RICK @ the RACES (10/11 Nov 2012)
10 Nov DIRTCAR AWARDS BANQUET, Syracuse NY
With just a handful of possible races left to attend, my season is almost done, and this past weekend I made the trip down to Syracuse , New York for the annual DIRTCAR AWARDS BANQUET. I’ve had invitations to attend in the past, but never got round to going, but with a few of my friends picking up awards this year I decided to accept.
It was being held at the Holiday Inn, at Liverpool (Syracuse NY) and preceding the event , another special occasion was taking place. As many people are aware, the great Jack Johnson was forced to retire from racing because of poor health, and the last car he ever raced was heading for the DIRTCAR HALL OF FAME in Weedsport .
The present owners of the car, Carole and Alton Palmer were donating it to the Museum and were in Syracuse along with Brett Hearn for the official presentation.
It was parked outside the main entrance of the Holiday Inn for the official ‘handing over’ ceremony. I wanted to be there for that , so arrived early for the scheduled 4-00pm start. I joined fellow media men Dave Dalesandro, Alex Bruce and Chris Dolack for the photo session.
Once this was over I killed time by chatting to friends as they started to arrive for the evenings banquet. There were four of my Eastern Ontario locals picking up awards , as well as Dale Planck , who I always think of ‘as one of our locals’ , (even if he’s not, and lives in Homer NY, south of Syracuse).
Dale was there along with Joey Ladouceur to pick up their respective Mr Dirt awards while Corey Wheeler (Sportsman) , Shane Pecore (358 Modified) and David Seguin(Pro Stock) were there to collect Rookie of the Year awards.
I sat with Joey and Corey for the dinner, and then joined the other photographers in an adjacent room for the presentation pics.
The two other big winners of the night, who I must also mention, were Waterloo NY’s , Matt Sheppard (Big Block Mods) and St Catherine’s , Ont , Cody McPherson (Sportsman)
The presentations were all over by about 11-00 pm , so I made my exit for the trip back up I81 to Canada. I was home in Cornwall, Ontario by about 2-00am and in my bed by 3-00am .
Needless to say, I didn’t set my alarm clock for Sunday morning and once I was awake, a quiet lazy day was planned.
I had no intention of watching the NASCAR race on TV from Phoenix and was quite happy getting on with media stuff on my computer until I received a bunch of Face Book messages.
In the closing stages, the race in Phoenix had suddenly started getting interesting and the postings were commenting about a track incident between Jeff Gordon and Clint Bowyer , followed by a brawl in the pits. I quickly turned the TV on and watched the steady flow of replays.
Eventually when the race did get back under way, a bad decision not to throw a yellow flag, caused a huge wreck on the finish line as Kevin Harvick took the checkers.