RICK @ the RACES  17th / 19th May 2006

Wed 17 May        CAPITAL CITY SPEEDWAY (Ottawa Ont)
Fri 19 May      THUNDER ALLEY SPEEDPARK (Evans Mills NY),

Rain , Rain, Rain ! , Oh , when`s it gonna stop ?. It`s now been raining almost everyday for a week and a half in the North East , and as you`d expect the racing calendar has been obliterated.

I managed to dodge some of the storms and was lucky enough , to get to two tracks , during the past week.

After the great success of Capital City Speedway`s  (Ottawa) opener the previous Wednesday, I took advantage of a few hours of dry weather , and went along for the second week.

There were not as many people in attendance as the previous week, but with the threatening conditions, this was not surprising. The action on track was, still quite good , with the guys ( and gals) from all divisions getting stuck in to some close racing.

Things were looking good until the closing laps of the Mini Stox feature when a few drops of drizzle were felt in the air. By the time the flag had dropped, the drizzle had turned to light rain, and with driver safety being the main concern, the night came to an abrupt halt.

Friday nights are always difficult for me, in regard to getting to the racing, it`s nearly always a busy day at work, which means finishing too late to get anywhere.

This week was different, I was done by 3-30 pm in the afternoon and had plenty of time to get to the Autodrome Edelweiss (PQ) opener ( rain-dated from last week) .

As I said, it` been very wet in these parts and after a phone call to the track, I found it had been cancelled.

My next phone call was to Autodrome Granby (PQ) … ( Well, I didn’t call them, I got one of my bi-lingual French speaking buddies to do do it ! ) and found out , that it too had become ‘history’.

There was still one more ‘do-able’ chance, the Thunder Alley Speedpark at Evans Mills, (NY) , and with the recorded message still saying it was on, I set off in that direction.

As I drove down , with windshield wipers permanently in use, I could see bright skies on the horizon, and remarkably , the dry, cloud free area I could see in front of me, was in the vicinity of Evans Mills, New York.

The track was still quite moist, from recent rain, but after extensive packing , which resulted in a slightly later start, things were ready to go. 

In addition to the domestic low budget divisions, there were 21 DIRT Modifieds and 13 DIRT SPORTSMAN cars in attendance. The delay to prepare the track was well worth it, as the 30 lap Modified feature provided fans with some great racing.

One of the main talking points of the evening was great drive by  Dale Planck driving the # 73 Ryan Jacob`s car, who got involved in a minor wreck, early in the feature.

After a quick trip back to the pits during one of the frequent cautions, he was back on track at the back of the grid. He gradually worked his way through the field, passing third placed Pat O`Brien and then started nibbling on the rear end of leader Ryan Bartlett # 93. There just weren’t enough laps for Dale to do it, so Bartlett crossed the line for a well deserved victory. … I have to mention that one of the many cautions, were for O`Brien’s younger brother Timmy # 8 , who did a slow roll between the third and fourth turn.

Roy Bresnahan won the Sportsman Feature.

Saturday came, and went , with nothing happening within my easy-traveling zone,  and as I heard of cancellation after cancellation, I excepted the fact  I was going to be at home for the night, so,  got my self comfortable, opened a bottle of red wine and ordered a Lasagne from the local “take away”.

Of course ! , I later found out that the Canandaigua Speedway NY , managed to get there show in, and even though it`s a four hour drive away, I guess I could have made it in time… Oh well , you can`t win em all !

Sunday dawned, with yet more rain falling, and it was no surprise to hear that my local Cornwall Motor Speedway had postponed their opener, scheduled that evening until next week.
After all this, I`m now looking forward to a long hot summer.