What a hoot in the Cliffe Saturday nite! Oh man, I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Steff and Gianni were just cracking me up recounting some Raulism's from the past. The discussion turned to the appalling lack of grip Saturday. Suggestions for a solution were put forth like "We should have Tom Prentice sand the track". Now why didn't we think of that before??? Or how about salt? I mean who wants all that ice anyway , it just impedes grip! Besides there's all that lovely dirt underneath the ice. Ironically races were cancelled for the last half of Sunday afternoon because medic John Sullivan drove the track midafternoon and then declared the track unsafe: too much grip from all the exposed dirt! Isn't more grip safer than less grip???!!! I think John just scared himself.

Gianni Biral along with Irene and little Anthony were there, Ian and Tracy - Tracy had to go back home Saturday afternoon with Ian's van on a flatbed tow truck because it would not start and then drive herself back up in her pickup truck . When she got back around 9:30 PM we were all in fine form thanks to Gianni buying 4 "garbage pails" of beer ( a "garbage pail" holds about 3 pitchers each).

Terry Dalton, Steff Haas, Jeff Wenzel and Zach, Lee Waterworth also were in attendance. I know there were others but I forget.

Leon Lok showed up Sunday to drive Ian's car in Class 11 race and thoroughly enjoyed himself.

Results:

Class one
Race finishes Saturday
Sunday
Results Class 1

Class 11

Results Class 11

Track Conditions/ Weather:

Saturday:
Sunny and +4 C, very wet conditions and sloppy slush. Lots od dirt

Sunday:
Same warm weather but only +1 high. Even more distruction of the track with lots more mud and dirt exposed and spread all over the track. This sped up ice melt and added even more water. Tom plowed the crap off the top and then they decided that there would be cancel the last stud race.

Racing:

Saturday: Ian and Terry Dalton got into each other (not intentional ) and I watched it from just behind them. Ian was going into last turn inside of Terry who looked like he was sliding wide into weeds off corner but the front of his car caught traction sudenly and in a blink he found himself turning left into Ian's car which was pitched totally sideways because of his locked diff. Man, when they met the front corners of the cars hit and they bounced each around until the back corners hit and then they richocheted off each other like those clacker ball toys! Terry had installed a cage in his car this winter and fortunately plenty of side impact protection. But the force of the impact still bent the cage!

Sunday: Studs went right down into the dirt and drivers reported damage to their stud tires, Stud races cancelled Sunday, Rubber to ice cancelled late Sunday afternoon. Track was mostly mud, dirt and slush with water mixed in. Driving the track was a handfull as you would set up for a corner on slippery (ie. with some sideways drift) only to have to suddenly deal with a ton of grip on a bare patch of dirt. This happened everywhere on the track except the straight. Ian Lok has a bit of a loose motor problem. Both motor mounts and quite likely the tranni mount are completely gone and the engine is twisted/jambed out of position in the bay to such an extent that he could not get new mounts installed with out a cherry picker to lift the motor. So he just chained it down. Click the pic for a very short WMV video.

Highlite(s):

Not very good results weekend for me, couldn't get any grip. Best I did was a SACond.

Big wipeout in class 11 race Sunday with the OVLOV wagoon. I got a clean start because so much dirt exposed I had the lock diff wagoon going full bore (real handfull at full speed) and went wide following around the bank at the end of the straight and got into 1st place but as I turned my head to the right to check my side mirror before turning in to the next corner a piece of the bank to my left was out just a bit furthur than the rest and so sloppy that my front wheel got sucked into and up on the bank rotating me a little more than 180 degrees. Now my front wheel and passenger side was in line with the oncoming Terry Dalton (also at full bore) whose passenger side front corner made contact with my right front wheel. WAMMO!!! Steering wheel ripped out of my grip almost breaking the fingers, one bent strut tower and a couple of spins later and Ifind myself coasting the wrong way back down the track. Give head a shake and try to catch up, finished 3rd or fourth.

More Pics:

Click for large...

	Stud guys getting back from race
	Gianni's double dual webers
	Kiyo and Chris Martin attempt some body repairs with a chain
	Klaus Bartels made a wicked start to his first race Saturday. This is into the first corner off the line. He is still driving with really worn Blizzak MZ02's which have like an eigth inch of tread left!!!
	Carol Robson got him but only because she started running the banks.
	Again, don't expect any of the SAC related links to work as they are all on Rogers. I will be working toward rectifying this all this week.

Scoty@rogers.com