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1998 Canada Cup
Canada Cup Ice Racing
February 8, 1998 Buddy Ford's Motorcycle and ATV Ice Racing
From: Kim Gregory
As last year, the main show was the motocross
class bikes with some radical high head screws in their tires. They put on a terrific show.
The event was within a half hour drive of a major city (Montreal) and was inside the breakwall
of a classy marina. The 10 foot high stone breakwall surrounding the basin was heaped with
snow, and provided natural grandstands for the crowd. The marina building overlooked the track with
floor to ceiling windows, a huge bar, dance
floors, and projection TV and monitors showing the race as it happened. There must have been 500
people in the bar alone, and another three thousand out in the 'grandstands'. That is up from the 2700
spectators from last year. The weather was
bright and sunny with no wind and got
to a high of about -5 degrees F. The track was well done with a 1/8 mile track for speedway and 50cc Pee-Wee
class bikes, and
a 1/4 mile track for the rest, sharing the front and back straights. That gave the speedway bikes
a rut free track to ride, if you didn't wander out too far on the straights! Buddy Ford, in an effort to help speedway grow in Quebec, did all he could
to encourage Ontario riders to the event. He also had some other elements in the show to add.
He had a local car dealer
(and sponsor) with a parade of new models and a 'no rules car race' of older models with spikes to end the show.
The crashes are very
spectacular, because (like skiing ) the snow 'explodes' in a big cloud when you hit, then the hot
bike, lying in the snowbank gives off a huge cloud of steam, making it appear to be on fire.
The speedway program was really short. We had only eight riders for our event, so had only one
qualifying heat races to determine the gate positions for the final. Patrick Ahlund,
who won the event last year arrived with his new GM laydown, and was unable to get it started until just before the heat race
( ignition problems ) and it threw his concentration off for the day. The final was restarted
three times due to Patrick crashing in the first corner. The first time with help fron Claude.
Claude Bergeron also was having ignition problems,
and was not satisfied with his tire this year, and had changed it
just before the final. Lee's 898 ignition was removed at one point to help diagnose
the problems with Claude's, and was not reinstalled properly, causing him to
have misfire problems in the final.
My racing: I crashed in my second lap in practice, having wandered out too far on the straight,
and got out of shape in the ruts. I did not feel comfortable on the track, so took
it easy into the start of the heat race. It was six laps, and with the rough track it
wasn't long before the other riders started to wear down. With my recent indoor
racing, I was in better shape, and moved up to forth place on the last lap,
then went wide on the last corner, hit the ruts on the straight, and crashed
across the finish line. That qualified me for the front row of the main.
All three starts of the final I was fourth into the corner,
( narrowly avoiding running over Patick twice ) and passed Claude to take third away
from him.
1st #23 Guy Fafard
2nd #66 Patrick Ahlund
3rd #97 Kim Gregory
4th #26 Claude Bergeron
5th # 6 Nick Fafard
6th #21 Vues Boisvert
7th #62 Jacques Gagwe
8th #28 Lee
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