This past weekend was the turn of my local Mohawk International Raceway at Hogansburg NY , to hold their show-piece event of the year . It was the time for the Mohawk Nationals with the Big Block Modified Super Dirt Series as the headline event. The 358’s and the Sportsman also had series races scheduled over the weekend as well as some important races for the Go Nuclear Late Models and Mod Lites. Although I live in Cornwall , Ontario, Canada, the M.I.R in New York State is the nearest track to my home, located only about two miles away, but separated by the St Lawrence Seaway.
Mother Nature was to make sure it was a weekend we wouldn’t forget !
Friday night worked out fine, I finished work in good time, and the weather was perfect. I was ‘over the bridge’ about an hour before start time, and the track was in excellent shape. RV’s packed the speedway grounds and the pits were full. The parking lot beside the pit gates had to be used as an overflow pit area.
It was good to see Luke Whitteker back in 358 Modified action after being absent for a year.
The show went very smoothly and once again Billy Dunn proved that as far as 358 Mods are concerned, ‘he owns the track’.
Jeff May won the Mod Lite race while Charlie Sandercock took the Late Model feature.
All the Feature races for the weekend were led around for the rolling lap by the Sportsman car of Brandon Hagan who sadly lost his life in an ATV accident two weeks ago.
The racing was all over by 10-45 pm and it wasn’t long before I was back home in Cornwall, downloading my pics.
Day one of the M.I.R weekend had gone well, but the weather forecast for Saturday was pretty grim. It was supposed to rain for most of the day, and sure enough, the meteorologists got it right.
It rained all over the North East , and events at Autodrome Drummond Que, Can Am Speedway (Lafargeville NY) and Capital City Speedway , (Ottawa) Ont were cancelled . the CCS rescheduled their show for Sunday, which looked like a nicer day.
From what I heard from various sources, there was no rain-date available for Sunday, so the M.I.R management were determined to get the show in the books, once the rain had stopped, like it was expected to, in the early evening. There was no curfew to worry about !
I decided to stay at home, until I felt more assured, things were still a ‘go’.
At 4-00 pm, I was still hearing, ‘good stuff’ that they were determined not to lose the show, so made my way back over the bridge.
It was still raining hard when I crossed the border so decided to kill a bit of time with a nice supper at the Ponderosa Restaurant in Massena.
I drove back to the track at about 6-00 pm and not long after that, the rain stopped. The track staff then had the task of pumping out the water from the track and getting it ready for racing. As you can imagine, this was a long job, and it wasn’t until after 10-00 pm that the racing was able to start.
Just like the weather issues of the 358 Super Dirt Series at Autodrome Granby last week, the DIRTCAR officials decided to run the Big Block SDS race without time trials or heat races. The grid was made up , depending on Super Dirt Series points.
Matt Sheppard started on pole, and led from start to finish, but there was still plenty of action going on further down the field. Five laps from the end, my friend Matt Billings was involved in a scary back straight incident , that wrecked his car. It looked really bad and I was so relieved when I saw him get out and walk away.
After the restart, Sheppard continued his cruise to the checkers with, Jimmy Phelps second and Brett Hearn third.
It had now gone past 1-30 am in the morning and we’d still got more races to go.
Up next was the Late Model Feature where Charlie Sandercock got his second win of the weekend.
I’m not sure what time this finished, but the last race of the night ( morning ! ) , the much talked about, $5000 to win for the Sportsman was yet to come !
The checkered flag finally fell at 3-19 am exactly ( I know, because I was watching the time on my cell phone) as Dylan Evoy got the win.
The Victory Lane pictures were completed at 3-30 am , and it was time to leave.
It’s been a long time since I watched auto racing past 3-00am in the morning ! The last time I was crazy enough to do this, was in my youth, back in 1976 when I attended the LeMans 24 Hour Race in France !
I was back home by 4-00am and not long after that, I was in bed. I had no plans to get up early, but was awake by 11-00 am.
I did a bit of work on my laptop, and then got a message from race driver Jeff Ciglich, suggesting I visit the Capital City Speedway that afternoon. It didn’t start until 3-00pm, so decided to do it.
As the weather forecasters predicted, Sunday turned out to be a lot nicer day, and even the sun was shining.
The first person I saw on arrival was my friend Yvan Lacroix of Granby, who was there with his friends from the Vintage Stock Car Club of Quebec. They were making a guest appearance at the CCS and the cars looked very impressive.
There were plenty of divisions racing that day and the pits were so full that I had plenty of friends to chat with. The kind folks of the Matt Haufe Legend Team supplied me with pizza.
I took pictures of all the heat races, before watching the first two Features from the stands ( Antiques and Legends) .
I’d already put a self imposed ‘curfew’ of 7-00pm on my day, due to the previous nights lack of sleep, so made an early exit.
While I was going back and forth between Canada and the USA my friends in the UK were attending the BriSCA F2 World Final. It was taking place at the Cowdenbeath track in Scotland and the winner was George MacMillan JR. Second was Gordon Moody and third was Chris Bradbury.
Thanks to my good friend Colin Casserley for supplying the Cowdenbeath Pics for this report.