Road Trip Day 5

Woke up in Bar Harbor, ME this morning after a solid night's sleep in a mountain view cottage.  If you ever get the chance to visit Bar Harbor, do it.  The place is absolutely gorgeous and should be on everyone's bucket list if you're to travel or just sight-see.

By 11:30am, we were heading back west to New Hampshire for tonight's destination, Canaan Fair Speedway.  The trip took longer than expected thanks (yet again) to traffic, but also thanks to my GPS try to take us on some goat path that hasn't been operable by anything other than an ATV since 1842.

With Hot Laps slated to start at 6:00pm, we rolled into Canaan one minute late.  Luckily, they were still packing the track and Hot Laps didn't officially get started until 6:25pm.

Standing at the top of turn one, looking down the frontstretch. 

At one time, Canaan was an old fairgrounds track.  Actually, it was a 1/2-mile "back in the day", probably because it was an old horse track.  As racing became more prominent, they built the current relatively flat, 1/4-mile which is what they still race on today.  Practically no sign of old, old 1/2-mile still exists.  

Just off the backstretch sits the "other" Canaan Fair Speedway, an asphalt track the races every Saturday night.  The dirt track runs each Friday as well as a few special occasions throughout the year, such as this one.

Canaan Fair's asphalt track sits just off the backstretch from the dirt track.

It's still quite obvious the track sits on an old fairgrounds.  With the buildings surrounding the speedway, the covered grandstands...anyone can figure out the fair was held here at one time.  The pits are off turns three and four with cars entering the track at the beginning of the front straight and exiting the track at the end of the back straight.

Concessions at Canaan, like every place else in New England, are overpriced at $2.50 for a hot dog, $8.000 for a chicken tenders platter, and $7.00 for a steak and cheese.  The wait to get the food is even more ridiculous.  When the lady behind me in line got her chicken tenders (no platter) before I got mine (with fries...which were already sitting there waiting to be picked up), I raised holy hell.  

One of the coolest pics I have ever taken... a look at Canaan Fair Speedway.

30 Modifieds and 23 SCoNE (Sprint Cars of New England) Sprints had signed into the pits as well as a few others in two more support classes.  With a post time of 7:00pm, the first race of the night actually hit the track at 7:15pm.

The heats at Canaan were, for the most part, lackluster with little passing on a one-groove race track.  The format for the Mods was puzzling at best.  Scheduled to start 24 cars in the Twin 20's, they had four heats.  The stupid part is, they only took the top three from each heat.  Why?

Sitting under the covered grandstanding looking into turn one.

Then, they ran two B-Mains and took the top five from each of those consies.  I figured they would add two track provisionals to get their starting field of 24.  Instead, they rolled out a Last Chance Qualifier which they took the top two from.  I mean, what the hell??  Why not just take an extra car from each B-Main?  Or, better yet, take the top five from each heat, then run ONE consy and take the top four.  Their format had way too many unnecessary races and way too many extra laps on the track.

Nevertheless, the field of 30 was finally trimmed down to 24 for the first 20-lap feature and, thanks to some track prep, it was pretty darn good (despite several mid-race cautions) with the top three finishers all crossing the line in a bunch.  The 25-lap SCoNE Sprint A-Main was up next and it didn't disappoint either.  As a matter of fact, had it not been for a caution with two to go, I have a feeling we would have had a side-by-side finish.  After the Sprint feature, the national anthem was finally played (??) and the final 20-lap Modified race came out with the top 15 finishers from the previous feature inverted.  Although it did have some movers and shakers, it wasn't quite as eventful as the first race.

A look at Canaan Fair Speedway from above turns three and four.

In all, this was an average night at the track.  There was a lot of things to be disappointed with from high concession prices to a bizarre race format to lackluster heats, but the features provided some solid racing and we were on our way out at 11:15pm.  Canaan Fair Speedway (dirt track) becomes track 158th different track I've seen racing at and New Hampshire becomes the 30th different state I've seen a race in.

The weather for tonight's asphalt race at Oxford Plains Speedway in Oxford, Maine doesn't look promising, but we'll keep our fingers crossed.  Enjoy your day!

Summer Road Trip 2012

Every few years, I try to save up some money and take a big summer road trip. Obviously, as I get more involved in racing, it gets to be more and more difficult. Likewise, being married and have a two-and-a-half year old adds an entirely new element of adversity to planning such a trip.

My 2009 summer road trip took me as far west as Gillette Thunder Speedway in Wyoming.

But this summer, the blueprint has been laid out for a New England journey that will take my wife and I to seven races in six different states over the course of eight days.  It's a fairly ambitious trip with plenty of time for leisure thrown in as well.  The schedule is as follows:

June 29 - Brewerton Speedway (Brewerton, NY)
June 30 a.m. - Baseball Hall of Fame (Cooperstown, NY)
June 30 p.m. - Bear Ridge Speedway (Bradford, VT)
July 1 - Legion Speedway (Rumney, NH)
July 2 - fun day
July 3 - Canaan Fair Speedway (Canaan, NH)
July 4 - Oxford Plains Speedway (Oxford, ME)
July 5 - Thompson Int'l Speedway (Thompson, CT)
July 6 - Seekonk Speedway (Seekonk, MA)
July 7 - Braves vs. Phillies (Phladelphia, PA)

We'll start off at the "D-Shaped Dirt Demon", Brewerton Speedway.  Although I've already been to races at eight different tracks in the Empire State, this will be my first ever visit to Brewerton.  The following day, we'll spend half a day at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.  This will be Jayme's first ever trip to the historic venue, my second.  That night, it's off to Bear Ridge Speedway for my first ever race in the state of Vermont followed by my first ever race in New Hampshire at Legion Speedway on Sunday.

Monday and part of Tuesday will be reserved for some R&R in Bar Harbor, Maine.  We'll follow that up with our final dirt race of the trip, a stop at the Canaan Fair Speedway in Canaan, NH.  The final three shows are all asphalt races.  Wednesday's short trip back across the state line will find us at Oxford Plains Speedway in Maine, Thursday's journey will take us south to Thompson International Speedway in Connecticut, and Friday's voyage will have us venturing over to Seekonk Speedway in Seekonk, Massachusetts.  Each of those three events will be my first races in their respective states.

Our trip will wrap up with a Saturday evening baseball game to watch Jayme's beloved Braves battle their rival Philadelphia Phillies.

All-in-all, it should be a fun trip that would help bring my "career" race-chasing totals up to 162 tracks in 33 states...if everything works out as planned.   Of course, that's a big "if".

What I like about this trip is that I've tried to keep everything within reasonable distance of everything else, which will allow us to spend a good bit of time taking in the sights in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.  Whether she's shopping, I'm hiking, or we're grabbing a bite to eat at one of the local hot spots, I'm sure it'll be a trip we remember for a long time.

Oh, and I'm looking forward to visiting so many new race tracks too.  :)