Sunday, January 17 - Usually we try to find a new indoor venture to visit during December or January to keep our consectitive months streak alive (currently through January the total is 239, one month short of 20 years) but this year the pickings were slim. Not to worry we would head outdoors to the lake for some racing action.

You may ask what do they race on a lake during the winter months. Well, when the ice is thick enough they race cars on the frozen lake!! And one of the groups running races on frozen lakes is the Adirondack Motor Enthusiast Club (AMEC) celebrating its 56th anniversary this year. That includes 45 years of ice racing. This group races between January until early March on road course configurations of varying sizes ranging from .75 mile to 1.9 miles. Four of their six classes run on studded ice race tires and their two classes or street legal cars run on studless Bridgestone Blizzak winter tires.

We left eastern Pennsylvania just after 7 AM to make the 4 1/2 hour tow into northeastern New York state and our destination of Caroga Lake. We arrived around 11:30 AM, surveyed the situation and drove our car down the ramp onto the frozen surface of Caroga Lake. We found several good vantage points during the day’s racing to view the action on the 1 mile road course from the comfort of our car. We did walk through the pit area at the beginning to look over the various forms of cars, from the exotic tube framed cars with up to 5.8 liter engines down to the street legal car. The six classes (total of 47 cars) were broken up into three races with two rounds of heats for each class. They would run 20 minute heat races with two feature events, one for the street legal and street legal all wheel drive cars and a second with the other four classes all lumped together.

The racing got underway at 11:40 with the first of two super modified open wheel heats with six cars racing. Matt DeLorenzo won both and if the name sounds familiar it is the same Matt DeLorenzo who races modifieds at Fonda and other area dirt tracks. He had a sprint car bodied racer with plexiglass panels on the sides and he and the other super modified open wheelers were indeed fast producing speeds of over 100 mph down the staights and throwing the snow and ice rooster tails up running through the many turns especially the first and last ones. The next heat race was a three class affair, like the SCCA runs, with stock car body styles such as Saabs, Hondas, VW’s, Nissans and even a Ford Focus. The classes were super modified closed wheel, modified Menard and stock sportsman. Lucas Weston in his Saab made a clean sweep of the day winning both heats and his class in the finale race over Claude Hutchings Jr. each time. Hutchings won a slew of mini stock races on the dirt this summer at Brewerton. Pat Stringer in a Honda DelSol, after checking to see if I was a cop, volunteered that the finale race was fun as he finally beat Jeff Lehner who won both heat races. The stock sportsman in the race within the race were both won by Richard Hill in his Ford Focus.

The street legal and street legal all wheel drives ran two heat races with Jeff Collins in a Mazda 323 capturing the first heat race while Matt Jordan in his Subaru Impreza won the second heat race. Jordan who was parked next to us after winning his heat was an interesting story as he is originally from New York state but currently lives in Indiana and comes back to New York to run his car which he keeps at his parent’s house when the AMEC runs on the ice. Dodge Neons were the winners in street legal with Ivan L. Hinkle winning race one and Tom Baird notching race two. All heat racing was completed by 2:30 and shortly thereafter it was time for the finale race with the street legal feature to follow. The green waved on the finale at 2:40 with Eric Roscoe in his four cylinder modified dune buggy getting the jump on DeLorenzo in his eight cylinder machine. Roscoe held the top spot until coming for the white flag he tried to go high around a lap car and got into the snow banking and lost the lead to DeLorenzo. The slick ice had made the competition even and the extra power did not equate to a runaway. Though disappointed Roscoe still had put on a good performance in the race. Pat Stringer drove an impressive race also finishing third overall and first in super modified closed wheel and closing on the leaders in the process. It was neat seeing 15 cars of various makes and designs racing on the 1 mile road course and the addition of lap traffic always adds excitement to the action. It was now 2:50 and even though it was still early we decided to call it a day and make the 4 1/2 hour trip south. Looking at the results already posted on www.icerace.com, the official website of the AMEC, it looks like Stephen Clare brought his Subaru WRX home first in the SL4 while Scott Chizek won in SL with his Dodge SRT-4.

It was a very enjoyable day of racing that we witnessed with a well organized program presented. These guys and gals are a friendly bunch of folks who enjoy a racing venture a little out of the ordinary but that is what makes life fun, we are not wired all the same way. If you have cabin fever and are looking for some good racing you should go to www.icerace.com and check out their 2010 racing schedule and get out to a lake near you. And be sure to dress warm. Remember it is still winter and you are standing out in the middle of a frozen lake!!! We look forward to our next visit to an AMEC lake race.

Sunday, January 17 - Usually we try to find a new indoor venture to visit during December or January to keep our consectitive months streak alive (currently through January the total is 239, one month short of 20 years) but this year the pickings were slim. Not to worry we would head outdoors to the lake for some racing action.

You may ask what do they race on a lake during the winter months. Well, when the ice is thick enough they race cars on the frozen lake!! And one of the groups running races on frozen lakes is the Adirondack Motor Enthusiast Club (AMEC) celebrating its 56th anniversary this year. That includes 45 years of ice racing. This group races between January until early March on road course configurations of varying sizes ranging from .75 mile to 1.9 miles. Four of their six classes run on studded ice race tires and their two classes or street legal cars run on studless Bridgestone Blizzak winter tires.

We left eastern Pennsylvania just after 7 AM to make the 4 1/2 hour tow into northeastern New York state and our destination of Caroga Lake. We arrived around 11:30 AM, surveyed the situation and drove our car down the ramp onto the frozen surface of Caroga Lake. We found several good vantage points during the day’s racing to view the action on the 1 mile road course from the comfort of our car. We did walk through the pit area at the beginning to look over the various forms of cars, from the exotic tube framed cars with up to 5.8 liter engines down to the street legal car. The six classes (total of 47 cars) were broken up into three races with two rounds of heats for each class. They would run 20 minute heat races with two feature events, one for the street legal and street legal all wheel drive cars and a second with the other four classes all lumped together.

The racing got underway at 11:40 with the first of two super modified open wheel heats with six cars racing. Matt DeLorenzo won both and if the name sounds familiar it is the same Matt DeLorenzo who races modifieds at Fonda and other area dirt tracks. He had a sprint car bodied racer with plexiglass panels on the sides and he and the other super modified open wheelers were indeed fast producing speeds of over 100 mph down the staights and throwing the snow and ice rooster tails up running through the many turns especially the first and last ones. The next heat race was a three class affair, like the SCCA runs, with stock car body styles such as Saabs, Hondas, VW’s, Nissans and even a Ford Focus. The classes were super modified closed wheel, modified Menard and stock sportsman. Lucas Weston in his Saab made a clean sweep of the day winning both heats and his class in the finale race over Claude Hutchings Jr. each time. Hutchings won a slew of mini stock races on the dirt this summer at Brewerton. Pat Stringer in a Honda DelSol, after checking to see if I was a cop, volunteered that the finale race was fun as he finally beat Jeff Lehner who won both heat races. The stock sportsman in the race within the race were both won by Richard Hill in his Ford Focus.

The street legal and street legal all wheel drives ran two heat races with Jeff Collins in a Mazda 323 capturing the first heat race while Matt Jordan in his Subaru Impreza won the second heat race. Jordan who was parked next to us after winning his heat was an interesting story as he is originally from New York state but currently lives in Indiana and comes back to New York to run his car which he keeps at his parent’s house when the AMEC runs on the ice. Dodge Neons were the winners in street legal with Ivan L. Hinkle winning race one and Tom Baird notching race two. All heat racing was completed by 2:30 and shortly thereafter it was time for the finale race with the street legal feature to follow. The green waved on the finale at 2:40 with Eric Roscoe in his four cylinder modified dune buggy getting the jump on DeLorenzo in his eight cylinder machine. Roscoe held the top spot until coming for the white flag he tried to go high around a lap car and got into the snow banking and lost the lead to DeLorenzo. The slick ice had made the competition even and the extra power did not equate to a runaway. Though disappointed Roscoe still had put on a good performance in the race. Pat Stringer drove an impressive race also finishing third overall and first in super modified closed wheel and closing on the leaders in the process. It was neat seeing 15 cars of various makes and designs racing on the 1 mile road course and the addition of lap traffic always adds excitement to the action. It was now 2:50 and even though it was still early we decided to call it a day and make the 4 1/2 hour trip south. Looking at the results already posted on www.icerace.com, the official website of the AMEC, it looks like Stephen Clare brought his Subaru WRX home first in the SL4 while Scott Chizek won in SL with his Dodge SRT-4.

It was a very enjoyable day of racing that we witnessed with a well organized program presented. These guys and gals are a friendly bunch of folks who enjoy a racing venture a little out of the ordinary but that is what makes life fun, we are not wired all the same way. If you have cabin fever and are looking for some good racing you should go to www.icerace.com and check out their 2010 racing schedule and get out to a lake near you. And be sure to dress warm. Remember it is still winter and you are standing out in the middle of a frozen lake!!! We look forward to our next visit to an AMEC lake race.