Final Winter Driver Training - Sunday March 15

[Reijo]

Please spread the word around that there is plenty of room in the last one.

The morning classroom starts at 8 am at the Day's Inn in Cochrane and then the training on the lake at about 9:30 am.

With the recent cold spell, we have over 2' of ice  so we should be good even if we get some significant Chinook between now and then ...

Registration is available like usual at Motorsportreg.com - just look for SASC and you will see the membership and the March 15th event available to sign up.

Cheers!

Reijo

[Reijo]

Ice was dry and about 25" thk this morning!  Will check later this week again .... 7 students that I know of at this time.

Anyone else interested n coming out you know of?

Sign up on Motorsportreg.com ... just search for SASC.

R

[E6Cueman]

Nice to see it still so thick!

[Midnightsky]

Its been getting pretty warm during the day these past 2 days, I hope it does not affect the ice too much before the weekend.  Seems like the warm weather would affect the overall ice integrity so we should ensure on the morning of the final class that we drill extensively around and in the middle of all exercise areas, just to be sure.  We should also think about how the ice might have thinned out right around the island where the bathroom is.  Will it be safe to park near the island? I know I have also seen the odd student or instructor stop near the edge by the train tracks, will that be safe? 

Just a couple things we should double check for everyone's safety.

[94boosted]

So is the school still going on tomorrow? How many students/instructors?

[Reijo]

There were 5 signed up and 2 others intending on showing up whom I know of.  However I was just out at Ghost Lake a short while ago and I have some concerns despite the ice being 2' thick ... see the FB page for photos.  There were a couple of trailers parked on the ice near the ramp and appeared to be ok ... say the weight of a small car.  I drove on the lake with no drama on Wednesday ... and when I drilled down on Wed. I hit some free water in the hold at about 8"+ depth.  Today I hit water  almost immediately - less than 4" depth.  That says to me the ice is "rotting" ... and may be much weaker than 2' thickness of "blue" ice.   It is like a mass of floating loose crystals underneath it seems so I am leary of going out there.
Just reading up on ice types in an ice engineering manual ... stay tuned.

R

[Reijo]

 Here's some reading material on "candled" ice and cobblestone ice (this is very rare and is what we have at Ghost Lake right now). http://lakeice.squarespace.com/cobblestone-ice/

I am suspecting that we have thick ice however a significant portion is, or nearly is, candled ice http://lakeice.squarespace.com/candled-ice/). So having read through the article noted and recognizing that a substantial portion of our "thick" ice is candled ice, the strength is significantly reduced and it is hard to predict exactly how much weight the ice will take. Caution is most certainly recommended in the above articles. Therefore in the interests of everyone and safety I recommend we cancel the Winter Driver Training this weekend.

Any further questions or thoughts?

Cheers!

Reijo

[Midnightsky]

I agree with Reijo, safety first.

[94boosted]

I also agree let's play it safe. Thanks for checking the ice thickness today Reijo.