RICK @ the RACES  (13 May 2006)
Sat 13 May  Brockville Ontario Speedway

My racing this weekend, was reduced to just one show, by two famous Mothers, Mother Nature cut short any hopes of action on Friday night while on Sunday, there was a lack of events due to Mothers Day. ( For the benefit of my UK readers, I must add that Mothers Day in North America does not fall on the same day as over there) .

This was the weekend when most of the Canadian tracks had their season openers and , work permitting, on Friday,  I`d planned on going to Autodrome Edelweiss, Que.

It rained for most of the day, and Edelweiss was one of the many tracks that had to cancel, so I didn’t venture very far that night.

Allow me to digress for a moment .

If you recall from my last Rick @ the Races report, I mentioned the fact that rain rarely causes cancellations in the UK, but I’ve just had a message from fellow SHORT CIRCUIT MAGAZINE photographer and writer, Dave “Smiffyman” Smith relating to the ROLLING THUNDER SHOW at the Arena Essex track this past weekend…. here`s what he says

<< ” Well we had a first for the UK last night, the monthly RTS was running well into the second heats when a few drops of the wet stuff started to fall.  By the end of the sprint car race, the drizzle had turned into a torrent.  The rain was coming down like a tap and the track got flooded.  Normally this would not be a problem, but the sprint cars were going around like speedboats.  Slowly the pits started to fill up and within 10 minutes there was over 10” of rain, making life very difficult for the race teams.  To their credit the junior mini-sprints ran their final but as every lap ticked by, one by one the engines conked out. The junior hot rods managed 10 laps but again all but four cars stopped somewhere on the track.  It was at this point the organizer decided to cancel the rest of the meeting as things were getting really dangerous.  Probably a good call, needles to say yours truly had long departed for the dry of the bar! ” >>
I spent Saturday afternoon at the Cornwall Motor Speedway (Ont) with one of the officials , not for racing, ( as their season is not due to start until next week) but for some preparation work in the control tower,  as I have joined their team , and will be working there this year.

It had been wet and windy in Cornwall , so a phone call to the Brockville Ontario Speedway was made to see if  their season opener was still on that night, and after hearing the good news, I took off down HWY 401 for their show of  358 DIRT MODIFIEDS, DIRT SPORTSMAN, 8 cyl Street Stocks and Rookies.

As you`d expect for an opener, there was a lot of nice looking machinery on show, from all the classes . There were too many for me to mention them all, but if I had to single out a few, I`d have to say , from the top division , the mods of Stephane Lafrance, Mark Hitchcock and ( back on the track after a lay-off ) Keith “Chico” Dingwall looked really good,

It was a chilly night but the rain stayed away and when Kingston (Ont) Danny O`Brien crossed the line to take the Modified feature, it marked his 100th career win. Jason Riddell won the Sportsman Feature

Track time was also given for demonstration laps by rookie Sprint Car driver April Wilson, (daughter of Rick Wilson),  and also for one of the Vintage Stock cars, which will be an additional division at the B.O.S  this year .

The car concerned, brought back fond memories for me, as it had a similar shape to one of the BriSCA F1 stock cars I used to race back in the 70`s …. I`ll definitely be looking forward to seeing these guys more often in 2006.