Track day North Report. And how I love Canada

[vwtype53 at yahoo.com (Ben)]

Frist of all, let me say a big THANKS to Cathy again for having all of us over for the weekend...
she really is an awesome hostess!  A beer was placed in my hand within seconds of my arrival.  If
you've never stayed at Hotel Boyko I would highly suggest it.  :)

Despite the rain, we still had a great time at the track.  The wet track just meant lots of fun
sliding sideways and low tire wear!  It was a good time.

I must share my wonderful experience at the border... and lessons learned.
First of all, not all border patrol people are created equal.  You might get lucky and get the
cute girl at the booth, who you tell you have your car loaded down with drugs and alcohol and she
tells you to have a nice day... or you don't get lucky at all and pull up to the booth with the
skeptical old guy like I had.  All I can say is what is the deal with bringing tires into
Canada!?!  One mention that I had my race tires in the car with me and he assumed I was going to
sell them.  I tried to explain to him that I put the race tires on my car for the race event that
I was coming to Canada for, but no luck.  Off to customs I was sent and forced to pay duty on
them.  Well, either that, or I could head back to the States I was told... so I paid the stinkin
duty on my used race tires.  The lady at customs assured me that I would get the money back.  She
said all I needed to do was stop by customs on the way back and they would see I had the tires
with me and then give me a refund.  Well, that is definitely NOT what happened!  To make a long
and frustrating story short, both the Canadian customs and US customs refused to stamp my reciept
showing that, indeed, I was bringing the wheels back to the US with me.  Obviously I was, but the
red tape involved was insane.

Oh well, lesson learned.  Next time I head up there I'm covering up those damn race tires with my
sleeping bag and saying I just have camping gear and personal clothing with me or something! 
hehe... or better yet I'll just deal without the race tires at all.  :(


Still, even through my frustrating border crossing, I still had a great time.

Can't wait to do it again.  Well, minus the border fiasco of course.

Ben




--- C Boyko <roccit_53@scirocco.cs.uoguelph.ca> wrote:

> So I have Daun nearly asleep on the other couch here, and Ben H and
> Meredith headed back not so long ago. We had a great weekend despite some
> pretty crappy weather.
> Friday we entertained in country style, featuring ARGO rides (on our little
> yellow 6 wheeled amphibian, and what would a VW GTG be without blowing up
> an engine? My son had planned to blow up his ailing GTI at the track, but
> the GTI had other ideas. So it got pretty dead, with a completely
> obliterated cap/rotor and distributor assembly, accented by a nice view of
> rod #2 though the block just above the hose on the waterpump. General car
> talk, some tech procedures and many adult beverages followed.
> There was a fine group of German metal gathered in my driveway, Daun's
> first Scirocco, Ben's gorgeous MkI, Meredith's track ready GLI, Andy
> Woodward's beautiful MkII turbo, Drew's 84 Wolfie 1.9 TD (Carrots) and
> Jason C's 911. Yep, it was great!!!!!!!
> Saturday we headed for the track, adding MkI Mark's newly plated MkII and
> Sean's pretty Mars Wolfie to the pack (and my son in Denny's Mazda), Denny
> and I were planning to drag race our regular CSCS series races, and Drew
> was all teched in to time trial Carrots. Not to be, the mist started and
> thickened into full blown rain, cancelling quarter mile action for the day.
> Lapping continued unabated! Jason pushed the Porsche to the edge of
> traction and off the edge of the track in controlled graceful sweeping high
> speed ballet moves, Ben zoomed past everyone and everything making it look
> so damned easy, MkI Mark owned the track with some heavy oil-sucking fog
> action early on, Sean proved that two wheels are not just for motorcycles,
> and Meredith steamed around the track. Adam, well, he was driving the 
> Mazda, so enough said, And Daun took me for a ride part way throught eh
> day, and I was sure he'd done some track time. Drew bought ten laps and
> went out when the skies opened, and stayed till a phone call brought him
> in, Carrots was doin' jusy fine. I took Klaus out for ten laps late in the
> day, and had fun, so pretty well everyone got a chance to kill rubber and
> pads. Jason said he put 150 kms on his car, and had spent a bit of seat
> time in Meredith's and Ben's cars, so there was lots of track time.
> 
> Tech stuff? Daun's car ditched a starter bolt, Mark's car needed some oil
> drained out, and Sean's car decided that it really didn't need that nasty
> front hub nut after all (ouch). Otherwise, there were smiles all around! I
> also scored a ride with Meredith, and with a race prepped Subaru (in the
> rain, OMG, AWD rocks!) Saturday night we had pizza and beer and videos
> courtesy of Anson, who rode down with  Andy.
> Sunday, George showed up part way throught he day, and by late in today,
> here I am......just Daun remains.
> Anyway, you missed it if you weren't here, we had a blast!!!! Thanks to all
> who came, it was great to see all of you!
> I can do it again in October, so LMK if there's interest eh?
> Cathy
> 
> 
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