Welcome to my blog! I will be keeping you informed on the inside happenings within the IWA Watercross world in the summer months and the USSA and WSA Pro Ice racing circuits in the winter time.
The IWA season has come to a close for 2008 and I would like to congratulate Brian McCurdy Jr on capturing his first Pro Open Season Points Championship! We had a great season of IWA racing and we are already looking forward to next season!
As much as I love the Watercross season, right now my attention is turning towards our Ice Oval season and getting the Benoy Racing #442 Champ 440 sled ready to hit the ice. The Champ 440 class is a new endeavor for both myself and my driver (Brian McCurdy Jr.) We were able to race the sled at the last event of the season in Beausejour, so we did get a little bit of time to get our feet wet, but we have a lot to learn! Racing in the Pro ranks of Champ 440 is going to be a huge challenge for us this year, competing against the best in the world every weekend, but we came this conclusion last season as we were deciding where Benoy Racing wanted to go in the future. We started racing last season in the F-500 class. My original plan was to race the sled myself, maybe 3 or 4 events, because the sled was easy to build and maintain and relatively inexpensive to race. As fate would have it, I broke my leg in November and that put an end to my plans. Since I already had the sled and it was ready to race, I began speaking with Brian about possibly having him ride the sled for me at a couple of events in 2008. Brian had a lot of experience racing Ice ovals in the late 90’s until 2002, but hadn’t raced on the ice oval since then and was extremely excited at the prospect of getting back on an oval sled. To be honest, I didn’t know how this whole deal was going to work. I had never been in “Crew Chief” position before, I had always raced myself. I thought it was going to kill me to sit on the sidelines and watch, but the very first time we went to practice, my feelings started to change. As I watched Brian out there on the sled, running faster laps than I could ever have dreamed of, I started to find a new sort of joy in racing. Things went so well for us that as the season progressed, we started to talk about working together in the future and moving into the next level of classes. We first thought about finding a Sprint class sled or perhaps a Pro Stock sled so we starting talking with some other teams and feeling the market out to see what was available. It was during this process, in a conversation with Andy Moyle of Moyle Racing, that our future direction started to take shape. Andy asked me “What is your ultimate goal in Ice Oval racing”? I answered “To run Pro Champ 440 and compete for a World Championship”. To that he replied “Then don’t waste your time and money on a Sprinter or a Stocker, find a good Champ sled and get your nose in the fight”. He added “Look at it this way, you have a great driver who has the experience and skill to win on a Champ, why not go after it sooner than later”. Who could argue with that kind of logic? So, here we are, getting ready to go toe to toe with the big boys.
Go get em’ boys!