TAC - Feb 25th & 26th, 2006
(Story and photography - Scott Miller)
Ice Race Journal Index
TAC -
Feb 25th & 26th, 2006
(Story and photography - Scott Miller)
Ice Race Journal Index
I think you should read this disclaimer if you are
one that is prone to believing everything they read.
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Another cold weekend with a big snow storm Friday nite and all day Saturday adding about 10" to the already huge piles of snow in Mindenhammer and making progress through the pits difficult at times, I saw Richard Walker get stuck a couple times. The storm also affected overall entries as some people were not able to make it to Mindenhammmer in the whiteout conditions that plagued some of the highways. However some did - Steven Scala, all of TAC! Where was Roberto Mancino? Steff Haas had to leave saturday nite to attend his Father's 75th birthday bash.
"Drinkin Dan" Bucknam, SAC#66, was up this weekend and boy did we have fun! How is your leg now Dan? He and I sat down a little too quickly on the fouton couch upon returning to the cottage late Friday nite and consequently had some furniture rebuilding to do the next day. Thanks to the Minden House for putting up with us and to Tony for sharing the cottage and to Jason Sharpe for listening to all those tall tales. The temps. were not as bad as last weekend however Sunday the wind picked up pretty good and windchill was a factor. John Sullivan, our ontrack MD, reported one case of facial frostbite this weekend. TAC put on a good show, thanks to all for your diligence. Some tire changes took longer than others contributing to an extended day Sunday - I was not packed up and able to leave the track Sunday 'till 5:45 pm. The annual icerace rules meeting was held Sunday morning at 9am in the arena. It was not well attended by any SAC as we were out quite late Saturday nite. Perhaps this meeting could be held at a more reasonable hour and place - for example: 11pm Saturday nite at the Rockcliffe! dave Hilton aka "The Crusher " was reinstated as icerace director for another two years. Also Saturday nite was the Minden Kinsmen's annual bonfire, track skate and sleigh ride event for the younger crowd at the track. It was very well attended and enjoyed.
Seffan Haas, racing his rabbit in the street stud class, had his perfect points season come to an end as Lee Waterworth got a new civic on track and soundly beat him Saturday. On the other hand, I had my first perfect points weekend in the Street Stud class qualifying 1st and finishing 1st, 1st, 1st, and 1st. Tom Prentice is improving and hopefully will be able to have a go at me before the season ends :-) New SAC#309 Ian "Spanky" McIntyre had a SACtacular weekend with 100 points total on his first time out there in street studs FWD. He had a real good fo with Steffan Haas Sat. afternoon, then took his defective tire for repair complaining of losing "a" stud!
In rubber-to-ice,
the 740 (and the driver) began performing better. I put on the new
Blizzak REVO1's again (thanks to my tire sponsor
Brooklin Concrete Products Inc. ) and decided to just stay the
course ontrack, not sliding or loosing traction. This tact finally paid
off on Sunday with two SACond place finishes in both races beating Larry
Kovaks but not anywhere near the champ, Terry Dalton, who just continues
to out-smooth-drive everyone.
There was a lot of snow built up on the outside of each turn as a result of the big snowfall on Saturday so sometimes it provided for quite a show. The video at left shows a bit of that as this Audi Quatro shoots up a plume of powder. Jim Mcglade also has some pics of that further down the page. This video was of a class 11 RWD and AWD race and has the continuing Terry and Larry show theme - that's the #46 corolla and the #11 Skoda. Also note how smooth Eric Chapman is in the Ovlov with the cool paint scheme.
I had thoughts of removing the distributer cap from Mike Evans' Ovlov wagoon which is stored at the gravel pit because I think the one on the 242 is suspect. But after arriving there you can see why I didn't bother. I also knew that under the first foot of powder there was a 2" layer of ice from a previous storm and some frozen slush under that from a thaw and another foot of hard pack under that ... "Better let sleeping Ov's lay". Ian Lok hauled all the way down to just north of Utica New York this last weekend to compete in the first ever Historic Exhibition icerace on Caroga Lake. He will be putting together a report and pics a little later this week. If you want here's their weeb site .... http://www.icerace.com/Historic%20Class.htm
This past weekend
completes 4 weekends of racing (Rounds # 2, 4, 5, and 6) with rounds one
and three left to go. Looking at the weather forecast today it looks
very promising for next weekend but not so good for the last weekend.
WALL OF SHAME: This is a new icerace report
feature that singles out drivers that have made a large impact (on my
car)
If any of the afore-mentioned feel embarassed after reading about themselves here .... well good! Racing: Saturday: Some pretty
rough racing this weekend in class 1 (rear wheel and all-wheel
rubber-to-ice class) with too much damaging contact by some of the
rookies and out of control driving by some of the 4 wheel drive drivers
who should know better! The white Subaru wagon, the Honda wagon, and the Silver
Audi Quattro all
displayed extremely bad examples of driving and poor sportsmanship and
should be ashamed. Did you not know that in some forms of ice racing in other parts of the world
people bring out their street cars to ice race and then drive
them home again WITHOUT A BLOODY SCRATCH!!!! NO CONTACT! The 740 Ovlov
was pretty badly beat up on both sides - driver's side on Saturday in
counterclockwise race direction and passenger's side on Sunday in
clockwise race direction - go figure. At times there was more than one
all wheel drive car travelling the wrong way on the track. On Sunday
there was a first time passenger in the car when the Ovlov was used for
brakes by a fellow competitor. I had just made my turn into the first
corner at the end of the straight when the passenger door was t-boned by
(name and car withheld - because he came and apologized after the race)
caving it in and exploding the glass from it all over the poor guy! I
told the guy not to get the wrong idea that this was not a demolition
derby and contact, although at times inevitable, is expressly frowned
upon. I suggest that the rookies should have to spend their first season
racing by themselves in one dedicated rookie class - CLASS "R" - all by
themselves no matter whether they are RWD, FWD or AWD and if there are
any cars/drivers left at the end of their first season ice racing they
may then join the regular scheduled classes for the next season! Amen!
Despite the "Wall Of Shame" , racing was good this weekend with continual improvement in the 740 Ov and a perfect score for the Swedish Motors pepared 242 Ovlov.
Sunday: I finished 1st in the first street stud race Sunday but was TACed as second on the grid in the next race. Got that straightened out and starting 1st finished 1st in the second race.
Track Conditions/ Weather: Saturday:
Sunday: Results: My best results again were in Street Studs: qualified pole and finished 1st ,1st , 1st ,1st for a perfect scored weekend :-)))) Class 1 results for rubber-to-ice: 3rd, 3rd, 2nd, 2nd Pics:
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