the National Speedway Directory .

Before the days of Web Sites and Face Book it was the ‘must have’ book for race fans wanting to go exploring. I have many editions and the one pictured has one of my photos on the cover.

After the break it was the Rookie Sportsman Feature.

Following his win at Cornwall two weeks ago, Ty David got his second career win.

The regular Sportsman feature came up next, and Shane Pecore took this one after Fire Swamp led for many laps.

I think that’s his third win at the M.I.R this year.

The Pro Stocks feature ended the night and this was a good one.

Zach Daniels # 30 led for most of the race with Bruno Richard on his bumper lap after lap and unable to pass.

To every ones amazement his car came to a sudden halt with just a few laps remaining, giving Richard yet another victory to his recent haul.

Earlier in the evening I’d been chatting with Bruno , and he told me of his weekend ahead. He was heading to the Lebanon Valley Speedway NY on Saturday and then taking part in the Pro Stock DIRTcar Series at the Glenn Ridge Speedway NY on Sunday .

My plans for Saturday, and DAY 3 ,  were to carry on staying local and go the Brockville Ontario Speedway.

Before going there, I had somewhere else to go. I was heading down to Napanee to look at a car that was for sale. If all goes well, I will say more about that in my next report.

From Napanee, I went straight to the B.O.S .

The program looked good for someone like me, who’s preference is for the Modifieds and Sportsman. Their features were first and the Sprint Cars, Street Stocks, Vintage and Rookies were all to follow.

The races moved along smoothly and after the intermission the Sportsman had their feature.

This one went from Green to Checkers with Jessica Power taking a popular win.

The last race of the night for me , was up next. the Modified Feature. 

Ryan Arbuthnott was the winner of this one , and was followed across the line by Kyle Dingwall and Chris Raabe.

Once the Victory Lane pics were done, I was out of the gate and heading for home.

DAY 4 began with the alarm clock going off at 8-00 am,  to get me out of bed for the Austrian Grand Prix on TV.

It was another entertaining race with Charles Leclerc in the Ferrari taking the win.

Then in the late afternoon it was time to head to the Cornwall Motor Speedway.

After Thursday’s midweek special, the Modifieds were taking a night off.

The Sportsman division took over as the Headliners , along with the Rookie Sportsman, Mini Stocks and the visiting SOS Sprint Cars and Mod Lites.

Feature wins went to ,

Blayden Arquette (Rookie Sportsman)

Alex Daneau (Mod Lites)

Jordan Poirier (SOS Sprint Cars)

Pierre Picard (Mini Stocks)

For the main event , we were treated to some really good Sportsman racing with great battles taking place between Shane Pecore, and Ryan Stabler in the early stages .

As Stabler dropped back Samuel Charland and Bobby Herrington came into the picture , as the laps ran down.

With about five to go Charland was challenging Pecore, and looked good for passing him, but it wasn’t to be.

 

Pecore managed to keep him at bay, and hold the lead until the checkers.

Charland was runner up and Herrington took the third spot,

Apart from a longer than normal intermission for track prep, things went along quite smoothly .

I was out of there by 10-30 pm and home at 10-45 pm, to so end another busy week of racing.