Mid January 2025 Blog. (16th January 2025)
It’s been a typical January for me, with not much going on.
A time to stay at home in the warm and catch up with things that need my attention. I’ve been binge watching my favorite TV shows as well as following the Ottawa Senators games. They were on a marathon stretch of away games, over the Christmas period , while there base in Kanata was being used for the World Juniors Hockey Championships.
I wasn’t following the Junior games closely , but was taking a bit of interest in Team USA. Carey Terrance, one of my local Dirt Modified drivers had his son, Carey Jnr competing.
I met Jnr last year at the Mohawk International Raceway while he was watching his dad race.
Ten years ago, back in January 2015, we had a Hockey challenge at the Cornwall City Complex , between our local Dirt Modified and Sportsman drivers . On that day young Carey was helping out his dad on the Modified team.
So on Sunday January the 5th, after Team USA had advanced to the Gold Medal game against Finland , I had to watch it .
I was pleased to see the USA get the win.
With the World Juniors Championship over, Thursday the 9th of Jan, saw the Ottawa Senators return to Kanata , for their first home game since before Christmas.
I went along that night, to see them play the Buffalo Sabres , and oh Boy ! they were bad ! It was the worst I’ve seen them play since the Hurricanes game I witnessed in Raleigh, back in November.
Maybe I’m a Jinx , and should stay away, The Sabres won 4-0.
At the weekend my race season was about began. As usual , January means Ice race Racing , and I had two events lined up.
On Saturday the 11th it was the first round of the Challenge Sur Neige Series at Ormstown , Quebec, which is held on the frozen ice and snow at the Ormstown Fairgrounds.
They have two separate tracks, an oval for the studded tires and 8 cylinders, and inner road course configuration for the 4 cylinder unstudded.
I stayed there for a couple of hours of picture taking , before heading home to the warmth of my home.
It was another night of watching the Sens on TV .
After Thursdays dismal performance they’d got their act together, and trounced the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-0 .
I was out of bed early Sunday morning for my second day of the weekends racing.
A new track was opening not too far from home. The Masson Ice Speedway was having it’s inaugural event .
It’s located less than half a mile from the inter-provincial , Cumberland (Ontario) to Masson (Quebec) ferry crossing over the Ottawa River.
The track , which is a small ice oval is situated on the opposite side of the shoreline road on private property .
I took the 13 bucks ferry to get there, which is a lot quicker than going via Ottawa.
Once off the ferry, I was parked up at the track within two minutes.
I wandered into the pits and bumped into a couple of familiar faces .
Yan Robertson # 25 and Christopher Cormier #87 who both race at my local dirt tracks.
Car turnout , was a disappointment, but there were enough there, to put on heat races for the four cylinders , while the lone eight cylinder did some speedy solo laps. I chose to take my pictures from the shore-line road .
While I was busy taking pictures , I was approached by an old friend , that I quickly recognized. It was Randy Lewis , the Worlds # 1 TRACKCHASER from San Clemente , California .
Like me , he was there to add this ‘new’ track to his totals.
He is now up to over 3040 different tracks , world wide. I first met him over 20 years ago when he was paying a visit to the Cornwall Motor Speedway .
We bump into each other every so often in the quest to add ‘new’ tracks.
Once we’d seen enough racing to feel satisfied adding it to our totals , we made our exit.
Instead of returning back on the ferry, the two of us found a restaurant in nearby Gatineau for a late lunch. After a long chat about many varying subjects , we said our good byes.
Randy was heading back to the Toronto Airport for his flight while I headed for home . I wish , I’d followed him. He happened to be passing Kanata, and picked up a last minute ticket for the Senators game against the Dallas Stars. The Sens had another big win.
I have to end this report on a sad note.
R.I.P Steve Bird
On Wednesday the 15th, I had an early morning message from my long time friend Chris Pickup in the UK.
He was informing me that Steve Bird # 52 , had passed away on Monday.
Steve was good friend during the 1970’s , when Chris and I began our stock car racing career.
At that time he lived in Markyate, Hertfordshire and was one of the ‘Beds & Herts’ stock car club. We’d all known each other before we began racing in 1974.
Back in the day , ‘our gang’ (Steve # 52, me #67, Chris Pickup # 50, Brian Bedford #209 , Tony Abel #100 , and a few others) would regularly meet up in the Plume of Feathers in Markyate, to ‘talk stockcars’ .
After his brief stock car career he moved to Lincolnshire and we lost contact but met I up again at Brafield in 2008 during one of my trips to the UK.
My deepest sympathies go to his wife Christine, and his family and friends
R.I.P Steve Bird .