How did I spend my New Year's Day? At a winter stock car race!!!!

[CBCyclone]

Shut out of tickets for the big Ice Bowl hockey game at Ralph Wilson Stadium, and not wanting to stay inside and gorge myself on meaningless college football bowl games (sorry NCAA football fans, but none of the bowl games mean a damn except for the BCS Championship Games, anyway), instead I accepted an invitation to a stock car race. You read that right….. a stock car race in Western New York on January 1st.

Actually the track that hosted the race is located in the town of Ransomville, NY, which is located about 20 minutes north of my home in North Tonawanda, NY (a Buffalo suburb).

Ransomville Speedway is a sanctioned dirt oval track, and on Tuesday they held the 8th Annual Hangover 150 Enduro Races. My brother-in-law Dean invited my kids and myself to go with him and his brother-in-law Rich, and a cousin of Dean's named Ron and his son Mike met us at the track. Admission to this event was a donation of none perishable food or $5.

Although this was the 8th annual event, none of us had ever heard of it until Dean and Ron read about it last Friday in the Niagara Falls Gazette newspaper. This sounded so wonderfully stupid that we just HAD to check it out!

Now since none of us had ever heard of this event, we weren’t sure WHAT to expect. Still in all, we figured that for a sloppy stock car race in Western New York on a cold (30 degrees) and snowy New Year's Day, there might be a couple hundred fans in attendance and maybe 40 or 50 cars racing. Boy were we ever WRONG!!!

There had to be 3,000 fans in attendance, and probably closer to the event record of 4,000, which someone at the track told us was set the previous year, since all of the grandstands were full and a good number of fans were standing to watch the races. And our estimate of 40 or 50 cars? Try over 200 cars! Over 200 participated in three 50 lap races. The three races were for 4, 6 and 8 cylinder vehicles. The 4 cylinder race alone had over 70 cars.

Basically the cars raced in snow and in the thick mud track. Only DOT approved tires were allowed on the cars, with no snow tires, studs, or chains allowed. With the slippery muddy conditions it turned out to be a huge demolition derby fought on an oval. During the course of the three races three different Ford vehicles caught on fire and completely burned (a minivan and two Thunderbirds). The track race announcer joked that on this particular day Ford must had stood for FIRE ON RANSOMVILLE DIRT.

It was a great time, with great company, and we all agreed to make this an annual holiday tradition. Kind of a guys day out. If any of you CL readers are from the WNY area, feel free to join us next year for the Hangover 150. Bring some cigars and we can make it a Herf at the Hangover!

I posted some photos that I took at the Hangover 150 event to my wife an my Picassa photo page. You can check them out at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/DianeOsh...150EnduroRaces

[karmaz00]

sweet. sounds like it was a good time

[slkr4life]

Looks like blast. I have been to a few Nascar races in the summer and the heat was a killer. You have just shown the complete other end of the spectrum! BRRRRRRRR!

[CBCyclone]

You have just shown the complete other end of the spectrum! BRRRRRRRR!

Want to talk about BRRRRRRR? Consider this. One of the official rules was that windshields were optional. While some cars raced with a windshield and wipers the majority raced without them with some totally exposed and others with a screen in place of the windshield. Think about driving with 30 degree air hitting you at the speed they were traveling. The wind chill HAD to be 10 degrees or less in those cars that ran without windshields.

The majority of the drivers were from western New York and southern Ontario (Canada), but there were two drivers that came in from Connecticut for the event and one was announced as being from Massachusetts!