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Track Talk NewsletterThe Saskatoon Stock Car Racing Association's newsletter highligting the events held at Auto Clearing Motor Speedway. Track Talk 2013 May 11, 2013 Track Talk
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Round Two Racing Back at the track for more great local racing action! Tonight we will see the SKL Trailers ProTrucks and the Cooper Tires Thunder Stocks competing in their second event of the season. LUCAS holds the first place spot followed by POGODA and LESCHENKO in the ProTrucks division. STEFANIUK has first in the Thunder Stock division with DUPUIS and REA tied for second. There are lots of laps left to race this season and it will be interesting to see if these guys finish on top in the end. For those of you who have been waiting for the WSSL Auto Parts Super Late Models to hit the track...wait no more! You'll see newcomer ROSS (yes, from the ProTrucks division in 2011) in the #67 SLM and all your local favourites compete!
I started late with the racing gig. Joined the Saskatoon Sports Car Club in 1992, participating in Auto Slalom events with a 1990 Suzuki Swift GT in the E-Stock class. It was a total blast - travelled around Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia doing this. Completely trashed my daily driver street car - worth it, made some great friends and collected some expensive pieces of plastic with my name on them! In Around 2002 I met the Vangools. Greg was instrumental in getting ice racing re-started in Saskatoon. The idea was to make it inexpensive (sounds familiar) so they proposed a Chevette class with studded street tires. I found one, put a cage in it and took it out a few times. It was some crazy fun, but this class did not really take off, something about the lack of coolness for a Chevette ? So Greg found a CRX Si at SGI salvage. It was a total loss. He and Uncle Tom put a cage in it for me. It was a lot of fun! We took the donut temps from salvage and proceeded to put sharpened bolts in the tires - rule was 9 bolts per foot of tire. These were crazy fast and the snow fog that came off of these would provide total white out conditions on the track. We all had amber fog lights facing towards the rear of the car so you could see the car in front of you! Sometimes you would follow the light right off of the track into a snow bank (or worse, the car attached to the light) - zero visibility -you didn’t want to slow down because there were cars behind you! Every once in a while I would run into something in the fog for lack of vision. I really enjoyed my time with these cars and again met some really, really great people. In 2004 Greg Vangool calls me up and he is trying to get as many people out to Bridge City Speedway with their cars for a new class – mini stocks. Of course I said yes. So the CRX went from the ice to oval asphalt and again I had a blast. Cindy and I would later donate this car to the club as the junior racing program car with Todd Jalbert doing an awesome job. If he could share some of his energy with the rest of us it would be appreciated! I really like what he has done with this program and very glad to see the CRX being enjoyed. In 2006 I thought I should kick it up a notch, found a Cascar Sportsman, spent a bunch more money that I will miss when I am 70 years old and still working cause I spent all my money on tires. Ha ha…. After two seasons I decided to take a break from this - my mechanical ineptness caught up with me. In 2010 I phoned up my buddy Neil Boyle on the May long weekend, and it went like this, “Hey you wanna go to Chicago and pick up a race car”? Heck sure he said! Jesse Krahn lent me his truck to go get it as I did not have a truck at this point to pull a race car - but I got a car - 2007 Pathfinder SLM.
I am really looking forward to 2012! Points Standings (as of May 14th, 2012)
Next Racing Event Saturday, June 2nd 2012 - Green Flag at 6PM Divisions competing: the Western Elite StockCar Tour, the Parts Source Mini Stocks, the Budget Car & Truck Rental Street Stocks and the Sask. Legends Series
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Driver Profile - Howard Crossman - .jpg)
1994 a buddy and I went to watch an indoor kart race at Sask Place. I had to give it a try, so I called up one of the local kart suppliers, joined the Saskatoon Kart Racers, purchased a Birel AR-1 four stroke kart and jumped in. It was really cool wheel to wheel racing. In 1996 I acquired a shifter kart 125cc 6-speed sequential gearbox. This has to be the most violent thing I have ever driven. If I was 20 years younger I would be racing these bad boys. Um, 30 years younger - they are punishing!! Street racing was my favourite event and I love standing starts. The shifter kart would do 100kmh in 3.7 seconds - things happened really fast. I learned a lot with karts, made some lifelong friends and won some expensive pieces of plastic. I often took my shifter kart to the autocross races to practice in the parking lots - it would be a lot like racing on the street. The kart would annihilate the cars. The karts were pretty easy to haul around - you could throw it in the back of the mini-van with all the tires and tools - small tools, which I would appreciate in a few years.
This car is an awesome drive, 400 hp and 10” slicks - handles just like my shifter kart except it weighs 2800 pounds, not 435 pounds with driver! I’m getting used to the size. Setting up the car was the most difficult - I have learned a lot about maintenance and set up of these things in the last couple of years. Totally awesome drive, did I say that already? And I’m still meeting some new, awesome folks at the track.
