Kevin, Jeff, Steve and I arrived in Boonville on Friday night and dropped the trailer off at the track.  It was about 11:00 pm, so we didn’t have much else to do but check into the hotel and visit with some of our fellow racers in the lounge for a bit.  Then to bed.

Saturday morning we slept in and made our way to the track around 10:00 am.  We were not scheduled to race Saturday, so we decided to sleep in.  We had a bunch of little things to do to the race sleds and equipment to be ready for Sunday’s racing, so that is what we did most of the day.  We also spent some time catching up with the other racers in the pits, we had not seen them since the awards banquet.

Sunday morning we arrived at the track at 7:30 am.  It was about 35 degrees out, which was a bit warmer than Saturday.  We prepared the sleds for hot laps, which started at 9:00 am.  Coming into turn 3 in my third hotlap, I could tell something was broken on the sled.  The sled wouldn’t turn and I went hard into the bails in turn 3.  When we pulled the sled out of the bails, we noticed that the right ski wasn’t attached to the sled.  The ski bolt on the outside ski had sheered off, causing the ski to just point straight ahead with no ability to turn.

I came out of the crash with a little soreness, but no serious injuries.  The sled, however, needed some major TLC to be ready for the first race.  Jeff and Kevin went right to work on getting it ready.  Steve’s hotlaps went well and the sled seemed to handle well and was fast.

The racing began at 10:00 am.  Steve qualified well for the Semi-Pro Formula 500 and ended up finishing in 3rd place.  In the Pro Formula 500, he didn’t qualify as well and was placed in the second row to start the final.  He passed a bunch or riders and ended up finishing in 5th place.

Jeff and Kevin did a great job getting my sled ready on time.  In all of my heats and finals, I could not come off the line without spinning.  In the Stock 600 final, I ended up with a 2nd place finish and in the Pro Stock 600 final, I ended up with a 4th place finish.

Now it’s back into the shop for the next couple of nights to get the sleds ready for Burks Falls, Ontario.  We leave on Thursday night about midnight, it’s a 12 hour ride out.

Keep checking back for updates from the season!!

Both Steve and I had two full days of testing.  I would say that we put on about 50 or so laps each.  The new front end on my sled seemed to be what we were looking for.  It handled very good and was fast.  Steve was moving right along also, and seemed to be very fast.  He was also handling very well in the corners.  It was a great weekend and we are very thankful to the guys up there for letting us use the track.  We will be back to see you soon!!

Now, we have a few things to do to both sleds to be ready for Boonville, NY.  We are going to start on that tonight and hope to get it done by the middle of next week.  I’ll keep you posted.

Thanks to all the sponsors and people who make this possible, we appreciate it!

Erik

The first race of the season was in Boonville, NY. We jumped right into the lime light by winning the Pro Stock 600 class at our very first race. The entire weekend could not have gone any better. The sled was very fast and handled great with little adjustments being made. After that weekend, we were very confident about how the rest of the season would play out. Little did we know that each weekend following would have it’s own learning experience and that confidence we had would be a little harder to attain.

The following weekend we found ourselves in Shawinigan, QC. We hit the track on Saturday morning for “hot laps” and found that the sled just didn’t want to go around a corner. It seemed like an entirely different sled than we had just one-week prior. We had the speed on the straightaway, but it had a very serious “push” in the corners. We made shock and suspension adjustments and could not seem to fix the problem. Finally on Sunday we found that all the bushings in the front end were worn and needed to be replaced. Of course we didn’t have the parts for that, so that was a job that needed to be done before the next weekend. Also, we found a leak in the oil tank that needed to be fixed before it developed into something serious.

Then we were off to Valcourt, QC for the largest race in our series. We arrived in Valcourt a day early to get a little practice time in. During “hot laps” on Friday, we were still trying to fine-tune the handling when we found ourselves playing in the hay between turns 1 and 2. Luckily nothing was broken, either on the sled or on me. After a little more tuning, we seemed to get it pretty close and ended the weekend with two fifth place finishes. We were very happy with the weekend; Valcourt is a very large race with a lot of history behind it.

Next we landed in Eganville, ON for the Bonnechere Cup. Eganville was a 9-hour drive for us and we were glad to finally get into town. Saturday went really well, the sled handled great and we ended up finishing in 3rd in the Pro Stock 600 class and 1st in the Stock 600 class. Sunday we won the Stock 600 class again and we were sitting in second in the Pro Stock 600, coming into turn 1 of lap 3, when the first place sled of Craig House went into the wall hard. That caused a red flag to come leaving us in first place. We were feeling confident about the restart, because it was to be a stagger start and we had a great hole shot at this track. However, the racing gods weren’t on the same page. When we stopped at the start/finish line, we noticed that there was a very large amount of oil leaking out of the bottom of the sled. I opened the hood to see that the oil was pouring out of the bottom of the oil tank and there was no way we could finish the race without jeopardizing the engine. We had to be hauled back to the trailer. Craig House was also not seriously injured.

Next we were off to Burk’s Falls, ON. We thought that the 9-hour ride to Eganville was bad; try a 12-hour ride to Burk’s Falls. It was a journey, to say the least. We found the track to be in great shape, but very small for our liking. We again had to deal with handling issues; we found that the bushings that we had machined a couple of weeks prior didn’t hold up all that well. We needed to replace a couple of them. We left Burk’s Falls with a second and a third place finish. All in all it was a good weekend, but we were still learning lessons from mistakes that we were making as a first year team.

The last weekend of the season was in Roberval, QC. The ride up was very scenic and seemed like nothing compared to the prior two weekends. It was a nice track, situated on a lake. We had a good day on Saturday, finishing 3rd in the Pro Stock 600class. The sled seemed to push a little, but not real bad. Sunday we ran the qualifier and it seemed to be handling ok. The final was a totally opposite feeling. The sled had the worse push of the season and we later found that the right side ski bolt had broken in half and only part of the bolt was holding the ski on. We’re not sure how the ski even stayed on, but thank God it did! We finished in 3rd in Pro Stock 600 again on Sunday. An added feature for Sunday was the mechanics race. Bob drove the sled in that race and finished in second place behind Jeff DeJong’s Formula 500 sled. He had a great hole shot and did a great job for his first time on a track. Watch for him next year, running a Formula 500!

That was our first season in a nutshell. We made a lot of great friends this year and really enjoyed being around them. I want to thank all of you for the help you provided to us during the season. It was nice to see such a good group of people that were so willing to help us out when we needed it.