BEMC - February 17th & 18th, 2007
(Story and photography - Scott Miller)
Ice Race Journal Index
BEMC -
February 17th & 18th, 2007
(Story and photography - Scott Miller)
Ice Race Journal Index
I think you should read this
disclaimer if you are
one who is prone to believing
everything they read.
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This was the 4th weekend of cold and windy conditions in a row, we have yet to have any milder type track conditions and so every weekend thus far has been very slippery; not good for a RWD locked diff car in rubber to ice. Needless to say I had somewhat disappointing rubber finishes although I did have much fun racing with whomever was near me and a couple of times had really good starts after stud races. This weekend was hosted by the British Empire Motorsport Club (BEMC) and indeed was a very well run event, thank you to all. The BEMC grid marshal has got to be my favourite, he has been doing that job ever since I can remember. I learned from him that the correct, sorry, the only way to spell the name of those donut shaped pieces of rubber at each corner of our cars is "Tyre", the other is just American and is simply wrong. I finally found the flag pole for Ol' Thistlebutt and hoisted him high in fairly stiff winds.
Friday - I didn't get any sleep Thursday night (new cat) and got into Mindenhammer around 4:30 Friday, went to the track and Ahmad Khodkar and Tony Silvaggi were doing some test laps. I did some basic prep work for the next day and headed back to the cottage at the Minden House to consider making a supper of spaghetti. Somewhere between cooking the food and visiting Ahmad and Tony in the cottage a couple of doors over from mine for Jagermeisters the wheels started to fall off things early in the evening. Generally speaking, I'm afraid the story will have to be told by others as regrettably I seem to have few memories of the evening's events and only a few pictures. Saturday - Needless to say Saturday was a very "relaxing" day behind the wheel as everything sort of seemed to do a lot of floating around. I kept hearing snippets of the previous evenings events from various people as I passed through the pits.
Anyway, more slamming and banging went on this weekend and my car is now beginning to look like a crushed beer can. I was not the only recipient as Steve Drysdale and Ian McIntyre's Honda took a mean hit in Saturday's practice from the #29 Honda (the one with the orange flames on the side) that netted them a completely mangled right rear control arm etc. and a trip home to repair it. They made it back up Sunday but lost out on the two races Saturday. Apparently this is becoming a common practice for car #29 as I heard similar stories from other sources. I had a good 1st rubber to ice race in class 1 and I was up to second from like 5th place start when around the second to last lap with Larry Kovaks on my tail (whom I had just fought a tough battle with to pass for second) I went a little too fast for the fading grip into the last corner (clockwise track) and slid through the grippy snow and onto the polished ice and Larry unwittingly following me in. As the car rotated right and crossways to traffic, Larry couldn't avoid me and nailed the right rear quarter square on ripping of my gas cap door lock and bending everything out of shape in that general vicinity. Tom has continued to dominate with 3 out of 4 wins this weekend in the Street Stud (SS) class to put him in first while Tim Fluegal has fallen to 3rd with myself remaining in second position.
Saturday evening at 8 pm saw the inaugural Cottage 2 Wine & Cheese party well attended and enjoyed by most of the Minden House clientele and owners Gord and Leslie. Thanks to Terry Dalton for planning the concept and ordering/picking up the excellent deli tray and thanks to the somewhat unsuspecting but accommodating cottage 2 renters Curtis Pike and James King.
Then we were all off to the Cliffe for a surprise birthday party for Janice McLaren.
There we met up with
a Scottish rogue by the name o' Timmae, third cousin to somewhat more
sober Jimmae whom you all met last year, who along with a bunch of his
"peeps" formed the musical entertainment for the evening.
There seemed to be way too much staged smoke in the air. the Saturday Night band at the Cliffe was inspired by Spinal Tap with the volume knob turned up to the "11" position. You can hear on the video why the vocalist would want to totally distort his voice though, maybe there was just too much "smoke".
Sunday - I had another great race with Larry Kovaks this time in the SS class race with Larry running his old Skoda. Just a lot of back and forth trading of places, nice clean racing I lucked out and managed to be ahead of him at the finish line for a third place behind Tom Smith in the blue Corolla and Tom Prentice who finished first in the red 240SX. Check the video at left and note the shark fin number sign on the Ovlov flopping side to side during impacts. Ed Violette shot this footage from the black Zephyr car #77. It is during one of the rubber to ice races on Sunday. I had Leon Lok as passenger (I thought he was going to piss himself) as we are about to be lapped by Terry Dalton in the Toyota Corolla I couldn't give up that easily so ... The last SS race Sunday saw two cars create two separate serious problems.
The first was when George McCulloch's yellow Honda Civic (I believe Aileen was driving) lost a rear wheel early on and got parked just near the start of the first turn at the end of the straight (clockwise track) right on the outside edge of the race line facing oncoming traffic. I considered this a dangerous enough condition that a red flag should have been thrown but none was and every time I set up for this corner I believed it only a matter of time before I (or anyone else for that matter) would wind up pitching the car right into front of the beached Honda.
The second incident (later in the same race) had Richard Walker mixing it up with the Fiat rookie at the other end of the track right at the apex of the last corner before the entry onto the straight. I don't know how he managed but Richard's Chevette wound up with the back end up on the snow bank pointing towards the centre of the track. Again I thought this was a very dangerous place to have a car parked and they should have red flagged that incident as well. Both incidents sure made for some challenging cornering! In other news ....
I decided to immortalize the Chevette torpedo incident and I have had a professional artist airbush a Chevette penetrating the passenger side of the Ovlov. Glenn McKay showed up just as racing finished at 3:30 (very early) on Saturday. We somehow got oru wires crossed and I didn't hook up with him Saturday but he returned to the track to watch on Sunday. Weather Saturday: -5C then cooled off to -10C ? Sunday: - high of -11C then started to drop like a rock to -31C Sunday nite Track Conditions Sat. - track holding up really well Sun. - track excellent but very hard and therefore quite slippery Results Look em up on the CASC web site www.CASC.on.ca , click the ice race link Pics:
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