Rick Young's website is located at: www.rickattheraces.com
PIC 1 Fellow driver join Mark Hitchcock for his final night , top row L to R Joe Banks, Dave Heaslip, Kyle Dingwall, Stephane Lafrance, Paul Pekkonen, Jason Riddell, Adam Moore. bottom L to R Billy Cooke, Brian McDonald, Mark Hitchcock, Todd Stewart, John Mulder, Keith 'Chico' Dingwall
PIC 2 Mark Hitchcock and Stephane Lafrance
PIC 3 Vintage Stock Car inner Jason Powers
PIC 4 Chris Raabe and trophy girl Danielle
PIC 5 Chris Raabe in action
PIC 6 RWYB winner Stephane Lafrance interviewed by Steve Young
PIC 7 RWYB winner in Stephane Lafrance in Victory Lane with his wife Maryse.
Once again the weather has been the major factor in the racing world, as well as the world in general. My daughter Carla, who visited me from Texas during the Labor Day Weekend is now in the thick of Hurricane Ike. The coastal city of Galveston was badly affected and she's been helping out at a shelter for evacuees that was set up in Austin.
Nearer to home, a day of rain put the blocks on Friday (12 Sept) combined LUCAS OIL CANADIAN DIRT SERIES and 358 SUPERDIRT CAR SERIES at the Brockville Ontario Speedway. This was the third attempt to get the CDS event in the books and with no make up date, the current points leader David Hebert became 2008 Champion.
Due to my busy schedule, I gave the 358 SUPER DIRTCAR SERIES at Autodrome Drummond a miss on Saturday and chose to stay local. Instead of being up in Quebec seeing Danny O'Brien win his second 358 SDS race of year, I was at the ( now much dryer) Brockville Ontario Speedway for their Run What Ya Brung show. Sharing the program were rookies, street stox , Vintage Stox and the DIRT Sportsman which had two features .
At the beginning of the year I had a good chat with long time, Modified driver Mark Hitchcock , who told me of his intentions to quit at the end of the year, saying that this would be his last season in racing. This Saturday was his final night, and a bunch of his fellow drivers got together for a photo shoot with him before the racing commenced.
As I said, the weather played a big part in everyones plans this weekend and two drivers made unexpected visits to the BOS. Brian McDonald had been down at the Oshweken Speedway with his Sprint Car for the 'Nationals' . When rain put an end to that show, he made a quick dash up the 401 to race the Lasalle Team's Modified. Chris Raabe was another one that was supposed to be somewhere else. He's been following the DIRT Sportsman Series and ended up making a grand tour around Lake Ontario running from the rain outs. The round at the Ransomville Speedway NY was effected on Friday night, then the Genessee Speedway at Batavia NY canceled their show early on Saturday. The Raabe Team chased back up across the border to win both features at the BOS.
The Run What Ya Brung show was once again won by Stephane Lafrance in his stunning projectile that laps the circuit quicker than anything else. ( even Sprint Cars). Steph won the show last year with the same machine.
Brockville turned out to be my only event this week as the Cornwall Motor Speedway also lost their Sunday show to rain.
That brings me into my next bit. The uncle of Brockville winner Stephane Lafrance is Roger Aubin who will be accompanying me to the UK for the BriSCA F1 World Final. ( Roger's wife is sister to Steph's mum)
In a few hours time we will be flying out of Ottawa bound for Gatwick Airport ( South of London). We hope to attend four different tracks during our visit, and It's reassuring to know that UK events rarely cancel for bad weather. If it rains the cars put on suitable tires, and as for the race fans, we either choose to get wet or watch from beneath an umbrella !
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