Of course I went for the chainsaw racing like any good red blooded American
The organization for the chainsaw racing stuff was pretty terrible.
Apparently this was only the second year for these events and it seemed tossed together.
I will say there were more spectators there than at any show/gtg i have attended, they literally had bleachers full of people watching.
When I contacted them about what the sizes or classes or prizes might be they didn't know and referred me to a local gentleman. I made several calls and left messages and then on the third call I got an answer from someone who said she was only there one day a week and didn't know about the races but would ask the gentleman in charge to call me.
The guy in charge called me back 2 days before the event and when I asked what there would be in the way of races if I brought my saws and came to race he said just bring it on down and we will have a race for it. I really had to pump him for information and he said there would be the pros racing in the morning (I had found this on the schedule) and then the amateur race at 1:00 (also on the schedule).
I asked if I would be a pro or an amateur as I have never raced in a organized sanctioned event but my equipment is pretty good.
"oh you dont have the saws to race with the pros" was his response.
I asked what kind of restrictions were on the amateur races... "oh just one race, its open class".
Q: any limits on CC?
A: unlimited
Q: I am driving a couple hours, will i be facing two piece heads and pipe saws in the amateur race, I want to bring the right saw.
A: no nothing like that
Q: Cold start or Hot start
A: well we haven't thought about that, we will probably have a pre-race meeting and just let the guys decide.
So that wasn't exactly helpful in figuring out what saw to run, though it pretty much eliminated the smaller saws.
I ended up setting up three saws just in case
First was the Mastermind Stihl 084 arctic with a HT1 heavily modified racing carb from Jon Rupley and a 3/8" .050 race chain from Squarefile, it ended up being too hard to cold start, like 1 out of 11 tries in testing, so I figured to take it along in case we went hot start.
Next I set up the Jon Rupley Pioneer P61 with an Art Martin 3/8" .050 race chain that I had been testing, it was dead even with a nice chain John Reilly sent me on this saw and being as Art and Jon were buddies it seemed like the right choice for that saw, its a 6 cube in case there was a limit and even though it is a big awkward melon it starts fairly easy once warm.
Last I set up my ECSaws MS461 with a new 60DL 3/8".050 that Squarefile sent me recently, just in case there was some kind of size limit, and it is an easy cold start normally.
Julie and I drove up early in the day on Saturday and as we were walking towards the grandstand area they were having two man crosscut competition.
I saw some names I recognized.
I grabbed some video of a few of the races and then realized the PA announcer was talking about an amateur stock saw race coming up next!!
I headed down to the tent to register even though the nice lady taking names and having us sign the release didnt know any of the rules or who was racing, etc.
In short order they called us onto the track and told us we had to wear chaps and helmet, (which they had a couple of) and we would all run in the order we had signed up on a stock used MS362 with Stihl semi-chisel round filed chain in an 8" x 8" aspen cant, cold start, no need to choke as the saw was warm
same saw same wood one after the other, there were perhaps 12-16 competitors
Julie got video of my run which was nothing spectacular and didn't film any others.
Nathan Helsel ran before I did and had a really good time compared to the others before me.
I ran a decent close second to Nathan and the guys after me were not as fast in the wood as I was, so I was feeling pretty good.
As the last couple guys were lining up to take their shot at the Aspen, I got a call from my buddy Shawn and he had arrived and was wondering where the races were going to be held that afternoon.
I told him to hurry over to the grandstand and he could probably get a run in the cant for the stock saw, that we didnt know was going to happen.
He rushed over and slapped on some chaps to become that last competitor....and beat the best time by a little over 3/10 of a second
Son of A Biichon
Only first place got a prize for the race, a sports type shirt with festival champion style wording on it
Just video of me because the other guys were Amish and Shawn showed up at the last minute
I had lunch -
Yeah they stick cheese sauce and BBQ sauce and pulled pork and BBQ sauce and shredded cheese and banana peppers and BBQ sauce on the loaded fries