Eastbound Speedway Saturday

On Saturday evening we headed to Eastbound International Speedway for the ECC 125 Car Racing event!

Stock car zooming at Eastbound Speedway.

We showed up around 5:30 pm, just in time to catch The Navigators play a few tunes for the crowd, marking the middle of an action packed day for some, but the beginning of our time at the Speedway. Then after the music, an evening of racing began! At this point, we still weren’t sure what to expect, but we were pleasantly surprised by the variety of things going on, and how interesting it was to watch cars race around an oval track (many many times!).

First up were the time trials for the main event, a 125 lap stock car race. This gave us a chance to see each of the competitors giving it their all out on the track, one at a time, to earn their spot in the final race. The first thing that hit us was the furious noise that the stock cars made as they accelerated up to racing speed. It was pretty exciting, even at such an early stage in the competition.

Crossing the line.

A great lap.

Once all of the racers had completed their time trials, the top ten took part in a short(!) 20 lap race. This gave us our first taste of the real noise: ten stock cars at top speed was enough to vibrate the stands. We also saw a few minor crashes, one of which ruled the front runner out for the rest of the evening. He and his crew down in the pit looked pretty upset after the accident. However, luckily no one was hurt, despite the number of crashes we saw throughout the evening. The same could not be said for the cars…

20 lap Stock car race.

Little did would know that there would be various races throughout the evening, so next up was a 14 lap Bandolero race. These little, entry-level cars had drivers between the ages of 8 and 16 behind the wheel, and were only slightly slower than their grownup counterparts. They definitely start ‘em young.

After that was another quick race, featuring US Legends cars. These are 5/8th scale classic racing cars that go like hell. It was a really fun race to watch with lots of close calls, and not too many stoppages.

A US Legends car.

Victory lap with the chequered flag.

The last race before the main event was a hobby stock race, which featured regular street cars like our very own Toyota Corolla. This was also a very fun race, in particular due to car number 84, who started at the back of the pack and slowly but surely made his way up through the ranks. Lots of great overtaking and close calls. Unfortunately, once he finally reached first place, his car gave out a few laps from the finish and number 84 fell out of the race.

Hobby stock race.

Then, at 10:00 pm, it was finally time for the main 125 lap stock car race! The big bad machines came back out onto the track, some a little worse for wear from the earlier 20 lap race. Unfortunately, with so many cars on the track at once the race was very stop-start. Occasional crashes and cars losing control (or losing their wheels) meant that the race had to be paused by the officials every now and then so that vehicles could get fixed up or towed off the track.

The main event.

One of many stoppages.

We stuck around for the first 41 laps, and were enjoying the tussle for first place until the power went at the track! All of the lights went out, except for a few that were running off generators, so the race was temporarily stopped. Since it was 11:30 pm by this point, we figured we’d gotten more than our $20’s worth of entertainment and headed back to Ocean Pond. We're still not entirely sure what happened with the race after that.

Overall, a pretty great evening was had! We never knew how interested we’d be in motorsports, and who knows, maybe we’ll enter our little Corolla in the next event...

(SLIDESHOW)

Curious what we we did for our Something Saturday this time last year? Well, we piled into our trusty Corolla and drove to a former Provincial Park, the Cataracts. We took a few gravel roads to get there, but a picnic by the waterfall made the sketchy drive worth it. Note: we did take a slightly different way back.

And in 2013 we spent the long weekend (which is next weekend this year) in Montréal! We went to a ton of museums, ate a ton of food, and caught up with some friends as we explored Elizabeth's old stomping ground. What a city!