RICK @ the RACES (23/24 Oct)

For the first time in many months a week has gone by where I haven’t seen any racing. This past weekend was spent at home for various reasons. In previous years, I’ve attended the Eastern States Weekend at Middletown NY, but this year decided to give it a miss. I left it a late to be added to the ‘photographers list’ and when I did apply, I found out that it was oversubscribed. Can you imagine me going to the races and not taking pictures ! Yep, I know it’s unthinkable,  so I decided to look for an alternative event. Another reason for giving Middletown a miss, was a Safety Meeting, that I’d been asked to attend at my place of work which was scheduled for Saturday morning.

Instead, I  made plans to make a first time visit to the Lee USA Speedway in New Hampshire for Sundays Oktoberfest Races . This would have been a new track for me. It’s paved and I was looking forward to seeing the asphalt Modifieds in action.

The last few weeks have been busy at work and after a late finish on Friday night I was ‘burned out’. I needed a break and to recharge my batteries.

So, after attending Saturday mornings meeting I made my self comfortable for a night at home behind the TV and PC . As the night progressed and it got nearer to bed time, I was still feeling below par, and the thought of an early morning departure for New Hampshire became less inviting. The weather was also looking ‘iffy’, so my plans were scrapped which resulted in a race less weekend.

On Sunday afternoon I listened to the live on-line up dates from Middletown, and it sounded like I missed out on a very controversial day. Apparently in the big 200 lapper some bad decisions were made following a caution. On the restart Stewart Friesen who’d been leading was put into second place behind Tim McCreadie. This met with disapproval with the race being disrupted and delayed for some time. Friesen was black flagged, then reinstated at the rear of the grid which of course robbed him of a potential victory. I’m sure the fiasco that occurred will be talked about for years to come.

My weekend TV viewing consisted of watching a poor performance by my hockey team, the Ottawa Senators against the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday and SPEED Channels showing of the Williams Grove, World of Outlaw show. Sprint Car veteran Sammy Swindell won this one.

In between all this I started doing some research for my next ‘Retro Report’. I’m now up to 1986 and hope to have a report on what I was doing in 1987 on here soon. At that time , I was living in Cosgrove, close to Milton Keynes (UK), and on April 18 of that year, raced for the first and only time at the Kings Lynn Speedway in Norfolk.