Raymond Wintonyk
Edmonton, Alberta — February 15, 2014
Ice racing is always dependent on weather, and the weather can be tricky. Although the Northern Alberta Sports Car Club had abandoned it’s 2014 Ice Racing Season due to poor ice, and a huge midwinter meltdown, the NASCC staged it’s first race day of the year today on Roy’s Lake, west of Edmonton.
It was a warm, pleasant day with temperatures ranging up to about -1º C, and though the turnout wasn’t huge, the racing was fast and furious. In the words of Mike Elhard, one of the major organizers for the NASCC: “Andy de Boon and Sean Finn have built the fastest smoothest track I have seen in years. Many many hours of hard work have gone into this weekend and for all involved thanks for your efforts.”
The NASCC ran 4 goups of cars this weekend on Roy’s Lake: Street stud (a limited number of tire studs), Rubber (no studs at all in the tires), a combined race stud (unlimited) & Neon (spec studs) class, and finally, a Chevette class, which uses Chevy Chevettes on unstudded tires. Yes, it’s true. they’ve still got these Chevettes running.
In Street Stud, Ken Berg & Peter Siefert dominated the day, with Ken taking first in 2 of the three races in his ’96 VW, and Peter coming first in the third race. Ken Berg & Sean Finn both a poor days with DNF’s in all but Sean’s final race. He finished in third place.
As per usual, Rubber to Ice was a bit more embattled.Danny Bracken, in his brand new turbocharged #25 VW Rabbit did NOT (as all had expected) dominate the series. Robin Saunders, in the #42 Ford took first place in the initial race, with Danny pulling in second, and Les Koochin in the #83 Chev drawing third. Julian Pascoal, in the #32 Ford, pulled the fourth straw.
Rubber Race 2: #25, Danny Bracken won this one, with Julian Pascoal coming up second, Robin & Chris Saunders third, with Les Koochin & Hiroki Currie drawing fouth & fifth. But Danny Bracken was having a seriously bad day. On the third race, His brand new engine went severely off key, and he only “just” managed to get his car to the end of the session. He finally ended up in fourth position ahead of Landon Goudreau in the #8 Chevette, and Matt Beuabien in the #18 Chevette.Robin & Chris Saunders (in the #42 Ford) finished on top, followed by Julian Pascoal in the #32 Ford, and Les Koochin in the #83 Chevette.
Just as an example of how really active this rubber class is, and how much goes on between the snowbanks out there, here’s a quick précis of the content of COMM on the final race of the day: “Car 8: top light out”, Car 8 spins, Car 18 spins to avoid, Car 38: light hit into spun Car 18 (unavoidable). Car 66 light back to front contact into rear of Car 86; Car 66, spin & continue; Car 18 spin & continue; Car 83 spin, continue; Car 66 spin, continue; Car 81 spin, continue; Car 81 spin, continue; Car 66 spin, continue; Car 66 spin continue; Car 25 stopped on track; Car 83 reversing on track after session to push Car 25 home. This all in a field of 11 cars in the space of 12 minutes. (Ain’t Ice Racing FUN?)
The Race Stud/Neon class was a bit sparse. (The race stud cars didn’t show up today, & there were but TWO Neons). Even so, the two cars of Peter Siefert in the 03 Neon & Sean Finn in the 09 provided perhaps some of the best racing of the day. Sean had a tough day; not being able to coax his car to the finsh line for the first few sessions. But he got it connected in the later afternoon. Peter Siefert, having parked his Neon in the snow, let Mr. Finn gather up the last two first finishes of the day.
And this brings us (last, but not least, I’d suppose) to the Chevette class. There were seven of them today. These guys do a standing start in a sort of “reverse grid” order that (I suspect) is established by lot.It makes for a wonderfully interesting Turn #1.
In the first race, the finishing order was: Les Koochin in Car #83, Matt Beaubien in Car #18, Todd Malteare in Car #37, Aran Cook in Car #66, Landon Goudreau in Car #8, Mike Koochin in Car 86, and Andi Goudreau in CAr #81.
It’s an awfully interesting class. Their fortunes seem to vary with the direction of the wind. Landon took the second race in the #8 car, (Race order: 8, 83, 18, 37, 86, 81, 66 . The order of Race #3 was: 83, 37, 66, 8, 86, 18, 81 (with Les Koochin in the front),
Another Race Day tomorrow at Roy’s Lake in Alberta. It looks to be another pleasant day.