not quite as succcessful as last weekend. I once again raced both class 1 & 11. Upon my first visit to the men's bathroom I read the results for last weekend and discovered I was leading the points in class 1 by 4 points over Terry Dalton in 2nd and 8 points over Larry Kovacs in 3rd! Whether it was due to the pressure of maintaining that lead, the arrival of true talent (Russ Bond) at the track or hangin' out with Dave Watson, Gianni Biral, Jeff Wenzel, Mike Jensen and Torsen Saturday nite, I did not do so well this weekend. I tried everything, but to no avail.

I did manage to pull off a SACond in class 1. This was after a stud race so I was hooked up for about 4 laps. I got a bad start sliding back from 4th to 6th? then passed up to 3rd in the first corner on the outside of a two car wide bumper to bumper "follow the leader" conga line. Had to be fairly aggressive with Tom Prentice by the 4th corner leading onto the straight as it looked like he was going to hold up my charge by driving way slower than I was capable of that early on in the race. I had the inside line going in and he tried the chop into the front corner of the Ov but to no avail. I then promptly caught and passed Terry Dalton and Larry Kovacs with likewise forceful maneuvers. After leading for half the race I started loosing grip big time and Larry Kovacs finally caught up and blew right past me to finish first well ahead of me.

Russ Bond was there driving his Toyota MR2 in Class 1. He and I had quite a few interesting back and forth duels further back in the pack. I christened the little car with a side-whack from the Ovlov. No serious damage, we just participated in the paint exchange program.

Of the three MR2's there, only two saw action this weekend. One in studded did not seem to be able to stay hooked up along with much thrashing at the wheel. Russ Bond, in rubber to ice, said he felt very confident and stable in his but has yet to place well.

There were only 10 participants in the metal to ice races and that contributed to very short gains in grip for any rubber races that followed.

Jeff Wenzel continued to struggle with reliability issues on Raul Backstrom's old rabbit. First clutch then no acceleration, probably injector problems. Anyhow, he has towed it home to iron it out.

Only some of the rubber races were extended to the promised 15 laps in order to offset the increased race fees for this year. It's now $100 per weekend per class.

The Ovlov is consuming 2 litres of oil every weekend racing both Class 1 & 11. Still, lots of power. Fuel consumption however is much less than the previous carburated green Ovlov with about a 20 litre savings.

And, just for the record, I did not drive my ice racer from the track down to the Rockcliffe last year or ever!!! Please , let's not start any stupid rumours whoever was responsible for that one!

Results:

I did not pick up the results for Class 1 or 11

Track Conditions/ Weather:

The track was extremely slippery and flat again. Andy Hughes said they put down 66,000 gallons of water Friday? nite!

Racing:

Saturday:

Took all the weight out of the car first thing Friday and did a re&re on the emergency brake shoes as I had had no E-brake last weekend. Saturday: slippy, lousy starts, poor traction. What's going on!!! Threw away the pole position in the class 11 qualifier, I stalled the car on the start and then couldn't find any grip. More weight back in the car, still terrible.

AAAUUUGGGHHH, ICE RACING!!!!!

Sunday:

Went for new rubber on the back, still no good so decided to try different driving technique: as clean as humanly possible - still nothing. Maybe I will put all the weight back in?

Highlite(s):

Drawing pole position for both class1 and class 11 qualifiers Saturday morning.

Scoty@rogers.com