Weekly Blog  (19th Oct 2022) THE FALL NATIONALS at the Brockville Ontario Speedway 

I’m humbled and lost for words. The love and care of the racing family is unbelievable. As mentioned in last weeks BLOG , I took a tumble on the opening night of the Cornwall  Motor Speedway’s Canadian Dirt Week, while I was walking back to my car.

I tripped over, and fell flat on my face, breaking a bone or two. As well as this I wrecked my camera in the process.

It was overwhelming the amount of get well wishes I received both on Face Book and in private messages. I’m sorry I couldn’t reply to you all individually.

To top  all this, my good friend Corey Wheeler organized a collection from the ‘racing family’ to replace my busted camera. This was awesome and totally unexpected, What great people the racing fraternity are.

I will be upgrading my equipment in the next week or so , but in the meantime I’ll be using one of my back up cameras that I have for emergencies.

A BIG THANK YOU TO EVERYONE

I was still a bit sore as this past weekend approached. The Brockville Ontario Speedway were staging their Annual Fall Nationals which is an event I always enjoy.

Before heading off to Friday nights races, I took my 1978 , T Bird into town to do a bit of shopping and what a surprise !

Parked in the lot was another one just like mine. This was a 1977 model according to the owner.

I couldn’t resist this quick picture. Please note, I don’t normally park that bad LOL

As I was still in recovery mode and didn’t want to drive back and forth each day ,  I decided to share a room at the Travelodge with my buddy ‘tech man’ Ted Lasage.

Ted doesn’t normally do the tech at the B.O.S , but was standing in for their regular tech guy Mark Hitchcock. Mark is still recovering from a bad car accident he had a few weeks ago.

I had no plans to get to the track too early , so got there just as the hot laps were starting.

The program consisted of the final round of the Ogilvie Series for 358 Modifieds plus Sportsman, Street Stocks and Vintage Mods.

It was nice to see media man, Mathieu Fortin back at the races , sporting a nice sticker on his back-pack.

He’s been absent from the tracks for a few months and  has been missed by many. 

The Fall Nationals Weekend was being sponsored by DIRT OUT LAW APPAREL which is one of the companies owned by my good buddy Ralph Murphy .

Because I was in ‘recovery mode’ he’d offered me a  space in his sponsors  booth.

So once I’d got a few heat race pictures , I went up there to watch the feature races in the warm.

The first one was for the Street Stocks.

This was won by Justin Ramsay, who is a  Brighton Speedway regular.

The Sportsman feature followed this and after Shane Pecore took an early lead Bobby Herrington managed to get passed him for the win.

 

Chris Raabe won the 75 lap  Modified race after being chased over the line by Tim Fuller.

David Hebert was third , which was good enough for him to claim the Quebec /Ontario Series.

The Ogilvie Series went to Ryan Arbuthnott ,

The Vintage Modified race was the last race of the night ,  I  chose to miss this one and head back to the warmth of my hotel room.

That was day one completed  of this two day event .

It was nice not having  the one hour drive back home , and then returning  again the next day.

After breakfast in the hotel, Ted and I took the 10 minute drive back to the track.

Taking the place  of the Street Stocks and Vintage Modifieds , the nights program , now consisted of Mini Stocks and the DirtCar Pro Stocks 

The 358 Modifieds and Sportsman were there to contest the final rounds in their respective DirtCar Series races.

There was plenty of time to kill before the racing began, and one of my jobs was to track down Tristan Hebert.

He’s one of Yan Bussiere’s crew guys, and he’s the ‘Good Samaritan’ from the night I took my tumble, and got the medics to me so quickly.

I wanted to meet him again and personally thank him.

Thanks to Yan for taking this picture.

While in the pits, I met up with New Yorker, Ryan Bartlett

 He was making his 358 Modified return to the B.O.S  after an absence of a few years.

Another 358 Modified driver from New York I found in the pits was Steve Lewis Jr.

He’s from Ransomville and was making his first trip to the B.O.S.

I also had a good chat with Cody McPherson from St Cathrines, Ontario.

Cody , fresh from his big win at last weeks SUPER DIRT WEEK in Oswego NY  was at the B.O.S attempting to clinch the DirtCar Sportsman Series.

Once the racing began , I had the same plan as the night before.

I took pictures on the middle for the heat races, before moving up to Ralph’s V.I.P booth.

The first feature was for the MiniStocks and this was won by Hayden Brown.

Next up was the 100 lap 358 DirtCar Modified Series race.

This was a great race with Chris Raabe and David Hebert battling it out for the lead until lap 46 .

At this point Heberts car burst into flames, and the red flags came out instantly.

It looked very scary as he pulled to a halt and the Fire Suppression System started to do its job. This safety feature that was added to the rule book a couple of years ago almost certainly prevented severe consequences.

After the restart it was New Yorker, Tim Fuller who took the challenge to Raabe, with Corey Wheeler not far behind. There was a cat and mouse battle during the closing laps, but Fuller just couldn’t get past .

So the 01 car went onto take the checkers , making it a weekend sweep for the Alexandria , Ontario man.

Fuller and Wheeler completed the podium.

We then crowned a new DirtCar 358 Modified Champion.

Congrats to Dave Marcuccillo from Montezuma , NY

The DirtCar Sportsman Series race followed this .

Just like Raabe in the previous race, Bobby Herrington dominated and did the sweep.

Samuel Charland put up a good challenge, but failed to get by Herrington.

Zach Sobotka completed the podium.

Cody McPherson’s fourth place was good enough to secure the DirtCar Sportsman Series.

It was now almost 11-00 pm so I decided to miss the Pro Stock feature and head for home.

In my absence, Massena , NY’s Kevin Fetterley Jr took the  checkers.

As usual this was another well presented weekend by promoter Paul Kirkland and his staff