THUNDER BAY – Despite Arctic-like conditions descending on the city this week, the ice at Mission Bay still isn’t quite ready for the racing season.
Gary Adomko, president of the Thunder Bay Autosport Club, said Mother Nature didn’t co-operate in the late fall and early stages of winter, and as a precaution they’ve pushed back the start of ice racing until at least Jan. 27.
That’s about two weeks later than planned, but also not out of the ordinary on Lake Superior.
“Unfortunately the cold weather that showed up in November flip-flopped in December, which then impacted us in January, where the ice hadn’t really set up where we would normally have liked it and we had some fairly heavy, wet snow which showed up in late December, which caused a stress load on the ice itself,” Admoko said.
“That set us back with a little slush on the surface and we’ve been waiting for Mother Nature to help us correct that situation. That’s what we’re receiving today and into the next few days so we’ll be able to be out there and plow our track.”
Adomko said it takes about 16 hours or so to prepare the race course, which includes plowing the track and putting up signs and timers.
Delays have happened in the past, so it’s nothing new, he said.
“We have 10 dates on our schedule, but out of those 10 dates we get eight of the 10 in,” Admoko said.
“Last year we had to cancel one date because a snowfall hit us. We’ve had other years where we’ve had rain in February. This is something that we’ve dealt with over the years and we’re ready to react to this.”
Admoko said they’ll conduct another inspection of the ice on the weekend, and if things check out, they’ll begin work on the track.
Admomko said there are about 50 active members and he expects up to 20 teams to take part in the racing in 2019.
“We have a couple of new ones this year and a couple of teams switching, going from rubber-to-ice to studded and I think we actually have one team moving back from studded over to rubber-to-ice.”
