February 11, 2021

from the dark room at the super secret hideout of the OGW.

 

Photos, videos, stories…. where would the Maxima Racing Oil Canada Heads Up Series presented by Speedwire Systems, the RPM Magazine Smackdown5 powered by Maxima Racing Oil and RM Racing Lubricants and the rest of the IHRP schedule be without our photographers, videographers, magazines, online videos, social media posts and advertisement of all sorts? This is not a question i even want to answer… however, i do know we are blessed to be partnered with a whole group of great media outlet players that continually help us to extend our reach to our fans, spectators, racers and supporters.

We are pleased to announce our 2021 lead photographer Blake Farnan Photography. Blake has been attending our events steadily for the last few years and when long time series supporter Jessie Sharp let us know she might not be available to continue to come shoot at all of our races we asked Blake if he would lock in! Blake’s photos are common place on social media starting the Monday morning after each event. Blake’s pics have been featured in our post race Smackdown event article in RPM Magazine, he is one the photographers used by RPM Magazine for Ian Hill’s annual Top Ten features as well his pics of our series have been published in Inside Track. New for 2021 – Blake and Ian will be teaming up to get Canada Heads Up – Shootout Series some monthly article space in Inside track. We will be putting in our post event results as well are working on putting together some racer/ car features for the Magazine

Also confirmed for our 2021 season is the return of Pro Tree Videos. Ben G’s videos are over the top in quality and content. Follow Pro Tree Videos on his YouTube channel as well on Facebook. Pro Tree Videos have confirmed they will again be following our entire schedule of event for 2021 and we are proud to announce that we (IHRP) have stepped up to support their efforts as one of their video sponsors for the season. Ben has let us know he has a few tricks up his sleeve for 2021 with the addition of trying out a new feature which will record the announcers during our events so they can be over-laid onto the video they release post event! As well we are looking to partner with Pro Tree Videos to see if there’s a possibility to add in some end-of-track interviews! 

RPM Magazine is back on board for the RPM Magazine Smackdown5 … powered by Maxima Racing Oil brought to you by RM Racing Lubricants. RPM Magazine, IHRP’s long running partner will once again have a large presence at the Smackdown5, present the event with a great post event article, offer racer features and space for our event flyers and to our event supporters and attend in their vendor spot.

Bruce Biegler’s Dragracecanada.com continues their off season articles and will be back out to our events to offer their own brand of event reporting! Follow Dragracecanada.com on the web and Facebook. Check out their CHU and others event photo galleries at LoudMusicLoudCars.com

All these great media outlets will be accompanied by the following excellent photographers, who are as equally passionate about photography and promotion of local drag racing and we look forward to supporting them throughout the season by seeing our racers liking, sharing and purchasing their favorite photos, videos and subscriptions:

Jessie Sharp Photgraphy

5252RPM.com – Alex Rocheleau

Wicked Photography – Corey Vandersanden

CMSports – Dwayne Young

Alyssa Reddick Photography

John Brown Photography

Mark Ackert

Brennan Shortall

 

February 8, 2021

Ian Hill Racing Productions (IHRP) is proud to announce the return of Rich Matthie’s RM Racing Lubricants as a complete Schedule – Marketing Partner. RM Racing Lubricant returns as the Co-“Powered By” sponsor of the RPM Magazine Smackdown5… powered by Maxima Racing Oil, brought to you by RM Racing Lubricants. RM Racing Lubricants will also be a big part of the Canada heads Up – Shootout Series again for 2021.

Rich will have his vendor booth set up at all IHRP scheduled events for this year. CHU, SD5, Northern No Prep Nationals and the Small Tire Shootout will competitors will find Rich and his tent in his familiar spot straight in from the main gate! As well, Rich will continue volunteering for the series events assisting our racers getting in their pairings at the top of the staging lanes as he did in our 2020 season.

Check out RM Racing Lubricants Facebook page for information on where he will be throughout the 2021 season!

 

RM Racing Lubricants is the Canadian Master Distributor for Maxima Racing Oil and heavily involved in local motorsports promotion and marketing.

February 2, 2021

The race season ahead has never looked better, neither have our logos!!! Ian Hill Racing Productions (IHRP) is proud to announce the signing of Maxima Racing Oils, Speedwire Systems and RPM Magazine as our presenting marketing partners for the 2021 season. Maxima Racing Oil will co-present the Canada Heads Up series with Speedwire Systems from Toronto Ontario. Maxima Racing Oil will also be continuing their “powered by…” partnership with the RPM Magazine Smackdown5 and continue to be brought to you locally by RM Racing Lubricants. Speedwire Systems is our co-presenting partner of the Canada Heads Up series and will be an associate partner for the RPM Magazine Smackdown5, our first Northern No Prep Nationals and the Fall Small Tire Shootout. RPM Magazine, IHRP’s longest running marketing partner returns to present the RPM Magazine Smackdown5. These 3 great companies have come together to help take the IHRP brand of events to the next level. At the same time, IHRP will create a brand awareness campaign for each of Maxima Racing Oil, Speedwire Systems and RPM Magazine in conjunction with our marketing efforts. Keep watching our social media for our Sponsor- Highlight campaign which starts this month!

“The Maxima Racing Oil – CANADA HEADS UP SERIES – presented by Speedwire Systems competitors have proven themselves as truly loyal racers. I have never met such a great bunch of racers that continually open their pits, their race programs and are just generally willing to consider new products and systems from those companies that partner with us. I am sure 2021 will be no different. As racers are in the mist of updating their cars, trucks, bikes, juniors… we hope you will always consider our marketing partners first! A simple call asking for a quote goes a long way, to starting a great technical conversation about the product you are looking for information on All three of these great companies – Maxima Racing Oil, Speedwire Systems and RPM Magazine are ready to answer your questions and to support your racing addiction with the best products in their field!” – Ian Hill, Director

 

 

Maxima Racing Oil Canada Heads Up – Shootout Series, presented by Speedwire Systems –

As the series moves into our 3rd season, we are seeing a ton of excitement with our following online. Month after month we are seeing continual gains in the reach of our social media posts, which are now reaching well over 20,000 people, are exceed over 15,000 engagements and we are now regularly seeing over 100 new page likes (on average over the last 28 days analytics – from the last 6 months). We are expecting growth in our entry numbers this year, and not only by our latest additions: Pro10five, King of the Streets bike class, some new indexes and a enhanced Jr Dragster program. We are seeing a ton of interest in the Super Street, EZ Street, Crazy8s and the 6.50 class also!

 

 

 

RPM Magazine Smackdown5 …powered by Maxima Racing Oil –

2020’s event was by far the largest single event weekend in the history of IHRP, with 574 tech cards sold over 4 days. This year the Smackdown will be run as a standalone event and we are working on some great surprise additions to the weekend.

The staple classes will return – Outlaw, Limited28s, King of the Street – Bikes, Stock Wheel Base Bikes, and Real Street. As always, we will add some Sportsman classes and will again be offering 2 full days of testing prior to the event! We look forward to increasing our vendor attendance, and if allowed our spectator admittance.

 

Follow our efforts online on the Canada Heads Up and Ontario Grudge Wars FB pages or visit our web site at ianhillracing.com for our rules and event information.

December 17, 2020

From the far depths of the basement at the super secret hideout of the CHU.

 

Canada Heads Up brass is proud to announce our newly added class for 2021 -Pro10five. When news of the now defunct Cecil County Outlaw10.5 class flooded the internet, many rumors and stories seemed to be hitting the net daily. Shortly thereafter came the announcement that Pro275 would be adopted to take over the once extremely popular 10.5 Slick tired class. With no less than 10 Ontario local racers affected by the news, the CHU started discussions with some the biggest names in the class, north of the boarder. 

“We spent hours, literally hours on end, trying to come up with the best solution for the racers that were now parked, with no where to go. The adaptation of Pro275 by Cecil opened up another element to the the discussion – track prep! Could we offer safe track prep if we were to adopt the Pro275 rules? This and so many other questions were asked and discussed over the last number of weeks that would make your head spin. In the end we decided what was best, on average, for our local events would be to adopt the 275 rule set, but allow 10.5s and 315s. This would allow the racers that are comfortable on slicks, to continue running slicks; guys running radials or wanting to test on radials, assuming the border will open some day, would have a place to do so. CHU modified the rules slightly, came up with a cool name and Jim Mcharg, again came up with a great logo!” – Canada Heads Up Director – Ian Hill

Pro10five will run on a 4 race series, with the competitors top 3 finishes counting towards their points run. Pro10five racers will also have the opportunity to compete at the RPM Magazine Smackdown5 in July and at the Canada Heads Up series opener in June as a non-points/ warm up race.

With some of the biggest names in Ontario considering tighting up the valve lash on their parked cars we know 2021 will be off the chain with this newly added class. Fans of the once popular class look forward to seeing the likes of Ricky Carlos, Tony Presto, Dave Archer, Phil Sliskovic (Team68), Nick Agostino, Bret Stien and a host of others as they announce their 2021 intensions, filling the lanes in the wild Pro10five class this summer!

It wont be long until we start hearing the Americans start to wish the borders were open so they could attend the IHRP schedule of races!

 

 

Dec 2, 2020

Ian Hill Racing Productions (IHRP) is pleased to announce our reinstated partnership with Toronto Motorsports Park for 2021. Canada Heads Up – Street Car Shootout Series has shown continued growth throughout the last two seasons and we couldn’t be more excited to bring our brand of racing back to TMP! As Canada Heads Up prepares for next season, excitement is in the air over the news of surface updates being completed in the off season, again, by both tracks that the series will be attending in the up coming season (St. Thomas Dragway and TMP).

Next season, with only one series to race with, Street Car Shootout competitors will compete chasing points over our 6 race schedule, but only counting their top 5 outings. “We know our racers love drag racing, but we also respect their love for weekends with their families. The single race-points-drop will help racers stay focused on the Championship even if issues at home or their race car arise”, Ian Hill – IHRP Director

Race dates for the highly anticipated 2021 Canada Heads UP – Street Car Shootout Series are as follows: June 5-6 St. Thomas Dragway (STT), June 25-26 Toronto Motorsports Park (TMP), July 10-11 TMP, Aug 14-15 STT, Sept 11-12 TMP and the series finals Sept 25-26 STT. Also on the IHRP schedule for 2021 is the RPM Magazine Smackdown5 July 24-25 at STT and the Oct Small Tire Shootout STT.

CHU series Pro Category classes will include all the regular classes from the last 2 years plus a few more…. Super Street, EZ Street, 235Outlaws, Street275, Street Bike, 8.80Extreme Bike, Wicked6.5 and Jr Dragster will see the addition of a 5.50 index, 6.0 index and one more Bike class.

“As we head into our 9th year of being involved in presenting races, we are more focused than ever. IHRP are planning to bringing the same structured and consistent Street Car Shootout series events that includes a well organized race day, that follows a consistent pattern. Canada Heads Up’s 3rd year will continue to show growth in car count and what we are able to offer our fans, racers and marketing partners” – Ian Hill,  IHRP director

 

 

from the offices of the criminally challenged and mentally intrigued at the super secret hideout of Canada Heads Up!

Nov 30, 2020

Who would have ever thought that during the season, so drastically affected by a pandemic we could have had such a great 2020 series. We saw restrictions and rules that had us wearing masks in out spaces, restrictions on spectators, crew members and family numbers at the track. Yet, through all this our local track continued to stay open and allow us to move forward with our efforts that gained some much traction in 2019.

Fast forward to the end of the year, Covid continues to affect us as we are still waiting on our artwork for our year champions plaques! As always 100% of the moneys raised through membership fees will be paid back to our champions and 2nd place finishers in the classes we collected membership fees from, as well first place will get a memorable “trophy” for their efforts!

As we wait for all these items to come together we cant just sit back and relax as 2021 will be upon us before we even know it! As such, one of the items that the Board of Directors found as an item to be better dealt with was our efforts on the 2 wheeled side of things! We have always had a great working relationship with most of the bike racers and our class advisers, but we felt we could do better, we needed someone that could focus on the bike classes and competitors. This sparked a great conversation and discussion with a few potential candidates. In the end we have picked someone we feel that will put forth an effort to aid us with everything from class promotion through to race day assistance based on her shear love of the sport.

 

Canada Heads Up welcomes Tanya Teetzel on as our Bike Rep for 2021. Tanya’s main roll will be to ensure the proper focus is given to the bike competitors, your requests are dealt with in a reasonable amount of time, helping us maintain rules parity and Bike Class promotion and supporting Marketing Partnerships.

Welcome Tanya, we look forward to working with you!

As always, if you have any questions you’d like to direct to Canada Heads Up, please use the contact us page on the website, or through Messenger and we will forward your comments and questions to the correct party!

Oct 23, 2020

From the communications office of the super secret hideout of IHRP

After what was easily the best year of Heads Up Street Car Class racing the Southern Ontario drag racing community has seen in years, Ian Hill Racing Productions (IHRP) has put together a great plan for 2021, and together with the Owners of St. Thomas Dragway have come up with an expanded schedule for next season. 2021 will see a 4 race Canada Heads Up series and our signature event going back to its stand-alone weekend format.

 

IHRP events are usually not on long weekends. With so many different series and Holiday long weekend-events to choose from, IHRP has kept the events focused on regular weekends again for 2021. This year, 3 of our Heads Up Series races will take place at St. Thomas Dragway (STT)and one (July) race will be held at Grand Bend Motorplex (GBM). The 5th annual RPM Magazine Smackdown event will again be held at STT on the July 24th weekend.

 

” the management at STT were great to work with this season. Together with the track managment and staff we were able to learn, work together and grow into a stronger association. When Paul approached us with a proposed schedule for 2021… in mid October, i almost fell off my chair! Once again proving to us that these guys really know how to deal with their customers!”, Ian Hill – IHRP Director. “Announcing our dates so early will allow our racers to book their time off accordingly and allow us to work with our sister organizations for dates so our racers have as many options to race as they can fit in for next season!” 

 

Its hard to focus on 2021 already, as IHRP is still working to finalize their 2020 season supported by Maxima Racing Oil and RM Racing Lubricants. Year end awards and payouts are still yet to be handed out and celebrations are still uncertain with the COVID restrictions, but as can be expected, the Board and volunteers at IHRP will finish the year off in style!

 

2020 IHRP

 Canada Heads Up – Maxima Racing Oil Heads Up Street Car Shootout Series

 

The rubber dust and smoke has settled, the sweet smell of race gas and the eye watering alcohol fumes are gone, but the sound… the roar of the big inch Nitrous powered, Super Charged, Pro Charged and Turbocharged entries that came out to race in our series this season will be with me for months to come!

What started out looking like an amazing season with our new marketing partners Maxima Racing Oil and RM Racing Lubricants in place for what was sure to be another successful series in the coming months, was quickly sent to the noose with the arrival of Covid and the rules that would be put in place that nearly suffocated our 2020 efforts. By the time the season was set to get started, with the updates being finished by our 2020 home track, the momentum we expected earlier in the year was right back with us!

We were ecstatic that our Pro Categories were filled with 96 entries at race 1. Race 2 Pro Category entries dipped to 80 during the rain filled weekend which saw Sunday’s eliminations cancelled due to weather. Our 3rd and final weekend saw 102 Pro Category entries through the gate! Of course, all 3 race weekends were also home to many Pro, Super Pro and Bikes&Sleds entries, all making 2020 easily our biggest year ever for entries!

Maxima Racing Oil series points were awarded to each Pro Category racer in 8.80Extreme Bikes, EZ Street, Street Bike, Super Street, 235Outlaws, Street275, Wicked 6.50 and Jr Dragster competition. Attendance point, Round win points, Elimination Champion points and Record ET points were handed out in each Pro Class.

Class                    Champion                            2nd Place

Super Street         Nick Agostino                       Pano Moros

EZ Street              Anthony Daversa                  Matt Glassford

235Outlaws           Corrado Lentinello                Tyler Kranendonk

Street Bike            Nick Kempers                       Damian Tang

Street275              E.J Gouveia                          Jason White

8.80Extreme Bike   Landon Swain                       Karen Hope

Wicked6.50            Jay Lightheart                       Austin Ward

Jr Dragster Champion – Arnold Fox

 

We saw records fall in almost every class. Nick Agostino set the bar for low et and high mile in Super Street with a 4.33 et and 185.05. EZ Street saw the mph record get reset by Adam Bastarache with a 160.30 mph. 235Outlaws hitter Corrado Lentinello made history being the first to the 4s in Ontario and set the current small tire record at 4.96 et and 146.89mph. Street275 records now belong to Jomama with a 5.5020 et and Mac Goblin and his 135.09mph run. Wicked6.50 records were set by Eric- green-bastard-Webber with a dead on 6.500 @ 115.40. On the bike side of things we saw some amazing numbers posted this year, both in the heads up and index classes. Street Bike record now sits with Mickey Dinoo and his 161.44mph, while only one end of the 8.80 Extreme record was reset! Murray Lonsbury now holds the et side with an 8.806. All et records are kept to the fourth decimal place and both ET and MPH records are required to be backed up at the same event within 1% to be certified.

While we can not host a year end banquet our champions will be celebrated with Champions trophies, prizes and cash, collected through membership fees at the beginning of the year.

As always, check out the sponsors lists we have posted on our website and try to use these companies as you perform your winter upgrades. We give another special thank you to our series partner Maxima Racing Oil and RM Racing Lubricants.

 

Points lists can be found on our website as well the Canada Heads Up FB page

September 4, 2020

Press Release – Ross Racing Pistons

Ian Hill Racing Productions welcomes Ross Racing Pistons to our family of marketing partners. Ross Racing Pistons is one of the last family owed and operated piston manufacturers and are proud of their level of experience and customer support. Since 1979 Ross Racing Pistons has been a leader in manufacturing the most advanced forged pistons in the racing industry.

 

The Ross Racing Pistons Outlaw class will be run during the RPM Magazine Smackdown4 powered by Maxima Racing Oil and RM Racing Lubrication, as well Ross Racing Pistons will be supporting the Super Street Class of the Canada Heads Up – street car shootout series. Please visit Ross Racing Pistons and see whats new, visit their Facebook page here!

Local sales representative Barry Dwyer will be on hand during the September 26/27 2020 event weekend at St. Thomas Dragway, with his Ross Racing Piston vendor/ display booth. Please make sure to stop in, say hi, thank them for their support of our event and see what goodies Ross can offer you for your combo! 

 

“We are proud to have Ross Racing Pistons join us in our drive to show continual growth and improvement through our efforts of drag racing promotion and event hosting, which we measure through our valued racer’s feedback and event attendance”, IHRP director – Ian Hill. 

 

Race 1 – July 24-26, 2020

 

Race Review

To call this past race weekend a success is an understatement. The Pits at ST. Thomas Dragway were so full, we had racers pitting on the East side of the track.  As far as entries go, how about 341 entries for our 3 day event!?!?!?! Add in at least another 200 Friday night test and tune entries, that at time near crimpled the return road, and this was a race for the history books as it was clearly the most entries we’ve ever had at a Ian Hill Racing Productions event.

Canada Heads Up – powered by Maxima Racing Oil race weekend #1 was set o be a hot one. Track prep gurus Corey Herman (GBM) and Mike Vanni (TMP) came together to help us make the best of the track in temperatures that peaked at 146 degrees! Friday’s test session was well attended and as usual, by mid-day the track started to come around. While many of the Super Street and EZ Street competitors were killing he tire at the 20-70 foot mark, some of the 235Outlaws guys were showing that the starting line was right where they needed it to be get down on the smallest head up tire size on property! Traction was at a premium for race promoter Ian Hill’s Grey Area as he drove under a huge wheelie, lifting all 4 tires off the track at about the 105ft mark. Friday at 5 the test session was over, the bbq’s were lit and the TnT entries started to trickle in! All the race teams got back to the trailer to service their hot rods for Saturdays start to race 1!

By early Saturday morning we could see that we had ourselves on serious race on our hands. Not only were the Sportsman pits looking like they may well over flow, the bike pit area was wrapping around the East side of the track! The Heads-Up classes were highlighted by the rumor that 12 Super Street legal cars were on the property. Early reports from Canada Heads Up tech guy – Greg Miller confirmed “their were a ton of Super Street Cars!”… By the time Q1 (first qualifier) was called the rumors were confirmed – 12 Super Street cars had shown up to join our 2020 points series! There was every horse power  combination from a Naturally Aspirated x-Pro Stock, big inch nitrous, big block Procharger, Roots Super Charger and Twin Turbo combos for a full rounded out field.

Race Day brought to you by Speedwire

Super Street –12 entries showed up for qualifying, the first time in 15 years the class has seen double digit entries! Nick Agostino set a new Canada Heads Up record in route to the #1 qualifier position @ 4.38 et (Nick uses Maxima Racing Oil)! Nick went all the way to the finals to win the event against ex-pro stock racer Tony Pontiere in a wicked close finish! The two cars in the finals couldn’t be more different in their combos; Nick running heavy in his 69 camaro (regularly races Pro275)with an extremely large Small Block (4.600 bore space) twin turbos and a 2 speed transmission, while in the other lane Tony’s x-pro stock (regularly ran Outlaw10.5) Cavalier runs ultra light with a 572 cubic inch naturally aspirated/ liberty 5 speed combination.

Our Street Bike class was dominated ET wise once again by Randy Hope running a string of low 9 second runs, however it was Nick Kempers that took the win!

EZ Street’s Anthony Daversa met up with Matt Glassford for the third straight final round. This time it was Anthony Daversa that took the win! Great to note was to see regular No Time competitor Nick Kokkas come step it up to run in EZ Street and make his first run in the 4 second zone.

235Outlaws star Corrado Lentinello and his trusted blue fox body Mustang nailed the number 1 spot again, and lowered the current record while on his way there! The previous record was smashed, from 5.28 down to 5.19. This only because he didn’t back up his 5.10 et run! Corrado took out Dean Carmine in the finals.

The rest of our winners were:

Street275 – EJ Gouveir

Wicked 6.50 Craig Degouw

Extreme 8.80 Bike – Karen Hope

Saturdays Sportsman class winners:

Pro – Drew Buchner

Super Pro – Joe Passero

Bikes and Sleds – Landon Swain

Jr Drgaster – Kami Scott

                (Consi – Kate Gingerich)

 

Sundays:

Pro – Cliff Knechtel

Super Pro – Wyatt Henderson

Bikes and Sleds – Murray Lonsbury

Jr Dragster – Arnold Fox

                (Consi – Austin Vermeulen)

 

End of year – Agostino/ Zarcone bonus – $500 goes to each of the quickest ET over the 3 race series. So far your current low et holders are:

EZ- Boost: Canadian Dave 5.23

EZ Nitrous: Anthony Daversa 4.95

SS- Boost: Nick Agostino 4.38

SS-Nitrous: Pano Moros 4.55

 

Records were set, from the amount of entries to the performance on the track! For our first event being run with the new management of St Thomas Dragway we believe the weekend was a big hit and we cant wait to head back there for race 2 of the Canada Heads Up – Street Car Shootout Series powered by Maxima Racing Oil Aug 14-16, 2020!

 

Thank you, again for all your support in 2020!

Ian Hill

Director – Canada Heads Up