RICK @ the RACES ( 19/20 April 2008)

Sat 19 April       Can Am Speedway , Lafargeville. NY

Sun 20 April      Cayuga County Speedway  Weedsport NY

Winter is now over ,  I hope,  it’s getting warmer and the sun is shining. In some parts of Ontario and Quebec , we have a strange situation with the girls already in their miniskirts and us guys in ‘shorts and T shirts’ , yet there are still large piles of snow lying around. Maybe it will have melted away by August !

The weather this past weekend was absolutely gorgeous and I took full advantage of it, and set off on Saturday for a ‘double wammy’ of racing.

The first of my local tracks opened up this Saturday, so the Chevy was loaded with over-night gear , and I took off to the Can Am Speedway, at Lafargeville NY, two hours away from my home. That may sound a strange statement for some of you, but these days , anywhere two hours away or less, I consider local. Can Am, located just 20 minutes from the Canadian/USA border, was staging the opening SUPER DIRT CAR round for Pro Stocks and I knew there would be a lot of  friends there. Race director for the series is Brian Mulligan from my local Cornwall Motor Speewday ( Ont)
There was a good field of 23 cars which included three of my buddies. Roch Aubin # 4 and Joey Ladouceur # 92 of Alexandria were there as well as Gilles Godard # 27 of Cornwall.
Roch is sponsored by Alexandria’s HOME HARDWARE and Gilles has the backing from CORNWALL MOTOR SALES. Like most race fans, I always consider ‘race-friendly’ businesses when making my purchasing decisions. On the rare occasions ! when I do renovations to my house, I use Roch’s sponsor to buy the building materials, and when I bought my Chevy, it came from Cornwall Motor Sales.

When I spotted Joey in the pits, I noticed he’d got  ‘SWEET DREAMS’ gentlemans club as one of his new sponsors for 2008 . While quizzing Joey about it, I happened to call it a ‘strip joint’, but he quickly put me right, and told me I had to use the term, ‘gentlemans club’ ! Well, I’ve given my custom to Gilles and Roch’s sponsors, so I guess I’d better do the same for Joey !

Life’s tough , heh !

My UK readers may be interested to know that Joey is the oldest son of DIRT Modified pilot ,Laurent Ladouceur who represented Canada in the 2001 BriSCA F1 World Final at the Hednesford Hills Raceway.

After such a long winter it was great to meet up with many of my racing friends. Jim Clarke of Belleville, Dennis Back of Iroquois, the Revelle family from Gananoque and Rebeca Eisele the Can Am track photographer.I always a enjoy taking photos alongside Rebecca, we always seam to have such a good laugh.

Apologies to anyone I missed.

The 25 lap Pro Stox feature was dominated by Quebecer, Denis Gauvreau # 72 until the closing laps, when Louie Jackson # 18 homed in. A late caution gave Jackson just what he needed to blast past Gauvreau for the checkers.

The program at Can Am was supplemented by a Dash For Cash for the Modifieds, Street Stox, Mod Lites, and practice sessions for IMCA Mods and DIRT SPORTSMAN.

The ‘Dash’ was won by Chris Higgins, which was his first time out in a Mod after moving up from Sportsman’
First time out in a Sportsman was 24 year old Erin Joyce # 22 from the Gatineau area of Quebec.

In the recent past she’s competed on Wednesday nights in the Legend division at Ottawa’s Capital City Speedway but for 2008 she’s taken on a more challenging agenda. Not only will she be at the Brockville Ontario Speedway on Saturday nights at the wheel of Marcel Pecore’s DIRT Sportsman, but on Friday’s she will be at Autodrome Edelweiss in the Gilles Godard/Patrick Mulligan # 27 DIRT ProStox.

With gas prices sky rocketing and the thought of more than 40 bucks for a cheap motel , I decided to stay out, and ‘rough it’ for one night. The seats were folded down on the Chevy , an inflatable mattress was put in place and the Can Am parking lot became my Five Star accommodation for the night.

I was up and about quite early, at 6-30 am , even though I had no rush to get to my next racing engagement.

After getting the car reorganized I set off for the Mexico truck stop on I 81. I’ve been using this place for many years, and knew I could use the showers to freshen up and make myself look ‘lovely’ ! Of course I couldn’t travel any further without participating in their buffet breakfast.

My racing diet for the day was the opener at the Cayuga County Fair Speedway , at Weedsport NY for DIRT Modified’s.

It was a 5-00pm start so I had plenty of time to kill. I checked out the bargains in Walmart at Central Square and then took a wander around the Carousel Mall in Syracuse before arriving at Weedsport during the mid afternoon.

It was nice, sitting out relaxing on the grass in the sunshine watching everybody arrive. One of the first arrivals was the Gypsum Express Team with their impressive International rig pulling the race car trailer.
Like Can Am, it was great meeting up with all my racing buddies ( too numerous too mention), and I joined my fellow photographers on the middle.

The racing was good and I got plenty of action pics
The racing was first class with a great battle in the feature between Steve Paine (in the unfamiliar) # 121 and Matt Shepherd # 9. Shepherd had the edge over Paine when it mattered.
The afternoon also consisted of a full program of Street Stocks and Sportsman .
I have to compliment the promotional team for this one. The program started promptly at 5-00pm , there were no long pauses (to sell hamburgers) and the Modified feature was over by 7-00pm. Great Stuff !

This allowed me to be home by 11-00pm and complete what turned out to be a logistically perfect weekend of racing.

While I was having fun in New York, a bit of history was being made in the Netherlands. It was the opening day of the new purpose built , ‘UK Style’ shale oval at Emmen.

My friend Robert Wilms was there and he tells me it was a great success with 55 F1 stock cars in attendance and 40 F2’s