June 19/21 - Opening night after a long time due to Covid

Heat win on opening night. Had no power steering so in the feature we only finished 7th. We’ll get that fixed and will be looking for another in 2 weeks

  July 3/21

It was a great night of racing last night! First night of racing with fans back in the grandstands.

Started pole for the first heat and won, in the second heat we started sixth and were only able to move up to 4th. These finishes would put us as 3rd fastest qualifier for the feature.

Last race feature winner, Paul Maltese and Mike Wilkinson battled for a number of laps before being passed by Ricky Spencer-Walt, putting him to the lead, dropping Maltese to 3rd with Wilkinson battling Spencer-Walt for the lead, with me running in 4th.

Wilkinson slipped up coming out of corner 4, with contact into the wall, I heard he broke something, which caused contact with Spencer-Walt, and he would go around, bringing out the last caution of the race.

We lined up with Maltese in first, and he chose to restart on the outside, with myself in 2nd on the inside. From the green to the checkered flag, we raced door to door. We both wanted the win - it would be my first feature win and it would be Maltese’s 2nd as he just won his first two weeks ago, so we both wanted it pretty badly.

With about two to go, we both raced even harder, him pinching down, me riding up a bit. In an exciting finish, coming out of 4, we hit door to door and I inched ahead enough to take the win! The other team isn’t happy with the finish but I was going after my first feature win and someone was going to finish the race unhappy, and I made sure it wasn’t me, I think we both left nothing on the table at the end.  (Watch Race Video HERE)

Huge thanks as always goes out to Mobil 1 for being with me forever. I truly wouldn’t even be able to do this without their support.

We were fortunate to pick up a couple new sponsors the last couple years. Many thanks to Ryan’s Landscaping, for everything they do.....worst night for you to have to miss being at the race track!! And also to Rose Point Group, who just joined our team two weeks ago. I can’t do this without you all and I truly appreciate it.

Shout out to Jerry Abramowicz for his excellent photos and video of the race. Thank you for always supporting me. Be sure to check out Motorsport Alley Facebook page.

And last but not least, to my family who supports me through this all, my Dad who is my biggest supporter, who works to keep everything going, my crew Randal - so glad you were there last night, and Richard and Jerry who crewed for my Dad years ago and still help me - so sad you weren’t able to be there last night.
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Thanks to every that showed their support and came over to congratulate us, it meant a lot.

See you all on July 17/21 for the next round.

July 17/21

Saturday was a pretty good night. The car was fast, just some circumstances didn’t work out in our favour.

We started last in the first heat, and it was a fast heat! We managed to get up to 3rd by the end and were happy with the car.

For the second heat, I was to start on the pole. We decided to put on old tires.....with restrictions on tires, we’ve got to use them wisely. The car was quick so we thought we might be okay. But not long into the race I heard “The 9 is coming” and before i knew it he was passed me and way gone. Nope, the car was just too loose and we drifted even further back, and finished the heat 4th. I couldn’t be happier for the 9 car for their first heat win!

Moving on to the feature, and back to newer tires, we would start in 6th.  

We moved up to 5th on the first lap and we were running in the 5th spot still when the car behind me bumped me out of the racing groove and toward the outside wall. I was able to save the car and get back down in 8th.

Around lap 17 I had raced back to the lead pack and moved up to 7th. Toward the end of the race, I made my move to the outside, made a pass for 6th and had to make an aggressive move to get down and I bumped the 4 car and moved him out of the way to take 5th spot. Then he returned the favour with a well deserved bump back to move me for the pass to take back his 5th place. Good hard racing there at the end and congrats to the 4 for what I believe is his first top 5.

Happy to have Mobil 1 back at the track as David Swain was able to return this weekend.
As always, thank you to my sponsors, Mobil 1, Ryan’s Landscaping, Rose Point Group and Auto Trim Barrie.  We are back in action July 31st at Sunset Speedway.
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If you haven’t checked it out before, check out my podcast on iTunes, powered by Speed51. It’s a new era and my co-host this week is Dylan “Mamba” Smith from North Carolina. Check out Short Track Canada on iTunes.

August 21/21 we raced this weekend, but I can't find my notes on what happened.  We had two heat races, I don't know where I finished in the first race, but in the second heat I finished 3rd and in the feature I finished 8th.

​September 5/21 - Great day of racing. We won our first heat race and then started at the back in the second heat and finished 5th.

We started the feature in 6th and were up to 3rd after a few laps. I clipped the wall coming out of corner 4 but still maintained position, however a couple cars behind me got together and spun coming into corner 1 and I was deemed an involved car and was sent to the back.

The car was really fast and I was able to make my way back up to 6th pretty quickly. I got under the 14, coming out of corner 2, making the pass for 5th, when our tires hit and sent me spinning to the infield out of 2, bringing out the caution. And of course, to the back I would go again. With only 3 laps to go, but a really fast car, I would make it back up to 7th by the end.

Car was on rails and it was one of the most fun races of the season. Found out, back in the garage, that I ripped the pan hard bar mount almost completely out of the chassis when i tagged the wall in 4, it’s hanging by a small piece.

Some work to do before Velocity weekend September 18 and 19.  You can watch the race video below

Velocity weekend - double duty!!  What a great race weekend!!!

We did the double this weekend. Raced my LLM for our final points race of the season, and then used my LLM to race with the pro lates.

Pro Late recap first: We did time trials for the pro late race. There are some things that are allowed to be changed, but since it was a tight schedule between the 2 qualifying sessions and the 2 main events, we decided to not make any changes to the car, we just raced what we had.

We did time trials for the pro late model race and I qualified 8th out of 15 cars. The top 5 were inverted for the start and we would start 8th.

We had a great run, moved up to 7th right away and had a race long battle with the 39 car changing positions throughout the race. I was making the move into 5th, as the other car pushed up exiting 2, and I got underneath him, unfortunately another car would spin and bring out the caution and we would go back. I got my toe knocked out under caution so I wasn’t able to do much more for the rest of the race and would finish the pro race in 6th. Pretty happy with the result for my pro late debut.

We are hoping to be able to figure something out to be able to make the move to pro late full time, we’ll search for sponsors in the off season and see what we can do

Below is the Pro late model race - we raced this event first and after it got banged up a little, took it out and raced in the limited late model race.

Part 2 of Velocity weekend - Limited late model race 

For the LLM race, we ran two heat races. For the first race, I started outside pole and was able to take the lead and continue on to the checkered flag.  Second heat, we started at the back and finished the race in 3rd. With a first and third, we would qualify 3rd for the main event.

Originally the LLM race was scheduled to run before the Pro late race, but they changed the race order. This worked against me. The LLM was my final points night, the only race I was able to claim a purse from, so this meant I had to race the pro race a little more cautiously. I got some damage to the right side of the car, broke the exhaust, but the biggest factor was that the brakes got too hot in the LLM race and went away.

I had the pole position and the plan was to just save my equipment, fall back a bit if needed and then make a run at the end. The car was perfect to start, but the brakes went away and there wasn’t much that I could do at that point other than settle for a 4th place finish.

Overall, it was an amazing weekend, happy with our progress in 2021, was happy to be back behind the wheel and proud of this final weekend of racing. Already looking forward to 2022, with hopefully some new experiences.

Thanks as always to Mobil 1, Ryan’s Landscaping, Nascar 21 Ignition, Auto Trim Barrie, Rose Point Group, Epic Racewear and Jerry Abramowicz.

Congrats to Miles Tyson for his first LLM win, Rick Spencer-Walt on the 2021 Championship .

You can watch the limited late model race below.