RICK @ the RACES (21 April 2007)

Sat 21 April Can Am Speedway (Lafargeville, NY)

What a difference, a few days can make ! After I returned home from my trip to the Fonda Speedway last weekend, we underwent some crazy weather conditions in my area.

On Sunday night we had a massive storm that brought down hydro (electricity) cables and I woke on Monday to six inches of snow and a power outage. Eventually, I got my sump pump hooked up to a generator, but it was too late to prevent a flooded basement. The power returned around 7-00pm in the evening when it was time for me to clean up, with a shop vac.

Temperatures weren’t cold and the snow melted away quickly. Much different to the ‘infamous’ ice storm we had in Ontario,Quebec and up-state New York, a few years back, when I was without electricity for 15 days.

Around mid-week it turned milder and by the weekend it was warm enough for shorts and T shirts . This sudden turn around of events enabled the Can Am Speedway to prepare their track surface for some good dirt racing.

I went along for their $1000 to win DIRT SPORTSMAN race, and a program that consisted of , IMCA Modifieds, Street Stox, 4 Cyl Thunder cars, Mod Lites as well as practice session and ‘dash for cash’ for DIRT MODIFIEDS.

The weather stayed kind to us, and it was a comfortable night to sit and watch the action. By far the best race of the night was the Street Stocks feature where Josh Verne and Dave Manise battled it out for first place through out the 20 laps.

Dale Caswell, took the IMCA Feature, Frankie Caprara the ‘dash’, and the Chris Higgins had a run away victory in the Sportsman race.

Back in 1995, Can Am was the first place I witnessed Dirt Modified racing.

When I first moved to Ontario, Canada in 1994, from the UK , our family home was out in the boonies at Combermere, situated on the banks of Lake Kamaneskeg, near to Barry’s Bay. It’s a beautiful, part of the world, but a real wilderness as far as racing was concerned.

There was a dirt track close by ( now gone) , called the Golden Lake Speedway near to Eganville (Ont), and two hours away , was the paved Capital City Speedway, located at Stittsville , just outside Ottawa. Golden Lake ran Street Stocks, and Capital City had Late Models.

These were OK, but after watching BriSCA F1 and F2 stock car racing, for nearly 30 years I found it a bit tame.

(PLEASE NOTE, I’M NOW ‘CLIMATIZED’ TO THE NON-CONTACT STYLE OF NORTH AMERICAN RACING AND HAVE LEARNED TO APPRECIATE ALL DIVISIONS, BOTH DIRT AND PAVED) .

After a day trip to Watertown NY , which was about a three hour drive from Combermere, and visiting the Salmon Run Shopping Mall, I picked up some 1995 racing schedules for the nearby Can Am Speedway, at LaFargeville (NY).

I could see by the photo’s , that their DIRT Modifieds were similar to BriSCA F1’s, so I soon planned a trip to investigate. My visit to the Can Am Speedway was on Fathers Day , in 1995, and from then onwards I’ve been hooked on DIRT MODIFIED racing, the nearest North American equivalent to what I was used to in the UK.