Saturday:
The first weekend of ice racing has turned out to be a roaring success! PMSC was our host club and thanks to all their volunteers for an excellently run weekend this year! They reported that there was a very high number of entrants for the first weekend making it a financial success as well. The amount of ice on the track was sufficient to allow for all classes to run with the only exceptions being no stud practices on both days and stud races were reduced to only 8 laps. A large thankyou needs to go to all those who helped make the track and worked so hard this past week as well so we could even have a race! The weather was cooperative with temps rising to around -5C on Saturday with some sun and -2C on Sunday with mainly heavy overcast.

Mike Evans was able to help out with the pit for the weekend, much appreciated and a big thanks to you Mike, we arrived around 1:30pm Friday afternoon to start setting up the SACamp. Overall the weekend went well with only a couple minor scraps on track and a slow leak in the Ovlov's radiator which will require replacement next weekend.
 

I am driving a new car this year, a 1988 Toyota MR2, that will only be entered in the Stud class (S1 - rear wheel drive). I am also continuing to run, for the 3rd straight year, the 1984 Ovlov 240 GLT that will only be entered in the Street Stud class (SS1- rear wheel drive). Both these cars continue to receive the much appreciated support of my faithful sponsors: Brooklin Conrete Quality Products, The SACtionizer and  University Werks Landscape Construction. Please in turn support these businesses!

I decided to try stud racing this year as I have had more than enough experiences with the car bashing in the rubber-to-ice class. I've had a couple of years in the better grip class of Street Stud with a championship win the first year and a second last year so I figured it was time to step up to full stud. The cars that have been doing well at ice racing lately have been Toyota MR2s so I started looking for one back in the early summer. Around October 2007 I finally purchased one with a body that was in really good shape but high mileage (320,000kms). It has a normally aspirated 1.6 litre twincam, neither turbo nor super charger. The drive train work I have done to it is advanced the timing, increased the fuel mix a bit and replaced the clutch. The most work that was done was preparing it to meet the race rules for stud class competition. In this regard I opted for a full cage and, of course, lightened the car as much as possible as it 's factory weight is 3020lbs! I probably removed about 1000lbs. There was great debate over the last 3 months with several people who were involved to varying degrees in racing as to whether to weld the differential/transaxle, leave it open or spend large on an LSD unit. I opted to leave all that to next year and just drive it the way it is.

Stud:
Prior to the first qualifier Saturday morning I had virtually no seat time in the new car. I had never driven, let alone raced, anything like it either so I had absolutely no idea how it would handle. Turns out its a perfectly setup car for ice racing just the way it is. For 3 videos of the my first outing in the car click on these links ...
Video part 1
Video part 2
Video part 3
Camera work courtesy: Mike (Francis Ford) Evans - S/\C16

Saturday:
We were told Saturday early morning at the drivers meeting that there would be no practice for the stud class so my first experience would happen under race conditions in the qualifier. I drew 4th inside lane for grid. I had decided beforehand that I would just pull off to the outside of the track at the start and let everyone go so I would have a clear track to experiment and learn how this car would work ( or not). The car had other ideas and under moderate throttle the car simply launched and started passing others! I thought: "Oh well then, here we go!" I planted my right foot firmly to the floor and joined in the race! The game was on. I quickly found out that lifting (even slightly ) on entry to a turn caused an immediate rotation and beautiful resulting drift that could only be held with liberal throttle. Applying moderate throttle would simply straighten the car out and create massive understeer. The only way to keep the car settled through a corner once the drift was set was to apply more throttle. I noticed that the car did not want to turn into the corner on the slow paced formation lap and a couple times I almost wound up sliding right off the corner into the snow bank - the car only works properly at race speeds. Within a couple laps I caught up to reigning champ Nick Majors' in his championship Nissan 240 Turbo and started tucking up inside him on the inside of some of the corners but never able to make a pass attempt. I still was not driving the car anywhere near its limit or capability and I was indeed still on a very steep learning curve but having the most fun I have ever had to date.

The first race saw contact with Ian Lok's blacked out turbo Volvo station wagon after I took a fairly hard hit fom Tom Prentice's black Mustang. I had gone wide the previous lap and then catching back up to these two cars I went to the outside of Tom as he got loose on the inside of the last turn and clobbered the front drivers side corner of my car as I tried to go around him and inside of the next car (Ian's). The hit drove me into Ian's driver's rear door. The result was the rad in Ian's car got jostled into the fan and started to leak and engine to overheat and my caved in front fender cut away some of the outside edge of the tire tread block and removed 3 studs from the front left tire.

I finished second behind Nick in the qualifier and second in both the subsequent races Saturday in pretty much excellent track conditions but mostly overcast weather.
 

Sunday:
After an excellent breakfast of warmed up leftovers we left the Minden House cottages and headed for the track. It had snowed a few inches over night like it seems to do every night here. The MR2 started up without a hitch, there had been a slight rubbing noise from the right rear wheel and upon removal discovered brake calliper clearances needed adjusting and with a slight bit of grinding the problem was solved. I had tried some 110 octane race fuel in the car but decide that this was not being combusted fully and diluted it down by filling up with Sunoco's 94 octane gas. The car ran much better. Everything worked really well and I drove much better resulting in 1st place finishes in both races Sunday. The Ovlov needed a bump start as the starter was frozen. After the first weekend it looks like I am leading the points in rearwheel stud and am in close contention for overall points lead as well.

Street Stud:
The 240 Ovlov GLT competing only in the Street Stud class did not do so well this weekend. I couldn't seem to get it to hook up. I am not sure what all the results were but I do know I got one second place in one race on Saturday. Results should be posted on the CASC web site later this week.

It seems that the new Hankook 409 street stud tires I purchased for this season, prepared and supplied by Jeff Wenzel from Tirecraft in Concord as a series spec tire, provides nowhere near the traction as the initial set of Hankook 401's that I used and won a championship on two years ago. The use of all 401's were subsequently banned and all competitors were required to purchase a newer model of tire for last year. That generation of street stud tires were fraught with massive problems of studs flying out of the pockets under race conditions to the point where it wasn't uncommon to lose up to 90% of the studs from a tire during just one race! About half way through last season part of the problem was discovered (by Tirecraft) to be that the release compound that is used in the manufacture process for most tires was never removed from the surface of the pockets in which the studs were inserted. So, much like the nostick surface of a frying pan works, the studs had no grip on the inside surface of the holes into which they were inserted and out they would fly sometimes splitting the tread block in which that pocket was in and in the process rendering even any replacement of studs into those same holes again useless!

The latest set of new tires (Hankook 409's) I purchased for this season have the stud flinging problem solved (so far they are all still in after only one weekend) but I have nowhere near the grip of those early 401's as the studs are inserted so far into the tread blocks and glued in so well that the only part of the stud that protrudes enough beyond the tread to do any work is the little tiny pencil lead sized nib at the centre of the stud! The shoulder and broadest part of the stud that provided all the amazing grip in the first generation 401's is now set flush with the tread block and thereby is rendered useless to contribute any towards traction. I question the wisdom of the people responsible for providing us with the "spec" tire for this series and I question myself as to why I bothered shelling out $800 to go slower than I did before.

Saturday:
Struggled with a car that had zero grip with the new "spec" Hankook 409's supplied by Jeff Wenzel at Tirecraft in Concord. As noted above the sponsor of this class have taken what looked like a very promising series a couple of years ago and reduced it to something less than mediocre and hardly worth the expense over rubber to ice. "You can fool some of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time".

Sunday:
Managed to improve grip very slightly by adjusting weights in the car but attribute most of what little improvement there was to warmer temps and softer ice.

Overall I'd say that this weekend's experience in stud class in the new MR2 was the most fun I have ever had racing and considering I had absolutely no idea how the car would work and then having it perform so well I can be nothing but completely satisfied. Also this was the first time I've ice raced without having a drop of alcohol in me (since January 11th). Yes, I drove stone cold sober and without any hangover for the first time in my life and I am so glad I was able to have this unique experience at 100% intensity and in high definition! It's just so much more of a freakin' total blast when it's not all muddied up and fogged over from a previous night of heavy drinking. I highly recommend the high.

Now I can only hope that my wee beastie can withstand the torture of 8000 rpm for the balance of the 5 coming weekends.