NASCC Ice Race 2009 Event 1

First Race of the season and it was a beautiful warm day on the frozen lake. the stupid things we do for racing in the off season.

Entering Corner 1 to the front straight

It was a balmy + 4c 🙂 and most of us are awake after leaving Calgary at 6 AM.

I go snap off a few pictures before it gets busy – the track and with myself with pit duties

Of course since we’re closer to Edmonton territory this is what the competition will C.

The track was a little chilly sitting at around -10c at 6 AM (don’t ask why or how I got up)

Dave, Ryan, and Domo came out to pit crew as well.

It was a sea of neons as I get into the parking lot – Awesomeness!
It just brings a smile to my face to see so many neons out on the track. It was just me and Doug Knight back in the day.

It just brings a smile. I need to find out who’s trailer that it belongs to.

The red integra has now been slated for ice racing duty. It came back involved in a slight mishap with Dave’s Civic. 🙁

We have a quick team meeting (Dave, Domo, Ryan, Kevin, Rick). Keep it sunny side up!

Since the car came back in less than straight conditions lots of things needed to be worked on. I came in much later to help out due to work commitments.

The backstage pass tidbit:

  • Heater died. It’s one of those MUST have working parts. The first thing I see is that no lights are running for the HVAC unit. Checking the obvious first – the fuse. It’s a 7.5A fuse since it’s really only used to power up the control unit (Heater main relay/Power Control Unit – Engine fuse box). I pull the fuse out and it looks good. Plug it back in – still no power. Rick had just replaced that fuse so I didn’t look past it after.
  • Possible relay failure or the main fuse is dead. Nope – relay is ok, re checked the fuse via volt meter – still looks good… So now I’m stuck. Testing for power will suck since i have to go through the HVAC unit.
  • Jump the fan wire to bypass the relay
    • the Black/Blue wire needs to be grounded out IF there is power going to the unit from the HVAC if not then you need to send power to it the normal 12V way
  • Found a bad wire in the power unit underneath the battery tray
    • didn’t solve the issue

After 15 minutes I started to give up as the next step is to trace the wires and see if they got damaged from impact from road racing 🙁

Anyway, Dave has a look at it and he just replaces the fuse as a first go to reaction (no testing) and survey says… That was the trick. Good thing I don’t get paid as a technician 😀

Is there really an off season?

Rick is pushing hard and leading in this race.

This is Kevin going out for run in limited studs.

A little love tap from Kenny.

The only real drama for this event was that the studs were getting dulled from the frozen lake.

Which means they need to be sharpened and so out comes the grinder… each stud…

That also meant that I had time to take photo’s. The only issue was that I’m not too familiar yet with the Cannon 400D and I left the ISO setting at the default 400 by accident. The photo’s came out ok…

The wake that is produced from ice racing is pretty scary when you think about it.

Did you catch the two race cars?

How about now?

Here is my hand at PlayStation like ghost car. I couldn’t find a way to capture an image of Rick drifting full opposite lock . Here is 3 images supper imposed onto each other.

My SO just laughed at me when i suggested that she should come out with me for ice racing when she could be curled up in a warm house reading. 🙂 I tried. hahaha

I still can’t get over seeing this and hearing conversations on neon setup. I told Kenny some secret tips so we’ll see what happens for the next event.

On a final note. The only scary part with being on ice is when you hear the thunder clap of the ice cracking. A little nerve racking the first time.

Photo’s can be found here:

https://speedracer.ca/gallery2/racing/2009/NASCC/ICE1

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