A weekly look at racing from both sides of the 1000 Islands by Craig Revelle

With the month of March now behind us, that means that racing season is now upon us.  Tentatively, my first race of 2013 is coming up this week as I plan to travel to Canandaigua Motorsports Park on Friday for their Sportsman show, and stay over for Saturday’s Big Block Modified season opening Jan Corcoran Memorial event.  Several local Sportsman teams will be traveling to Canandaigua for Friday’s race, while Matt Billings will be making his debut as a regular at the track on Saturday night.

If weather does become a concern for this weekend’s events, I have a backup plan in place, and that will be attending the Cornwall Motor Speedway banquet as they honor their champions and top finishers of 2012.  The banquets are always a great time, and it is nice to see everyone once again after a long winter.

The following weekend will be another busy weekend, as Chapman’s Can Am Motorsports Park opens for practice for all divisions on both Saturday, April 13th and Sunday April 14th.  Brockville Speedway is also hosting their 2nd annual BOS Fan Fair, which will be held at Walmart Brockville from 10am to 1pm on Saturday, April 13th.  If the day wasn’t busy enough already, Mohawk Raceway will be hosting their 2012 awards ceremony that night.

This past weekend I attended the Brockville Speedway awards banquet.  It was a great time, and again nice to see everyone from the track after a long winter.  It wont be long now and we will be back at the track, and I’m looking forward to another exciting season.  Some changes that were talked about was the addition of the Novice Sportsman class, as well as a three race series for the 358 Modifieds and Sportsman with sponsorship from Ogilvie’s Auto & Fleet Service.  This series will be known as Ogilvie’s Triple Crown.  The rookie division will also have a new mini series this season at the BOS.

Other tracks further south were able to open up, with Big Diamond Speedway in Minersville, Pennsylvania hosting an event with Jeff Strunk taking the victory.  Bridgeport Speedway in New Jersey also raced, with Bobby Varin picking up the win.

One of the things that I look forward to the most this year is watching the development of the Sportsman division.  Both Can Am and Brockville are anticipating a rise in car numbers, and are having a novice class for newcomers.  This will make for an easier transition to racers that are new to the class, and I am happy to see it.

In just a few weeks, we will be back into the swing of another busy season of racing.  Hopefully the weather will co-operate at all tracks this year, and we get another great season in.  My schedule for the year will be Friday nights at Can Am Motorsports Park with the occasional switch to Mohawk International Raceway, Saturday nights I will be at Brockville Speedway and Sunday nights at Cornwall Motor Speedway.  We will also be at Brockville on Wednesday nights as my nephew races the Finish Line Web Design go kart.

Now, if we can just get Mother Nature to be nice to us, and get a few nice days this week, we can get back to racing.  Good luck to all teams that will be in competition at Canandaigua Motorsports Park this coming weekend.

As always, any comments or suggestions can be sent to crevelle@ripnet.com. You can also visit me online at www.finishlinewebdesign.ca, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/crevelle, and on twitter at www.twitter.com/finishlineweb17.