RICK @ the RACES (4/5 April 2009)
Sat 4 April Cornwall Motor Speedway Banquet, Ont
Sun 5 April St Hyacinthe Car Show Que
This past weekend was one of those occasions when my plans changed by the hour !
Saturday, was no problem, that was a ‘definite’ in my diary. It was the annual banquet for the Cornwall Motor Speedway (Ont) . On Sunday, Plan ‘A’ was to visit the Salon National Auto-Sport Motorise in St-Hyacinthe, Quebec, until Mother Nature stepped in. I then heard that Saturday nights 50 lap Dirt Modified show at the Albany-Saratoga Speedway (Malta.NY) was postponed to Sunday because of rain. This is a track, I’ve only visited once, (about six years ago) , so Plan ‘A’ was shelved to make way for Plan ‘B’ , and a trip to Malta.
After returning from the banquet, late Saturday night, I discovered via the internet that the Sundays races had also succumbed to bad weather. It was then back to Plan ‘A’ !
On Saturday afternoon prior to the banquet at Cornwall’s Ramada Inn, I was invited to attend the LUCAS OILS CANADIAN DIRT SERIES organizers briefing.
Exciting news for this year is the prize draw incentive for the drivers who follow each round of the Series. The brand new 2009 Bicknell that’s up for grabs is sponsored by the following Canadian companies. BICKNELL RACING PRODUCTS (St Catherines,Ont), BERT TRANSMISSION (St Constant, Quebec) KIRKEY RACING SEATS (St Andrews, Ont) TOTAL RACE SUPPLY (St Andrews, Ont) DOIRON ENGINEERING (Alexandria, Ont) MR RADIATOR (Alexandria, Ont) TRICK RACE PARTS (St Albert, Ont).
The important dates to mark on the calender are
MAY 17 CORNWALL MOTOR SPEEDWAY (Ont)
JULY 17 AUTODROME GRANBY (Que)
JULY 18 AUTODROME DRUMMOND (Que)
JULY 30 MOHAWK INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY (Hogansburg NY)
JULY 31 AUTODROME EDELWEISS (Cantley, Que)
AUG 1 BROCKVILLE ONTARIO SPEEDWAY (Ont)
AUG 2 CORNWALL MOTOR SPEEDWAY (Ont)
As usual no expense was spared to make the banquet a huge success with the hall beautifully decorated. All guests were given a complimentary 2009 CORNWALL MOTOR SPEEDWAY T Shirt and a magician was on hand to entertain everyone prior to the meal and speeches. Once again the food was excellent. Amongst those sitting at my table were long time speedway security man Frank Sauve, 4 cylinder champion Pierre Robidoux and 358 Dirt Mod pilot Stephane Lafrance. Ontario’s Stephane will be racing the Castrol backed CMB team in Quebec in 2009. He told me that at Granby on Friday nights his team mate will be none other than Waterloo NY’s Steve ‘the Hurricane’ Paine.
There were plenty of people there that I knew and chatted to as many as I could. I heard from Laurent Ladouceur that he has two 358 Mods at his disposal for this years campaign and plans to be at the SUPER DIRT SERIES openers at the Can Am (Lafargeville, NY) and Merrittville Speedways.
His son Joey informed me that he will be doing likewise in the Pro Stock Series. Giles Godard will be taking a year off from weekly Pro Stock racing but hopes to competing in the major Series races.
It was also nice to see top Modified driver Dale Planck of Cortland NY in attendance, who was with the Carey Terrance party. Dale who drives for Terrance had been in the area working on the car so came along with the team for the nights festivities.
Carey Terrance was there to pick up his 358 Modified track champions trophy.
Joey Ladouceur took the Pro Stock honors, Marc Lalonde Semi Pro and Pierre Robidoux the 4 cylinder. The Doiron Engineering Modified Series was taken by Laurent Ladouceur and The Mohawk Race Parts Pro Stock Series went to Giles Godard. The late Marcel Lamarche was named as the winner of the Sheldon Legue Merit Award.
Yes, I had a most enjoyable night spent with friends from the Cornwall Motor Speedway, but with an early morning start planned for Albany on Sunday, I made my exit before the end.
Once I got home, a quick check of the various web sites relayed the disappointing news that the Albany- Saratoga Speedway event had been canceled. This meant a return to Plan ‘A’ and instead of having to get up at 5-00am, I would get a lay in.
I arrived in St-Hyacinthe soon after 1-00pm and easily found the show, located at the Hotel des Seigneurs right next to auto route 20 ( the Trans Canada Highway).
It’s a small world when you’re involved in auto racing and as soon as I walked through the door, I heard the call “Hi Rick” .
It was Linda Robert a member of the Michel Chicoine Dirt Modified team. 
She led me to the part of the hall where the Dirt racers were located and within minutes my camera was snapping away.
I met up with Josee Poisson of Autodrome Granby and Yan Bussiere the Autodrome Drummond promoter.
I had an interesting chat with Martin Roy Jnr who along with Carl Labonte is the behind the new Tobias Speedster Series that’s being launched this year.
Martin is probably better know for his race parts business and his part in the Brett Hearn DIRT Modified team.The Tobias built mini sprint cars , powered 2-5 liter 4 cylinder Mopar engines are the same cars I saw racing on ice at St Sulpice in January. They have a full Series planned on both paved and dirt tracks with the opener at St Eustache on April 25. More info on www.revstar.ca
As you might expect from an event in Quebec, there was an abundance of pretty girls available for photo shots with the cars. This kept me busy for a while !
One young lady I met was Marieve Page. She told me about the Roses des Sables event she was taking part in. She along with Co-Pilote Anik Cardinal will be competing in a special ‘Paris to Dakar’ type of event for ladies. My command of the French language is very limited, so I hope I got it right. Apparently the rally starts in Bordeaux ( in France) and then goes across Spain. From Southern Spain it moves over to North Africa where part of the Morrocan Desert is ‘ralleyed’ before finishing in Marrakesh. It all sounded quite exciting, so I bought some of the 50/50 tickets Marieve was selling to help with funding.
This was my first visit to the Salon National Show, and I will make a point of returning again in the future.
Finaly, I must mention a couple of messages I recieved this week. The first one came from David Kipling in Vancouver, British Columbia. For many years now he has worked hard on his web site www.oldstox.com which covers the golden years of UK stock car racing. He brought to my attention an excellent 1980 clip from You-Tube which follows the fortunes of Frankie Wainman (Snr) check it out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCpt0cawBxY&feature=related
The second message came from UK racing photographer Dave ‘Smiffyman’ Smith. You may recall that I met up with Dave this February at the Florida ‘Speed Weeks’. He was staying at the same hotel as me , with a party that included two of the UK’s top Sprint Car drivers. As you can imagine, we had some great evenings in the bar chatting and telling yarns. We heard about the day they got their rental mini-van stuck in the sand on Daytona Beach and had to be towed out by the Beach Patrol. A record of the event is included in the photo section ! 
