RICK @ the RACES (NEW YEAR 2014)
Best wishes to all for the New Year .
As another year comes to an end and a new one begins, it’s time reflect on the past 12 months and to look ahead to the new racing season ahead.
For me personally 2013 turned out to be a challenging year. Increased work schedules and earlier start times, at the place where I’m employed have been hard for me. For many years my normal work week consisted of 7-30 am start time and doing an average of 48 hours on a 4 day shift. Things all changed last year , and I’ve been starting at 5-00 am doing a norm of about 60 hours on a 5 day shift. If you add all this to my busy racing commitments, it’s not difficult to figure out how tiring it’s been.
On the brighter side, I still managed to attend my usual quota of races, and actually managed to get to two tracks that had been on my ‘bucket list’ for a long time. During 2013 , I added eight new tracks to my TRACKCHASER totals.
The first four ‘new tracks’ were ice racing events, and included the ‘inner oval’ at the Can Am Motorsports Park (Lafargeville, NY) on Jan 6 , St Theodore D’Acton, Quebec on Jan 26 , the Grand Prix De Valcourt, Quebec on Feb 16 and Black Lake (Hammond NY) on March 3.
Two of the additional new tracks came at my local Cornwall Motor Speedway and the Brockville Ontario Speedway. A new racing division was born in 2013, that went by the name of the V Twin Dirt Demons. These small midget type race cars use the kart tracks at both speedways , were deemed ‘countable’ by the TRACKHASERS , so became permissable to be included on my totals.
The final two , new track additions were the special ones mentioned earlier, which I went to, on seperate road trips. During the Easter holiday weekend, I revisited the Big Diamond Speedway at Minersville PA on Good Friday before making my first time visit to the Bridgeport Speedway in New Jersey on the Saturday night. The ’60 over Special’ was an ROC Modified race in memory of the late Doug Hoffman. Bobby Varin was the winner.
The last track added to my totals, was the Woodhull Speedway, New York, which I combined with a trip to the nearby Watkins Glenn NATIONWIDE NASCAR race on August 10.
As well as all the big events atended at my local tracks, and of course SUPER DIRT WEEK at Syracuse, I made two trips to England and one to Texas.
In December 2012 , I became a Grandfather for the first time, when my daughter Carla gave birth to Benjamin. In May, the three of us flew back to England so the relatives could meet him. This was also our opportunity to take Benji to his first stock car meeting, and we attended the races at the Coventry Stadium on May 4.
I was back in the UK again in September for the BriSCA F1 World Final at the Norfolk Arena , Kings Lynn and at the Brafield track (Nothampton), for the traditional ‘day after’ races. Banbury Oxfordshire, friver Tom Harris won the World Final race but the weekend high light for me, was meeting up with old friends. After nearly 20 years, I met up with Willem Boschma, his wife Anna and family who’d travelled to the event from the Netherlands.
My trip to Austin , Texas was in December for Benji’s first birthday celebrations, and although this was purely a family visit, I did actually get to see the new Circuit of the Americas, which recently held the USA Grand Prix.
By the time 2013 was over, my busy work schedule and social life had pretty well burned me out. Every year at this time, I say to myself, it’s time to slow up, have a more normal life, and cut down on some things for the coming year. In the past this has never materialized, but think this year may be different. I reach a ‘milestone’ birthday in 2014 and if things don’t slow up at my place of work, I will have no choice but to slow up on my racing agenda. We will just have to wait and see !
With no racing events for the immediate weeks, my next ‘Weekly Report’ will be resume, just as soon as the action begins