Maybe this weekend was a bit of a turn in luck, because we finihsed. But it defiantly didn’t turn full circle. First I’ll start off with a little background, because I wasn’t able to make any blog posts this race weekend. Mosport is a very fast and difficult track. It is notorious for being scary and dangerous. People always say that they don’t build tracks like this anymore, and they don’t. They are many very fast corners with no room for mistakes, a mistake at over 100 mph downhill will put the car into the wall hard. So, people that don’t have a lot of experience here are definitely at a disadvantage. I was teamed up with Taz Harvey again for this race, and neither of us had been here in a few years. But we both know what this track is all about, and have a healthy respect for it.

It started off pretty well in the morning of the first day. I was fifth quickest in the first of three sessions that day. The car was pretty good, but I knew it wasn’t perfect and that we could make it better. So we started making changes that seemed logical, but we were going in the wrong direction. By the last session that day we were running lap times 2 seconds slower than previous, while most everyone else was getting a little faster.

On Saturday we had two practice sessions and we knew we had to make up for lost time. So we went closer to what we had started out with the day before, but this time in the right direction. This practice was cut short due to two different people wrecking cars, so I only got one lap in the car. I could tell we had finally started getting the setup right, but the car really needed some major changes, but we didn’t have the time or parts we needed to try some things out. So, we decided we would settle on what we had, and just try to make it a little better in the last practice session. So, Taz went out first again and he was still very unhappy with the car. The car was not fitting his driving style at all, while I thought it was very manageable. But, since I was finishing the race we decided that it was more important to have the car fit me so that I could make a charge at the end. Anyway, I went out for the final practice with the same setup from the morning planning on making changes throughout the session, but before I had the chance to do anything else another car stuffed it into the wall and the session was canceled. So, there we were with a car almost identical to the way it rolled off the trailer at the beginning of the weekend with almost nothing accomplished and it was time for the race.

Qualifying and the race were both on Sunday morning, with only an hour separating the two. When that happens everyone is more aware of the importance of not hurting the car is qualifying, because of the lack of time to fix anything. So Taz went out with the mindset of being a little conservative, because he was so unhappy with how the car was handling. He did 1 lap got a qualifying time and going into turn 3 (which he was complaining about how the car was handling there all weekend) he lost it and stuffed it straight into the wall. I just did a little looking on the internet and found 2 great pictures where someone caught this happening. So, here ya go..

Well needless to say I was a bit disappointed. Taz was able to drive it back to the pits though, and the guys started working immediately. There was still 10 minutes left in the 15 minute qualifying when they started working. I could go into all the stuff that was messed up, but I won’t. it was very disheartening looking at this car and thinking that it would make it through a 2 and a half hour race was a bit of a stretch. Anyway, the guys did as much as they could to get the car ready, but they just didn’t have time to do most of the stuff that needed to be done. So when it was time to line up for the race they were still feverishly working. They did a quick alignment on the front wheels and Taz had to head to the grid.

If Taz didn’t like the handling of the car before, now he was really uncomfortable. He told me afterwards that he had never driven a race so conservatively in his life. The car was outright scary. Taz was able to keep the car right around 10th just trying to keep the car alive. He actually did a perfect job of nursing the car around until around 40 minutes into it when a car wrecked and a full course caution came out. The crew chief made the call and I jumped in to finish off the race. They gave me two new front tires filled up the tank and sent me out. Our car was not going to be able to make it to the end of the race, so I knew I would have to do another stop. All I could do was drive the thing and hope for the best. I got into a little scrap right off the bat and drafting behind a car down the long back straightaway a large warning light popped up on the display. I checked the vitals and sure enough the engine temperature was over 220 degrees! I quickly radioed in with the news, and that I wasn’t going to be able to do anymore drafting. The crew chief told me that if it saw 230 we would have to park the car because it would blow up very soon after that. So I’m driving around a car who’s front end doesn’t line up with the rear, the whole front end is held together with zip ties and duct tape, and now the bent radiator is not flowing properly and causing the car to overhead. What this means is that the car is handling like a nightmare in the turns, has horrible aerodynamics on the straights, and I can no longer draft people to help me pass. I didn’t even want to ask what position I was in all day, I was just driving around trying to pass whenever I could, and avoid being passed whenever I could.

Well, once again the blog has gotten extremely long. So I’ll sum it up now. It was a frustrating day with a couple bits of excitement. I had one near death experience (that’s a joke) when I went off in 2 and slid the car sideways for about 200 yards over 100 mph (it’s a fifth gear turn) just feet from the track and the wall. Then when trying to pass a buddy of mine he was being defensive and drove me off the track at top speed on the straightaway, that was a little exciting, but I got the pass done. I attempted my first pass on the outside of another 5th gear turn and got it done, later in the race it didn’t work when I tried it. Then on the last lap I passed Guy Cosmo to claim 5th place (I had no clue it was for 5th for all I knew it was 11th).

I was glad to hear we finished 5th, but I was definitely disappointed because I know we could have had a podium if the car was in 1 piece. Here are a couple of pictures from after the race, the one is a picture someone took of the car at tech afterwards, and the other is one I took on my phone. The car looked much worse in person, you just can’t see all that was wrong with it in the pictures. What a mess it was. Hopefully they can get everything straightened out for next week in Ohio.