Drizzles don’t reign
Test and tune inspections take place in parking lot when rain delays opening of pits
I don’t think you really should be scared getting in a race car. If you’re scared, you shouldn’t be driving, because that’s dangerous.” Mod lite rookie racer Randy Giroux
Like those letter carriers celebrated in the unofficial slogan of the U.S. Postal Service, Merrittville Speedway delivered despite encountering adversity.
There was no snow, no heat nor “gloom of night, but a steady drizzle that lasted about two hours Saturday was enough to throw a lug wrench into best-laid plans at the Thorold track.
Entry into the pit area for race crews for a much-anticipated test and tune session was delayed by three hours.
Drivers, eager to have their cars inspected in anticipation of season openers over the next two weeks, didn’t have to wait that long to have inspectors give their rapid rides a once-over, however.
Instead of waiting for sunny skies and an equally welcome westerly wind to hasten the drying process in the pits, the inspection process got underway in main parking lot off Merrittville Highway.
Cars lined up in single file to ensure they were up to spec according to their racing classes and, equally important, that there were no compromises to safety equipment, especially in the driver’s compartment. Inspectors examined the thickness of protective padding surrounding roll bars in addition to the integrity of seatbelt mounts and ground wires.
Randy Giroux was among the drivers who couldn’t wait to get the green light from the inspectors. Since taking part in a driving school at Merrittville the week before, the karting program graduate was looking forward to getting more “seat time” in a used late model racer he built during the off-season.
“It was just a bunch of pieces, in boxes,” said the son of Randy and Ivana Giroux of Fort Erie.
Giroux, whose father assisted in the project by doing the welding and putting on the bumpers, expects to get as many as three seasons of racing under his belt before the 2011 Yamaha R11 engine needs to be rebuilt.
“It’s pretty much new, only 4,000 kilometres. It’s just broken in.”
Giroux, who turns 16 on April 26, would have been content to spend another season racing karts around the inside track at the speedway.
“We weren’t really planning to move up, we were going to keep racing karts,” he said. “I started looking around at different race cars, and we came to Merrittville to look at cars.
“I liked the looks of the mod lites. They looked cool, and I didn’t really know anything about them.”
Mod lites are the smallest purpose-built racers that compete regularly at Merrittville, but they are far faster than they look. Their size-to-speed ratio is especially high, so much so that rollovers are possible when their tires don’t grab enough track rounding into corners.
Giroux, while appreciating the increased speed of the his racing class, won’t allow himself become preoccupied with the inherent danger of competing in much-faster division.
“If anything, I’m excited. I can’t wait,” he said. “I don’t think you really should be scared getting in a race car.
“If you’re scared, you shouldn’t be driving, because that’s dangerous.”
Giroux found the driving school taught by 24-time Merrittville track champion Pete Bicknell “informative.”
“It was a lot to take in, that’s for sure,” he said. “They gave us a good notebook, and it has a lot of very useful information in it.”
After an in-class session that included tips on chassis setup and how to adjust to ever-changing track conditions, students took to the track to put textbook theory into full-throttle practice.
All told Giroux benefited from 46 laps of valuable seat time, the equivalent of three feature races.
“Once we took the car out of the hauler and I went out for my first run, I had a huge smile on my face when I came in,” he recalled a week later, with another huge smile on his face.
Giroux didn’t go full out the first time behind the wheel of his new race car.
“I think I could get more out of the car, for sure,” he said. “But I’m only a rookie and just starting, so I took it easy at first and then got going and got some pretty good speed.”
His fastest lap time around the 3/8mile, D-shaped track was 19.397 seconds, about 2.5 seconds off the pace that would take the checkered flag on most Saturday nights at Merrittville.
“It’s really good, though, for a rookie,” Giroux said. “That was really a good moment for me.”
Dan McKay is graduated to the 4-cylinder mini stocks class after six years in Merrittville’s karting program. This season he intends to make racing a three-day weekend by competing at Ohsweken Speedway on Friday nights and New Humberstone Speedway in Port Colborne two nights later.
“It’s pretty competitive, and it’s the easy stepping stone to the next class,” the 18-year-old from Thorold said.
“You’ve got to get the seat time somewhere.”
McKay, a first-year mechanical engineering student at Niagara College in Welland, hopes to one day turn his passion into a profession.
“I want to design and build race cars,” he said. “Make them go fast, and make them safe.”
McKay’s pit crew includes his grandfather, Dan Muir, also from Thorold, as well as Kyle Hewitt, a friend from Wellandport.
In his 20s Muir, now 70, raced late models and modifieds. He used to race alongside Bill Speice, the father of Don Speice, the track’s new owner.
“We grew up on West Hill together,” Muir said. “I began when I was 19 — it was supposed to be 21 — and I raced until I was 30, when all the young guys started to get into racing.”
Racing action takes place at Merrittville in the 358 modified, sportsman and mod lite classes in the 2017 Spring Sizzler next Saturday beginning at 7 p.m. Also on tap is the first visit of the Patriot Sprint Tour.
The speedway’s 66th season opener takes place the following weekend on Saturday, April 29.