| The passenger door sprung open on Jim's car during yesterday's first
practice session. It was impossible to reach the door once
buckled into the harness.
Here, first thing Sunday morning, Jim gives the offending door a good
bang to ensure it is firmly closed for the day's upcoming events.
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It was actually the sound of Lionel McKernan's car starting as he
prepared to unload the car from his trailer.
Lionel is one of the nicest guys I've ever met. |
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| There are just a few hectic minutes available in the
morning to unload cars, ensure everything is in working order, make
emergency repairs, register for the races, find a coffee, drink the
coffee, unload the coffee, etc.
Lionel came to my rescue and spent nearly an hour tracking down the problem. In the process of locating the correct fuse for the cigarette lighter, we managed to also blow the fuse for the rear window defroster, and then the tail lights stopped working too!
Lionel eventually found and fixed a faulty electrical connection at the back of the car and the tail light crisis was solved. And, after swapping fuses around, the cigarette lighter suddenly worked again too. Most of the ice-race competitors are like that. While on the track, everyone treats the racing as seriously and competitively as if it was Formula One. But off the track, they'll always help out if you need a hand. Lionel is always the first to volunteer his help. It's just too bad that I made a Dog's Breakfast of the rest of the day... |
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I'm really spoiled. Basically, all
I do is show up with my helmet and drive. The only thing I need to
do before the races is mount the video camera on the roll cage. I
even screwed that up! (More on that later...) The last step is
to plug the camera into the cigarette lighter socket. So I was in
some panic when I discovered the cigarette lighter was dead!
Running without the video camera would
have been a tragedy, but it's not the end of the world. The rear
window defroster is another handy item, but it's also not
critical. But the tail lights are a required item. Without
them the car would not pass technical inspection, and I wouldn't be
permitted to race. That's serious.