Well it was a nice day at the races...while it lasted. I don't know much about ice drags, except that it was close to my house, lots of really really fast sleds, noisy, and smells good. All of the racers that I talked to said that the track was really good, and it seemed to me that it held up good. The racing itself seemed a little unorganized to me. It seemed to take a long time between races, and I didn't see where the racers were being told who was racing next so they could have their sleds warmed up and ready to go. The announcer even said that he was going to mix up the classes to keep the program moving along, but I think that probably added to the confusion. It just seemed slow moving to me, a lot different than the grass drags I've been to.
Mike, I'm sure I saw you along the spectator fence. I was in front of the big tent over on the pit side looking along the crowd for the outfits that you had posted in your picture in the other thread. I was sure I had spotted you, so I made my way across the starting area in front of the VP truck. I was squatting in front of the fence probably 100ft. from you taking pictures of the 777 SRX when you were taking your movie. I didn't want to walk any farther down the track because I didn't want to get kicked out, (happened anyway). I got lots of pictures and video from there, but some volunteers came along and said that we were supposed to get away from the starting line because of safety concerns. There were guys down there with their little kids. They left, but I went and stood behind the starting line against the fuel truck. One of the officials came over and said he told the volunteers that I was with one of the teams, probably because I had been there most of the afternoon. I told him "I'm not with a team, I just want to get as close to the action as I can". He looked at me with these big eyes and said "you're not supposed to be out here, you have to leave", so I did. Sometimes being honest can work against you. I went back over in front of the tent on the pit side and got some more pictures and video. Around 4:30 one of the guys on a stock sled got out of control, crossed over his lane and wiped out the timing lights and cut the wire, then crossed back across and cut the wire to the finish line way down track. The announcer was pretty upset about that, and he let the racers know that if they get squirrly, get off the gas. Well, that ended the racing for the day, at least as far as I was concerned. The wind had started blowing and they were talking about the possibility of warm temps and rain. They kept working on the timing system, but it was getting dark. The crowd had mostly left, so I had a pretty good spot if they resumed racing. It was after 6:00 and the announcer said that they were going to try to contact Ainsworth, an electrical contractor and sponsor of the race, and try to get some generators with light poles out to the track so they could continue. I can't blame them, I sure wouldn't want to be going down the track over 100mph in the dark. I wasn't going to wait around for that, so I packed it up and came home. I don't know if they were able to finish the race or not, but I don't think that they will get much racing in on Sunday. It's almost 4:30am, it's 37 degrees here and has been rising all night, and there's a big rainstorm moving in. I really feel bad for all of the professional racers who spend so much time on their sleds who came and had 1 sled ruin the event for them, and the spectators. I know it's racing and that stuff happens, but I think they would have some extra sets of wires ready so they could disconnect the bad one and hook up a new one and continue.
I'm going to try to post links to my videos, with a short description. I also labeled them as to how big they are in Mb, so you can decide if you want to download them or not. My camera isn't a true video camera, it's a digital still camera that takes video, so they're not fantastic quality. Let me know if they work for you.
This is a starting line view of the video Mike posted of the 2 Vmax-4's. I'm pretty sure that the guy in lane 4, furthest to the right, was the winner: 19Mb
http://www.vmax4.com/vbulletin/shark/1-23-10 050 Two Vmax-4's 19Mb.avi
San Marino Racing Heavy Mod 1000: 15Mb
http://www.vmax4.com/vbulletin/shark/1-23-10 075 San Marino Racing HVY MOD 1000 15Mb.avi
These guys from Burke Motorsports had some awesome outlaw sleds, the "No Limits" machines in my slideshow. There were at least three that were turbocharged on nitrous. This guy couldn't keep his front end down, and his competition, Iam Hamilton, ran over 150mph in lane 1, closest to me: 90.5Mb
http://www.vmax4.com/vbulletin/shark/1-23-10 080 150MPH pass 90.5Mb.avi
This was another Burke Motorsports turbo on nitrous, I think the red one was a 1000 Ski-Doo, not sure: 28Mb
http://www.vmax4.com/vbulletin/shark/1-23-10 082 Turbo on Nitrous 28Mb.avi
I think these were open mods. The blue Yamaha on the left handed the black sled his lunch: 44Mb
http://www.vmax4.com/vbulletin/shark/1-23-10 084 Yamaha wins again 44Mb.avi
These were 800 Mods. The Yamaha in lane 1 was going to be the obvious winner. The Vmax-4 in the far lane got off to a slow start, but pulled a holeshot on the other two guys and got second. 54Mb
http://www.vmax4.com/vbulletin/shark/1-23-10 085 800 Mods 54Mb.avi
This was a solo pass on a turbo sled. He got squirrely after the launch and took it easy after that: 23Mb
http://www.vmax4.com/vbulletin/shark/1-23-10 Turbo sled solo pass 23Mb.avi
Shark
