re: Ice Racing in N.H. (Newfound Lake)

[Protege52003]

re: Ice Racing in N.H. (Newfound Lake)

Astral and myself went to the BMW Boston Chapter Ice Racing event today in New Hampshire. They do it almost every sunday for the next couple of months on a lake in Central NH. There was a mazdaspeed there, too.

Was a coooooold day out today, but the driving was fun. Very slick though. Here are some pics and Astal and myself plan on going up again on 2/15. Would be nice to get some more mazda's up there.

-R

 

[zmepro]

looks fun (thumb)

 

[derrick1623]

k, wait...u are driving on ICE??? like a freakin lake...now call me crazy but i dunno about all that s***.

 

[Protege52003]

looks fun (thumb)

Was soooooo fun and I so look forward to doing it in a couple.

-R

 

[slug420]

more pics!

send me some info to protegeclub@hotmail.com

and is there any point to it? like a course or anything? or are u just cruisin around on the ice for s**** and giggles?

 

[Mike R]

Man, that looks like soooo much fun. You guys running studs?

 

[Protege52003]

No studs on my snow tires. Would have been nice.

I wish I could say how much fun I/we had. Spent a good portion of the day driving around the practice track and screwing around on the wide open lake. Did three runs on the time track and results will be up soon. Was such a blast........hey slug, will link you to image station tomorrow. I am so tired and have to get to bed now. Plan on going 2/15.

Maybe it will not be as cold as it was today.......

-R

 

[X2sandman]

holy crap, i didn't know anyone else here really knew about the events. Did you go last year, i was in the dark blue 2.5rs like 3-4 events last year. I was thinking about going up today but i had to drop my mom off at the airport.

Was there someone up there with a yellow p5, i remember someone having one last year but i didn't talk to him at all, so im not sure if he's in this club.

I hope you had a blast, and will likely join you at the next one. Where did you guys drive up from, maybe we could caravan up to manchester and meet the NESIC guys for the rest of the trip.

 

[slug420]

im already lookin forward to the 15th, but it will be in my impreza, not the RS

any tips? will i be ok in my generic (dont even kno if they are winter) tires or should i go for some steelies with studs or winters?

 

[X2sandman]

slug420- The way they class you with other cars is between a combonation of drive-wheels and tire type.

There are FWD, RWD, and AWD classes.

Then after that there are summer/all season tires, snow tires, ice tires, and then modified (studs, etc)

So even if your running all seasons, you're not going to be paired with someone who has studs.

If you do have studs although, you'll most likely have a lot more grip, but be up against very good racers that have done this awhile.

One of the organizers of the event, Stan Jackson races a wrx wagon aswell as a bmw, and is able to beat pretty close to everyone overall and i believe he just runs snows.

 

[jred321]

wish i could've gone, i'll see what i can do about the 15th

 

[Protege52003]

Yeah, Stan was a nice guy and was driving his M3. He just had regular snow tries on his M3. He was a great driver, too. Think no one can beat him in his divisions. There were so many WRX's there and they do so well. This one guy driving a new Volvo S80 type R took me for a ride and let me drive his car. It had under 4 k and it was such a sweet ride. AWD and the stability? control was awesome........

I am so looking forward to the 15 of next month. Hope we can get lots of people up there w/mazda's.

-R

 

[Protege52003]

There is the volvo I drove.

Check out these tires.

A good portion of these guys do this a lot and are very good. There are a couple people who were new to this at this meet, including astral and myself. I mess around in parking lots when we get snow, which helped out.

-R

 

[Gbourdon]

What lake was this on? Was that up in Meredith?

Ooops nevermind I need to learn how to read more thoroughly. Newfound lake is only like 20 minutes from my house I wish I had known!

 

[alexlitov]

any chance of ice cracking?`

 

[Gbourdon]

It's been so cold up here it's really thick. You should see how many people drive on the ice. There are usually dozens and dozens of pickup trucks all over the place for all of the ice fishing that goes on up here.

 

[X2sandman]

yeah they're really strict and safe about the ice-thickness, and they've been doing this for a very long time, so they know what they are doing when it comes to saftey.

When you're on the ice it's not uncommon to hear the ice crack, or even see a crack, but thatis just the ice settling, sort of like small earthquakes on the lake. I remember hearing that the thickness of the ice that we race on his enough to support a building.

If you're new and go up, you can ask many people from NESIC who run the pratice course (kris, sean, andrew, etc) to take [bold] you[/bold] for a ride in your car so they can see what works best and give you pointers. Then have them ride along as you drive.

It's more fun than an actual competition, everyone helps one another out and tells secrets (such as if abs should be enabled depending on ice conditions) and whatnot, and it's really laid back

 

[cbcbd]

this sounds really cool!

So what do I need to participate? Do I need to contact someone, do I just show up? What time does it usually start?

 

[PhreakV]

I'm so jealous of all of you NE-ers... except for that picture where it said 10 degrees

 

[Astral]

This is hosted by the Boston BMW CCA. Cost is $20 per event, if you are not a member of the BMW CCA. You are allowed to use non-BMW cars.

Here's the web site for it: http://www.boston-bmwcca.org/events/2004/ice-racing.asp

Basically, pre-register on the web site, then show up on the day of the event (watch the bulletins), pay and off you go. You may be required to do a worker position for a session, but it's not bad, and it's fun (I haven't done it yet).

It was def. a ton of fun and I'm def. going again! 2/15, let's hope