Father's Day at Mosport

Mosport held the "Father's Day Double Header" meeting from 14-15 June. In truth, it was more like a quadruple header with the Canadian Tire NASCAR series running the Dickies 200 miler, Grand Am Koni Challenge racing for 2.5 hours on Saturday, the Mustang Challenge series visiting from the US to race on the Sunday and the Castrol Canadian Touring Car Championships racing on both Saturday and Sunday. The Skip Barber series also skipped (feel free to groan) across the border to race. The Ontario Formula Ford Championship didn't want to feel left out, so they also held a round.

Grand Am Koni Challenge

The Koni Challenge race on produced some good professional racing with some beautifully turned out cars, including a nice nod to a dad.

(Click images to see full 800px wide version)

Results for the Grand Sport class (and the overall positions) were:
1. Foster / Maxwell - Hyper Sport / Ford Mustang GT
2 Canney / Plumb - Rehagen Racing / Ford Mustang GT
3 Johnson / Milner - Motorsport Technology Group / BMW Z4 M

While the Street Tuner class results were:
1 Curran / Holtom - Georgian Bay Motorsports / Chevrolet Cobalt SS (pictured above)
2 Hemmingson / Skavnes - ICY/ Phoenix Racing / Subaru Legacy 81 1:34.786 77 79.993 Subaru of America
3 Beede / Plumb - Bill Fenton Motorsports / Honda Civic SI

Mustang Challenge for the Miller Cup

The latter part of the Mustang Challenge (aka Miller Cup) race was marred by a crash that left a lot of fluid on the track. This led to a lot of quick dry being spread about and when, after a long safety car period racing resumed the result was:

The racing came to a halt after about two laps through that. However, I should add that the racing prior to that had been terrific, that this was I believe their first crash of the weekend, and that the race was very probably scheduled to end about then anyway. It's an interesting spec series and not the worst I've seen. You can find out more about the series at the Miller Cup website.

Results:
1. Andrew Caddell - TC Motorsports
2. Pratt Cole - RP Motorsports
3. Tony Buffomante - Team BRE

Canadian Tire NASCAR Series

A storm built up during the Canadian Tire Nascar Series, Dickies 200 race on the Sunday:

But, they ran in the rain, admittedly with a certain amount of difficulty:



Race results:
1. J.R. Fitzpatrick - Fitzpatrick Motorsports Chevrolet
2. D.J. Kennington - Castrol/NPP Dodge
3. Don Thomson, Jr. - Home Hardware Chevrolet

Complete results are here.

Castrol Canadian Touring Car Championship

While the Castrol Canadian Touring Car Championship ran races on both days:



Although Nicholas Krikorian may have watched the Mustang race and thought rallying his Subaru was a fine idea:



Sunday's race results:
Super Touring
1. Nigel Krikorian - Subaru
2. Kuno Wittmer - Honda
3. Etienne Borgeat - BMW

Touring
1. Andre Rapone - Acura
2. Christian Raymond - Mazda
3. Eric Leblanc - Mazda

Full results are here for Saturday's race and here for Sunday.

It was a weekend of great racing in perfect surroundings! The complete set of images can be seen at http://www.competitionimages.com/mosport_14-15jun08.html

Neil

Shannonville - The Day that almost Rained

Firstly, I should start off by saying that in my last blog, I might have sounded more negative about the Calabogie track and its facilities than intended. The track is a great track, but it is comparatively new and clearly a work-in-progress. Done correctly, it has the potential to become a superb facility.

Now, with that out of the way (Is that some kind of record? one blog, one mea culpa), the following week we went to the Sunday racing of the two day Shannonville Shootout meeting at the flat, twisty Shannonville Motorsports Park. Saturday's racing had been cut short by a deluge and a big accident during the first race of the round for the Castrol Canadian Touring Car Championship. Sunday shaped up as looking like it was going to rain most of the day, but surprisingly it held off all day, until the drive home.


With the first race of the touring cars not having been completed on Saturday, Sunday commenced with finishing that race. I spoke to interim leader, Nigel Krikorian, on the pregrid. Nigel desperately wanted more rain, "They'll eat me up if it doesn't rain!" However, maybe it was the still slightly damp track that worked in his favour, but Nigel and his Subaru STI held off the opposition for a fine win. He was not so lucky in the second race later on Sunday afternoon where an off meant he finished second.


Other classes also raced through the day, including the GT Sprint with the Corvette and Viper monsters. Formula 1200 and Formula 1600 also staged fine races. However, it must be said that one of the most interesting and exciting races came in the Group 70 class with the dicing for second and third between Del Bruce in his Porsche and Diane Dale in her 240Z. A fine struggle that lasted to the very end of the race.


All in all a great day's racing. The rest of the pictures can be seen at http://www.competitionimages.com/shannonville_1jun08.html

The following week was the Montreal GP where I put the camera away - one catch fence I can deal, but two; no way. Next report will be for the NASCAR Canadian Tire, Koni Grand Am Challenge, Castrol Canadian Touring Car Championship races at Mosport over the Father's Day weekend.

Neil