The Adirondack Motor Enthusiasts Club held its first race of the season at Lake Algonquin in Wells, NY yesterday, and Noah, Chris, and I were on hand to compete. Because only part of the lake had frozen sufficiently, we were competing on a very short 7/10 mile course. Throughout the day race officials had to slightly modify the course because puddles and slush were making parts of the track undrivable. But I’ll leave further comments on the course and the driving to Noah, whose path to motorsports fame began yesterday with a top-10 finish in his very first ice race. In fact, Noah and I are currently 8th and 9th.

Many of the entrants in the Street Legal and Modified groups were veterans, but there were also a number of new Street Legal cars—nearly 30 in total. 30 cars on a course less than a mile long is crowded, to say the least, but bunching wasn’t as much of a problem as I thought it might be. One issue we did have, however, was finding opportunities to pass. Straights were very short—nothing like the long straights last year, where I was seeing 80mph—so there was a lot of tight passing in corners.

To our Boston- and New York-area readers: If you’re interested in doing (or just watching) some ice racing, look through the rules and schedule at icerace.com or email me at clint.fralick@pansypatrol.com for more information. All you need to race in SL are snow tires, a fire extinguisher, and some numbers. Membership is 20 bucks and race fees are 45. Some combination of us will be there for every race this season, and we’d love to meet some readers.

Check out our gallery of photos from the races.