Summer in November?
Almost hit 20C(70F) yesterday and today it's 18. We should still be drag racing..........

Silly Season

Sorry for the lack of updates - I've been slack in posting to this blog mostly due to the end of the season and because I didn't have a whole lot to say lately.

This AM I posted the message below to the Maritime Drag Racers Message Board in hope of getting some feedback. MAYBE I can get some people interested in option #1(my personal agenda)

QUOTE: Being as it's so quiet in here I thought we could discuss some possibilities for the 2009 season.

1. I would like to get some opinions on the development of a multi class Maritime Drag Racing Series consisting of one race per season at each of the four Maritime Tracks: Miramichi Dragway Park, Greenfield Dragway, Raceway Park PEI and Cape Breton Dragway. In addition to the regular Super/Pro, Pro, Sportsman and Bike/Sled classes there could also be Heads Up, Stock/Superstock, Pro Tree, Outlaw, 10.5, Real Street, Pro Street, etc. Obviously these events would have to coincide with scheduled ADRA points meets so as not to upset the "points chasers" in the crowd.

2. Another possibility is the addition of a Pro Tree only event but with the number of "box" racers in the Maritimes that might not catch on.

3. The Quick 8 idea tested at CB Dragway this year could be refined and then be included as part of any major event.

4. Rumors of racing under the lights at CB Dragway for 2009 - IMO that might put a lot more people in the bleachers and attract a lot more racers who work too late in the day to attend a normal Wed night T&T session.

5. Racer "Bed and Breakfasts"   This one is a no brainer - invite a racer to stay at your house instead of a motel during a race weekend at your home track. Then they return the favor when you go to their track. This will eliminate a LOT of expense for the racer and except for a little food and some laundry wouldn't affect the host too much at all.

6. Hold a media day at each track - invite TV, radio and newspaper people to come and participate in their own little event. Had the weather been better at MDP during the CFSC shootout that might have been a bigger hit.

7. Arrange for a chassis certification session somewhere in New Brunswick with a large building and a few hoists - the IHRA guys wouldn't have too far to travel and it would save a lot of people a lot of money who would normally go stateside for certification.

8. More security. The effort by the track owners/operators in 2008 to have a common set of rules of conduct was a good idea but lacked enforcement(in my opinion)

So what do you people think? Any more ideas? We've got many months to think this out and it would be good to get a discussion started. Also because "out of sight/out of mind" is a factor I'm going to sticky this thread so it doesn't disappear from lack of use. END QUOTE

 

On another front I thought I'd share my latest "hare brained scheme" - It started out as a test session with Photoshop and led to a couple of hours of measuring and engineering on the Jetta I bought for parts. Weld up the back doors, cut the rear section of the roof and the front 12" of the trunk lid and move it forward. It will take two more 14" sections of trunk lid and quarter panel sections from junkyard Jettas to fill in the back end. That plus a lot of MIG wire and bondo and no doubt a lot of metalwork but IMO it would be a cool project to attempt.

 

Weather rant
Mood:  irritated

Lots of Maritime Drag Racers heading for Epping this weekend - so many that they even started a thread on the message board to prepare for their annual trek stateside. Problem is the U.S. Weather service forecast is not good at all. 

Also this weekend is the Noonan Nationals at Miramichi Dragway Park and the Environment Canada forecast for Miramichi sucks.

Yesterday we lost a Test and Tune session at CB Dragway due to rain, last weekend it rained in PEI, the CFSC Shootout got rained out, Clarenville lost a couple of events and every track had a rain event of some kind. This season has been a total disaster for Drag Racing in the Maritimes. The best weather all season was the August ADRA event at CB Dragway(not one drop!) but the previous two events had rain delays.

The most rain plagued track has got to be MDP - Did they have even ONE event that wasn't either cancelled or shortened due to rain?

Greenfield had it's share as well as Raceway Park PEI. August had a record amount of rainfall and so far it has rained every day this month. Next weekend is the Season Finale at Cape Breton Dragway - I sure hope this trend does not continue.

Later........

Rain(again)

Forecast didn't look good this AM but a half dozen of us still showed up at the Airport Maintenance Garage to discuss the weather. Since all of us had seen the forecasts and weather maps we made a decision to cancel tonight's Test and Tune session.

Fast forward to this coming weekend's Noonan Nationals at MDP. As usual the forecast sucks big time. Friday to Saturday afternoon it looks clear but it's rain for Sunday. Miramichi Dragway Park has had the absolute WORST luck with rain this season. There's some ugly rumours going around concerning the future of MDP lately - I certainly  hope they're not true.

More of the same.......

Didn't post anything in here lately mostly because of the superb job Ron Desveaux did on the CB Dragway Quick 8 / ADRA Points Meet report. Plus that was the first weekend for our newbie Blown Alcohol team(talk about a learning experienceLOL) Couple that with the awesome photos that George White and Darryl Reeves posted on their websites I didn't think I had anything to add to the coverage. That report is available on MaritimeDragRacing.com http://www.maritimedragracing.com/id114.htm

Raceway Park PEI's Labour Day race had been turned into a "Sport Compact" weekend for 2008. Since our reservations were already made "Team Cape Breton" elected to join in for some testing and tuning. Since there was a very low car count the guys got a ton of passes.

But as usual Mother Nature was being a bitch - it took till almost noon on Saturday for the track to dry up from an overnight downpour. Same deal on Sunday but Doug, Rollie and Chris still got lots of passes. But the rains came back late Sunday afternoon and that was the end of it. Len and Liam and I wandered around all weekend doing nothing but socializing since Len's dragster was still in Cape Breton. For once I was able to have a long talk with Jeff, Greg,  Kevin Power, Mario, Lorna, Roy, Blair and John MacKinnon. Most other times I'm in too big a rush to chat.

Working on some new graphics for another "new look" for the website and the development and launch of the Maritime Hot Rod Association Since the project involves learning a new graphics program it may take some time. More info on the Maritime Hot Rod Association
later............

Test and Tune Wednesday night means a minimal setup starting around noontime tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get enough bodies to show up out there to get it done in time.

Rain and Racin'
The reason nothing has appeared in here lately is because the Message Board has been so busy. There were tons of pics posted and lots of discussion about the rain so I won't bore you all with more soggy details. All the fastest street cars in the world trying to get down a wet track is an experience I'll never forget. Some of those Outlaw 10.5 cars are scary to watch!!

Dragstock?

Well, this is it - The biggest Drag Racing Event in the Maritimes' history is here. I'm heading for Miramichi Dragway Park with Kevin Cooke and Kevin Burke at 4:00AM Friday. As part of "Media Day" on Friday I will get access to all the racers and some media only events. There will be lots stories and pics in the days and weeks to come. See you all there!!

Busy, busy, busy.........

Been so busy between things falling apart and computers acting up I haven't had time to do much lately let alone write a blog entry. As a matter of fact there was almost a full day between this sentence and the previous one. I finally got Marie's computer all fixed up and naturally both of mine started going sour. Most of it was due to my slowness in learning how to configure a new firewall to work with our network. Right now everything is purring right along and all the software is doing what it is supposed to do. One thing I did get rid of was my Office Outlook email. Most of my email addresses now forward to my Gmail inbox instead. I figured why store all that stuff on my computer when Gmail and Google Document storage will do it for me. Also on the subject of data storage you absolutely have to check out  \http://www.adrive.com/ - You can get 50 GB of FREE online storage. Upload & Store Files, Access Files Anywhere, Edit Documents Online, Remote File Transfer, Desktop Backup Client and tons more. It sure freed up a lot of room on my computers. I still back up stuff to CDs and external drives but it never hurts to have more options. 

Cape Breton Dragway's test and tune session on Saturday July 12 had perfect weather, great traction and almost 60 entries. The field was split about 1/3 Tuners, 1/3 bracket cars and the last 1/3 was Bikes and sleds. Next event will be a Wednesday night Test and Tune session on July 23 then July 25-26-27 will be an ADRA Points Meet. The weekend after that it will be the Extreme Drag Race event at Miramichi. I've got so much going on lately it looks like it may be awhile before my next entry - check the Maritime Drag Racers Message Board for what's happening on the Drag Racing front.

Later..........

I hate Windows

Marie's Windows XP crashed a couple of days ago so Ross and I recovered some stuff with a Linux disk, formatted the drive then reinstalled XP and it worked just fine. Fast forward through two days of reloading documents and installing programs and other stuff to lunchtime today. All of a sudden there was the "blue screen of death" back again.

As before I was able to run a Linux disk but couldn't access the C: drive at all this time. Looks like it's time for a new hard drive but until then her computer will continue to function on this Linux/Knoppix CD.

The browser, email, Word and PDF reader are all built in and it does almost everything that Windows does(only faster). This stuff is awesome - check it out at http://www.knoppix.net/ Tommorow I'll swap the faulty hard drive for a more modern one then put the old one in an external case to see if I can recover anything.

Not much news on the Drag Racing front until we get the reports from Greenfield Dragway. Looks like they finally got some good weather so they may get a good car count. HUGE amount of discussion everywhere on NHRA's decision to shorten the track from 1/4 mile to 1000 feet so I won't bother to say any more on that subject. Personally I prefer 1/8 mile - it's safer, easier on parts and a whole lot better for the spectators.

Rain(again)

It's raining here, Miramichi Dragway Park just lost another weekend due to rain and even the NASCAR race in New Hampshire was called after 284 of 301 laps. Went out to visit my brother Spencer today and on the way home the skies opened up and the wind got even higher. It's more like mid May than a Canada Day weekend and the forecast doesn't look much better for the holiday on Tuesday.

Waaay behind on my work on the Readers Rides pages. I sat here bored all winter and never got an updated profile or picture. A week ago I put a message on the board looking for some pics. Duh!! Now I'm swamped with it. The racing season is in high gear plus I'm so busy with other stuff I'm only at my desk for a few minutes a day so naturally all the inboxes are full of updates and photos. Maybe now with all this rain I might actually get some time to work on it.

Later.........