JUNE 2005 NEWS ARCHIVE

Division 3 alone provided more entertainment than the entry fee is worth. A great main event win on the night for the ever improving Bart Moskala and a second place finish for our very own Michael Small took second place to the scary antics of both veterans Graham Wale and Paul Martin.
Wale, tangling with Michael Small in the first turn of their first heat went down right in front of Paul Martin. Martin rode staright over the rear wheel of Wale's stricken machine which caused the front wheel to lift, and at full throttle he hurtled straight into the infamous turn two Paris boards. One section of the fence was completely demolished as Martin flew like Superman over into the surrounding grass. Unfortunately, his Jawa machine decided to follow him and nailed him right in the middle of his back.
To everyone's relief, after close attention from the St. John's ambulance crew, he was up on his feet suffering from bruising only. Wale made the re-start aboard "Big" John Perry's loaned machine, but this time tangled with Paul Martin's son, Michael Martin-Evans! Wale was out for the rest of the night with a twisted and sore leg.
The third re-run had only Michael Small and Michael Martin-Evans on the start line and our Michael shot off with a good lead. Then the Paris track caught him unawares in turn one on his third lap and he went down with a thud, fortunately unhurt. This left a lonely Martin-Evans to complete the remainder of the race himself.
Division 2 was not short of good racing with Doug Beaumont emerging as the winner on the night ahead of Corrine Franic.
Division 1 victor was French Canadian Nick Fafard. The final was sensational with Fafard coming from third to first. Jeff Orosz's save, lifting severely coming out of turn four was the number one spectacle of the night. He amazingly managed to stay aboard the machine, albeit dropping him to third in the finishing results behind the second placed Aaron Hesmer.
Now the second most spectacular occurrence of the night (so I'm told by many) and relegating the excitement of the Division 3 mishaps to third was a very first Division one race win by ME!!! Yes, this is my website, I'm writing this so I'm going to enjoy the moment! Coming from behind in my final heat race of the evening I first moved past Shawn Morrisson to take second spot.
With Aaron "The Ace" DeVeau ahead of me in first place I wrung the neck out of the old Weslake (which incidentally is now dialled in and running flawlessley). Slowly making ground on DeVeau, I made a do-or-die move up the inside of him on the last turn of the last lap. I emerged from the turn ahead and just managed to find the drive to stay there as I crossed the line. Man, was I pumped!!
That completed four heats for me finishing 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and FIRST respectively. Unfortunately in the consolation final I trailed in last. My eigth place Division 1 placing on the night doesn't at first glace seem very impressive, but this was without doubt my best ever performance aboard a speedway machine in the Canadian Top Flight. I put it down to a rare Friday night off work for my lovely wife Helen. I always go better when I know she's there watching and suporting me!
Well, on that selfish, egotistic note I'm signing off. Thanks to everyone that made last night a great one. Talk again soon,
Phil #21 & Michael #2.

11th June 2005

Season "Hots" Up!

Racing at Paris speedway last night was again affected by the weather. With sky high June temperatures, incredible humidity and "pop-up" thunderstorms randomly occurring all over the place, many riders did not show, probably assuming that the chance of any action at all would be slim.

Well, slim as it may have been, aside from a quick shower half an hour before racing began (which incidentally did the track more good than harm), there were no other interruptions.

Unfortunately, with the low rider turnout the race program in total was short with all heats and finals being completed before 10:00 pm.

This was a less than ideal situation for the riders as it meant very little rest between heats, and heat was the name of the game. A temperature of 32 Deg boosted to close to 40 by the time the humidity was factored in, made it an energy-sapping evening, especially for those of us not as young as we used to be!

In total only six Division 1 riders signed in, and four each in Divisions 2 and 3. A sharp contrast to the exciting 30-odd heat race program which was set up the previous week.

In D1, Aaron Hesmer once again looked the man to beat as he romped to a fine win on the night. Joe Heye and Nick Fafard provided strong opposition at times but Aaron was clearly on song. Gary "The Hit Man" Hesmer was suffering with machine gremlins on and off all evening, as was Aaron "The Ace" DeVeau.

Not a good omen for "yours truly #21" who trailed in last behind Aaron DeVeau twice, even though "the Ace's" Jawa machine was only firing "once every-other lampost"! I did manage to relegate Aaron to last place in our final meeting, but by this time his machine was barely running.

I had problems of my own with my vintage Weslake machine once again failing to fire for the first heat of the night, even though I had been warming it up in the pits not long before. For the second week running I had to rush out in my first heat aboard Michael's GM machine, the set-up on which is no longer suited to my style or bodyweight. I need to figure out what on earth is going on with the old girl, as after that it fired up easily for my three remaining heats. A mystery at the moment!

In Division 2, only a very welcome return to the Paris track by long time Michigan speedway rider Mark Engel gave us a four man (or should I say person) competition. Mark has not been present at Paris for over a season and it was great to see him back.

The D2 class gave the crowd probably the most exciting racing of the night, with the continually improving Corrine Franic emerging as the pick of the bunch. She really is showing the boys how it's done and is a firm fans favourite. It's always nice to see Corrine on her victory lap with her father and former top Canadian rider John "The Polish Prince" Franic on pillion carrying the chequered flag.

Other riders in Division 2 were Tim Murray, the already mentioned Mark Engel and Doug Beaumont. I'm not sure of their final finishing positions so we'll have to wait for Duncan Luke's report to be published on the CSRA website.

In Division 3, again only a four man competition was possible. Unfortunately, this number diminished race by race, to the point where Team Small's very own Michael was out there by himself in one race!

In the first heat Peter Fornal slid out on turn two and as he was removing himself from the track, Kris Chudyk a rookie this season could seemingly do nothing to avoid the stricken rider and crashed into him. Peter thereafter suffered both a sore body and machine problems all evening.

With Kris deemed the actual cause of the stoppage, he was put back on the penalty line with Michael Small and Bart Moskala at the tapes for the restart. This time Michael jumped the gun and broke the start tapes. The second restart saw Moskala on the line with both Michael and Kris back 15 meters.

At the third attempt they were off with Moskala leading, Chudyk in second and Michael chasing hard in third. Then more drama as Chudyk went down in turns three and four. With Michael very close behind him and in full slide it looked as if it could be nasty, but Michael, with almost reflex reactions layed the bike down and slid to a halt barely making contact with the downed Chudyk.

A lesson perhaps to all speedway riders in absolute professionalism and safety. Learning to carry out this technique, in my opinion should be a pre-requisite to Speedway Racing worldwide.

That said, with Kris Chudyk's bike a mess, the rest of last nights Division 3 heats were looking like a match race between Bart Moskala and Michael Small. With Moskala looking more controlled and actually the quicker of the two Michael found it difficult to get ahead. On the one occassion he did, Michael picked up some drive entering turn one which forced him to slide out wide coming out of turn two. Unfortunately, the only other rider on the track was right there! With no room left to manouver, Moskala took a nasty looking excursion into the infamous Paris boards, his bike cartwheeling for a good distance down the back straightaway.

And so there was one! With the referee deeming it as a non malicious "racing incident" he restarted alone. Michael duly apologized to Moskala in the pits afterwards, apology accepted.

Fortunately, by the time the Division 3 final came around, both Chudyk and Moskala had managed to straighten out their bikes sufficiently to compete. Moskala looked once again the quickest, with the smooth Michael Small coming in second. With only four riders competing on the night however, the event was decided by total points scored throughout the evening, so it was Michael Small who took the chequred flag around as the night's Division 3 winner. A cheesy result, but in speedway anything can happen and you take them any way they come.

The Paris track was not at it's very best last night, partly due to Dave Havill's trusty Chevvy truck dying the week before so he could not do the usual amount of preparation. Having said that, it was by no means bad and racing was safe and relatively quick. Usual thanks go out to all the volunteers involved in helping with the running of the event.

I'd just like to take this opportunity to wish my Dad (picture below) a very Happy Birthday over the pond in England. "Up The Racers Dad"! Hope to see everyone at Paris next Friday and let's hope for good weather. I'm off for a swim in the lake to cool down, so bye for now!

Phil #21 and Michael #2

Birthday Boy! My Dad

4th June 2005

Lights, Tapes, Action!

At long last the Canadian 2005 Speedway Season got underway at Paris Speedway last night. 25 riders showed up under once again, threatening cloudy skies and shortly after 8:00pm the tapes went up on the first heat race of the season.

Unfortunately, the night was to end prematurely after the conclusion of the qualifying heat races, as a very heavy, fine drizzle moved in making it almost impossible for the riders to see through their goggles. A bitter end to what was actually a great night's racing.

So, to the disappointment of fans and riders alike, no finals were run and the evening's winners in the three divisions were decided by total points scored throughout the night.

For the first time, a new 2005 ruling was brought into effect at the start of the evening which allows a qualifying heat race to be run before the start of the racing proper. This qualifier is used only to balance the race program on evenings where an awkward number of Division 1 riders sign in. For instance, if there were nine riders signed up for D1, it would mean running three man heat races to balance the evenings race program. This is not good for the riders or exciting for the fans.

So the four D1 riders with the lowest race average are asked to run in the qualifier to determine who stays in D1 for the evening and who drops down to D2. The race last night was actually made up from the four riders who are newly promoted to D1 for this season, Aaron "Ace" DeVeau, "Big" John Perry, Phil Mosquera from Michigan in the USA and Shawn Morrison.

It would be Shawn Morrison who, riding a poorly running machine, trailed in last and was dropped to Division 2 for the evening.

Next week, Shawn will be entitled to once again sign in as a Division 1 rider. Who knows, the qualifying race may not even be needed.

Once the rider numbers had been balanced for the evening, the heat races proper got underway and ran through almost without any hiccups. The racing was close, exciting and very entertaining for the fans with eventually the three winners emerging as:

Division 1: Aaron Hesmer

Division 2: Shawn Morrison

Division 3: Michael Small

Other noteable performances were delivered by Corrine Franic, proving that she was well worthy of her promotion this season to Division 2, and veteran star Graham Wale in Division 3, winning two of his four heat races.

As far as "Team Small Racing's" efforts, Michael showed he will certainly be the rider to beat in Division 3. After easing himself into the season with a calm second place in his first race, he looked unbeatable thereafter winning with apparrent ease his next three. Most admirable was his focus at the gate, resulting in lightning quick starts in those last three outings.

As they say in speedway, if you can get out of the trap first, the heat is yours to loose.

Myself, after an exhausting time just before my first heat, failing to get my vintage Weslake machine running, I was tired before I even got going. A last minute panic decision to jump on Michael's laydown GM machine, had me at the start line out of breath and on a bike which is so far away from my set-up, it was almost amazing I made the four laps complete! Needless to say I was last, but not before holding off a very impressive Aaron DeVeau for four laps, just secoming to his relentless pressure coming out of turn four for the final time.

After that race, my evening got better. The Weslake bugs were ironed out (flooding in the first degree was the cause of the no-go issues), and as I recovered physically from the nightmare start, I started to feel really good, improving as the night progressed. I felt great on the bike and by the end of the evening was running on pace with some good riders. Three third places in my final three heats was probably better than I had done all last season.

Let's hope the weather co-operates for next Friday and we get a full program in. I do hope last night's early curtailment has not spoiled the chances of any new fans returning. Please come back and give the Friday night racing at Paris Speedway a second chance. You will not be disappointed!

Thanks to all those that did show up and we hope to see you again. Thanks also to Dave Havill for all his hard work in preparing a good racing surface for us riders, and all the other volunteers involved behind the scenes on a Friday night, without who there would be no racing.

Bye for now!

Phil #21 & Michael #2