Here is
my first and possibly last ice-race
report.
Well, it all started on December 30 over
brunch at Sister's restaurant in
Scarborough. The family was celebrating
my brother's 45th. birthday. Over lunch
my Father tried to coerce me into coming
up to Minden to help with the D.A.C.
race weekend. My "compensation" was to
be in the form of "free beer" at the
Saturday night banquet. Not only was it
the banquet, but it also coincided with
my Father's 80th. birthday. By the way,
my father was also listed as the event
organizer. Reluctantly, I agreed to
come up more so for the birthday as
opposed to the helping out part.
My father was a persuasive man at times,
and he signed up my wife to help with
registration as well. For those of you
who do not know, my father passed away
on January 8th. My inheritance was in
the form of two ice-racing cars. Still
going to go up I said to myself, but now
I will run one of the cars. We found
out that one of the cars was at Horst
Kroll's in West Hill being prepared.
How much did we owe I wondered? No
problem, we cut a deal with a swap of
another car, a 1993 Golf that I had sold
to dad. Between work and settling some
of Dad's affairs, I was able to pick up
his one car on a Saturday. When I
started it up, it backfired so loudly
that patrons entering Ted's restaurant
ducked. You see, Kroll's is not far
away from some of Scarborough's more
notorious "hoods." I towed the car to
Ajax where I live and started it up in
the driveway. I sat in the car and
almost passed out from exhaust fumes. I
knew the car was loud, and later on
found out why. The entire muffler had
ripped up the middle. To make matters
worse, I could not restart the car the
next day. What to do I thought? Spoke
with Horst and he suggested to bring the
car back in and that he would have the
muffler fixed "on the house." After all
of this the car was finally ready and I
picked it up on Friday the 2nd. (Dad's
birthday) and on my day off from work I
towed it up to Minden. I stopped by the
track to take a look as I have not been
up to Minden since 2003. The track was
super-wide and my first thoughts were
that it would allow for some wiggle-room
in case I got in too hot on race day. I
was going to run Dad's car with the
Blizzaks that he flat towed on for the
last 5 or six years. Not the best
choice of tires, but I did not want to
invest in any new ones as that plan was
to run the car the one weekend at list
it for sale. After a parting shot (Jaegermeister)
with Scott Miller and Ahmad Khodkar, I
made my way to the Highland Motel. As I
entered the sweeping off-camber downhill
corner in the the Motel, I stuffed both
the Chevy Uplander and the Rabbit I was
flat towing into the snow bank.
Foreshadowing I wondered? Well I got
myself out, only to get stuck coming out
at 6 am on Saturday morning. The
solution, unhitch the car, and re-hook
it up on Highway 35. It worked. When I
got to the track, I noticed that the
heater did not work. It was minus 18 or
so, and I knew this would be a problem.
I made my way over to Home Hardware and
bought some spray de-icer and a cheap
chamois. I ran practice with an old
air-cooled VW technique of driving with
one hand, while spraying the windshield
with the other. I had limited
visibility and to top it off the rear
view mirror fell off. By the way, I
stuffed the car on the last practice lap
as I tried the outside line for the
first time. I drew number 5 starting
position out of 15 cars on Saturday for
the qualifier. Not bad I thought. I
positioned my car off the right a little
bit when we grided. I had the inside
line and planned to duck up the inside
into the first corner and into the lead.
Pretty ambitious, but I still have the
winning drive in the veins. They
dropped the green and a spun the wheels
for about 10 seconds as every one passed
me. I made my way back up to mid pack
by lap three and settled into a
rhythm. Suddenly when entering the
first corner, the car stalled. This
happened 6 times out of twelve laps, and
always at the same corner. I finished
14 out of 15 cars. The only person I
felt more sorry for than myself ,
was the guy whom I had managed to beat.
Never really did diagnose what the
problem was
and I am sure it is nothing
major. Being the Alpha male type
that I am,
(want to win) and not
very motivated to wrench twist, I
withdrew the car form the remainder of
the weekend. I helped out gridding
cars the remainder of Saturday . The
Saturday night banquet was fun, (Thanks
to Scott and Judy for the wine and the
servers!) and of course we ended
up at the Cliff. It
was good to see many of the D.A.C.
members again. And yes to Cory and
Robert, you will still get a pace car
for Shannonville, but nothing like the
RS6 that was mistakenly given to you a
couple of years ago. Maybe a GTi, or
something...
Here is
a breakdown of my expenses:
License
$60.00
Entry
fee $50.00 (one day)
Fuel
for car and van $100.00
Motel
$115.00
De-icer
and Chamois - $15.00
4
bungee cords - $10.00
Food -
$40.00
Beer
and wine $50.00
The
Cliffe' - can't remember, but at least
one pitcher? ($20.00)
The
cost of running 12 laps at Minden, -
PRICELESS!
Got
home on Sunday morning and did what I
like to do as a hobby since I stopped
ice-racing some 10 years ago. I checked
the travel section in the star and have
almost committed myself to a trip to
Cuba. I will think of you all while I
sip on Mohitos at the beach bar
whilst you freeze at the track. It
is strange, that even though I am
"retired from ice-racing" I will
probably end up blabbing about Minden to
another crop of European tourists when I
am at the beach. That is the perverse
thing about Minden, as much as I try to
stay way, the place still does have some
allure, even thought it may be in the
form of remembering better times when
thing were working out.
