RICK @ the RACES  (17 to 18 July)

RICK @ the RACES     (16/17/18 Jul 2010)

16 July                      Mohawk International Raceway (NY)

17 July                     Brockville Ontario Speedway

18 July                     Cornwall Motor Speedway (Ont)

I was finished work by 6-30 pm on Friday (16 Jul) and which allowed me to pay a visit to the Mohawk International Raceway at Hogansburg NY. There were no big delays at the Cornwall / Roosevetown border crossing and I arrived ten minutes before start time. All the regular divisions were there with Pro Stocks taking center stage for their 50 lap Mohawk Race Parts Series race .

While I was walking the pits I noticed a couple of welcome additions to the Modified ranks, one was Mike Perrotte who was making a return.

He’s a former MIR ( aka Frogtown Speedway) track champion and he told me that it had been six years since he’d last raced there. In the meantime he’s been kept busy as promoter at the Airborne Speedway ( Plattsburg) on Saturdays and racing his Modified at the Albany-Sarratoga track on Friday.

It was also good to see Tim O’Brien in attendance driving the Jim Primrose owned car. A few years ago the Primrose Team were weekly regulars with Mark Hitchcock behind the wheel, but in recent years Can Am has been their Friday night track choice.

Amongst the Pro Stocks, it’s always a pleasure seeing Claudia Tarbell

The Sportsman ranks were also swelled by two of my Brockville friends, Josh Kane and Tabatha Murphy.

The big race of the night for Pro Stock’s was as I expected, a dragged out affair with with plenty of cautions.

Winner after a good dog fight with Louie Jackson was Joey Ladouceur.

The Bandit Feature winner was once again Joey Foster who seems to win every time I go there.

The same can be said for Chris Raabe in the Sportsman division who also found himself back in Victory Lane. He really had to work hard for it this time as Dylan Evoy challenged him side by side for most of the race.

The Modified Feature had to be red flagged after a big crash on lap 4 that took out many of the top runners. Carey Terrance, Roy Tarbell, John Lazore and Lee Ladouceur were all involved. On the restart Todd Stone got off to a run away lead then challenged by Gage Morin in the closing laps. There were not enough laps left for Morin to change the outcome so Stone went on to take his first MIR win.

On Saturday I was heading to the Brockville Ontario Speedway once more where the regular show was boosted by an appearance of the Patriot Sprint Cars. The weather forecast had threatened rain but luckily it stayed away.

I had my usual pit walk about and caught my friend  Shanley Beatie working on the Tabatha Murphy  Sportsman car.

The Sprint car heats got off to a spectacular start when April Wilson took a wild flip after connecting with Chris Jones.

April walked away from it OK, but her car was totaled.

The feature race produced a surprise win by 15 year old Shayne Ely from the Scranton area of Pennsylvania.

In the Modified Feature it looked like Dave Heaslip was going to get his first win in a long time, but a late caution put an end to that. He’d built up a big lead and was up front for most of the race but the stoppage allowed Stephane Lafrance to close the gap.

Steph’s car is performing like a dream at the moment and edged past the ‘Slip’ with a couple of laps to go. In the Victory Lane interview he stated that it was the best car he’d ever owned.

Regular Sportsman winner at BOS, Chris Raabe was attending a DIRTCAR Series race at Weedsport NY so was missing from the program.

Therefore it was no surprise that Dylan Evoy one of his strongest rivals took the feature win. I have to give credit to the Sportsman guys and gals , who managed to go the full length of the feature with only one caution. Todd Raabe won the Street Stock event and in the Rookies it was Jean Marc Larose.

I seem to be over-dosing on Sprint Cars lately as the Patriot’s were also attending the Sunday night races at the Cornwall Motor Speedway. Regular readers will be aware that the Sprints are not my favorite so it was nice to see a good turn out of cars in the other divisions.

As usual, I was there early and had a good chat in the pits with Pro Stock driver Dave Bissonnette. He told me that he and his crew had been busy repairing the car after receiving damage at Friday nights MIR. He was also interested in finding out more about the BriSCA F2 stock cars cars from Smeatharpe (UK) that he’d seen on my website www.rickattheraces.com  I explained to him that they were ‘contact’ racers and smaller versions of BriSCA F1. BriSCA F2 have 2 litre engines where as BriSCA F1’s  are unlimited ( usually big and small block Chev V8’s) .

Like Brockville the night before , wet weather had been forecast but some how we managed to escape it. Black clouds surrounded the area but we only got a few sprinkles of rain came that came down just as the Sprint Car feature began.

This did not effect the race , but typical of this division a major wreck caused unwanted delays. A two car rollover and a big pile up on the first turn brought out the reds.

With the field depleted by about 8 cars, the re run was more like a ‘dash for cash’ with Steve Poirier taking the win. ( the actual ‘dash for cash’ was won by Brockville winner Shayne Ely).

The Modified and Sportsman feature’s were the best races of the night. In the Mods Carey Terrance and Gage Morin underwent a great battle until Morin went too high and clipped the front stretch wall.

With him out of contention Terrance looked all set for the win, but as the old saying goes ‘it ain’t over until the fat lady sings’. A last lap tire failure meant a chasing Danny O’Brien was able to grab the lead as Terrance limped over the line in fourth.

The Sportsman feature was also an epic duel with track rivals Chris Raabe and Randy Earl dicing side by side for most of the race. It was Raabe who took the win.

      The Pro Stock race was won by the aforementioned Dave Bissonnette with Ronnie Tyo taking the Mini Stock event