RICK @ the RACES ( 5/6/7 July 2014)
Friday 4 July Mohawk International Raceway, NY
Saturday 5 July Brockville Ontario Speedway
Sunday 6 July Cornwall Motor Speedway, Ont
After last weeks busy time involving my daughters visit from Texas , and the trip to Niagara Falls, this week I was back to normal, attending my three local tracks. On Thursday (3 July) I took the the opportunity to get my HHR in to SEAWAY GM to get that suspicious ‘whining’ noise investigated, and as I expected, the diagnosis got confirmed as a wheel bearing. I booked it in for the following Thursday (my day off), so staying local for my racing worked out well.
On Friday I got lucky and had a 4-30 pm finish at work, which allowed me the time to have a leisurely drive over the seaway bridge to the Mohawk International Raceway. I even had time to head into the Massena Walmart to by my favourite cheese !
Once at the track I took my usual spot on the middle with my buddy and resident photographer, Andy Watts. It was the ‘Fourth of July’ , and the American Independance Day holiday, so Andy was out there with his patriotic ‘stars and stripes’ hat.
The racing was first class with some great battles for first place in both Modified and Sportsman divisions.
In the Modifieds , Billy Dunn fended off a late challenge from Chris Raabe, as did Corey Wheeler with Dylan Evoy in the Sporstman.
The Bandit race was won by Randy Whiting and the Mod Lite’s by Mathieu Robinson
The racing was over nice and early (10-30 pm) and to celebrate the ‘Fourth of July’ a giant firework display was taking place to end the night.
I took this opportunity to make my exit, and was back home, editing pics and supping on a cold beer by 11-00 pm.
On Friday night after returning from the M.I.R , I’d got a Face Book message from Hughie Primeau , the Cornwall Motor Speedway announcer, asking if I was going to the Brockville Ontario Speedway on Saturday night. That was certainly on my plans, so because of the HHR’s wheel bearing ailment, we arranged to go in his car. He picked me up just before 4-00 pm and after making a stop for a burger at Wendy’s, we were at the B.O.S at around 6-00 pm.
We had a quick walk around the pits, before taking up my regular photo shooting position on turn one and two.
Just like the M.I.R , the previous night, the show moved pretty quickly and the Modified Feature was all over by 10-30 pm.
It went from green to checkers without a caution for the full fifty laps of this OgilvyAuto and Fleet Triple Crown Series. Danny O’Brien won by a commanding lead over Ryan Arbuthnot, and Stephane Lafrance.
The 40 lap Sportsman Feature was won by Dylan Evoy and the Street Stocks by Todd Raabe. Hughie and I were out of the gate, before the two last races got under way. They were for the Rookies and Rookie Sportsman, which were won by Quincy Roberts and Brad Winters respectively. Another nice early finish, meant, for the second night running, I was home and had the ‘winner’ pics edited well before mid night.
I was up bright and early on Sunday morning, to switch on my TV for the live coverage of the British Grand Prix from the world famous Silverstone Circuit. If you turn the clock back thirty years, I used to live in Maidford , Northants, just a few miles from the track. We were close enough to hear the roar of the F1 engines from our back garden.
Silverstone is known as the ‘Home of British Motor Racing’ and I still have a lot of affection for the place.
With top British driver Lewis Hamilton currently challenging Nico Rosberg for the championship, I was hoping for a home victory. The race got under way at 8-00 am in the morning , Eastern Time, and within minutes of the green flag, the reds were out. Kimi Raikkonen in a Ferrari hit the barrier quite hard, wrecking the car, as well as the armco. Luckily Kimi wasn’t seriously hurt , but after the car had been flat-bedded away , major surgery was required to the armco. There was an hour delay before the restart, which allowed me to cook a bacon breakfast.
On the restart Rosberg took the early lead while Hamilton worked his way up to second. Everything looked all set for a great championship battle for first place between the two Mercedes drivers, until disaster struck for Rosberg. Gearbox failure left him stranded beside the track, and parked on the safety of the grass. Hamilton was now in front, and stayed there unchallenged to the checkers. This brought the F1 World Championship to just a four point deficit . Exciting stuff !
Sunday night, had a scheduled early start at the Cornwall Motor Speedway , in order to get in all the extra races from the postponed event from two weeks ago. Instead of racing beginning at 7-00pm , the action would start at 6-00pm for the mammoth program that consisted of 10 Feature races. I expected it to be a long and late night, but still decided to arrive there at my usual time of 2-00pm and chill out in the control tower and do some of my media work.
There were three Modified heats on the program and the first one got off to a bad start, with a huge wreck on the front stretch that took out nine cars. The unlucky father and son team of Alain and Mathieu Boisvert had both their car destroyed. The track clean up added precious minutes to the evenings schedule, but luckily things went quite smoothly from then after. Once the race got restarted , Carey Terrance took the win.
We did really well, and the show was over by 11-00 pm, ( a lot earlier than I expected) .
Other Feature winners of the night, included
Laurent Ladouceur ( in his fortieth year of racing and his first Feature win since 2010)
and Stephane Lafrance (Mods) Mike Maresca and Joey Ladouceur (Sportsman) , Charles David Beauchamp and Jocelyn Roy (Pro Stocks) Bruno Richard and Derek Cyderman ( Semi Pro) and Justin Desrosiers (Mini Stocks).
We had ten Features, and ten different winners, which was really great for the fans, as well as the first ever heat win for young Jasmine David.