Come Rain or Shine….except the Rain

So as I mentioned last week, I was going to be headed to the PWC weekend at Mosport. It is a national holiday this weekend in Canada (long live Queen Victoria ) and also the official kick off of the motorsport calendar in the country. I am lucky, in that Mosport is an hour from where I live currently, so getting there is no problem at all.

That said, I was a bit late getting up, and got to the track on Saturday having JUST missed the PWC TC race. However, I caught up with Nick and Karl Wittmer at the podium celebration. What a great showing for Canada, with a Canadian Team winning, and Canadian drivers with Canadian teams filling out the rest of the podium. Oh Canada!

After the TC race was the first GTS race of the weekend, and I thought I’d catch the start from the Turn 2 bridge. It was a pretty awesome race to watch. I honestly thought the Ford Mustang GT4 was gonna win, having had some development between here and Calabogie near Ottawa. Instead I was treated to a brilliant victory by the Racer’s Edge SIN R1 GT4 of Jade Buford. Having watched the race from Turn 2, Turn 3 and Turn 4 getting a bunch of photos, it was a very productive morning.

Lunch time gave me a chance to go through the paddock and check out all the race cars. As of this writing, I haven’t yet processed those photos, but you will likely see them in future posts. One thing that I hadn’t realized is that both the M235iR and the RS3 TCR cars are both paddle shift, and the BMW still has most of the factory dashboard, even the LCD screen. I though it was a tad odd for a touring car to not have 3 pedals but nonetheless it was still awesome.

After lunch was the NASCAR Pinty’s Series practice, and having watched practice from the start straight (I ate my lunch and was going to stay there for the Sprint-X start), the cars this year have a spec engine in addition to the old engine formula. I think this is brilliant to have for this series. It’s expensive to develop your own engines, and this is a great way to bring the racing a little closer.

Finally, the best part of the weekend; PWC Sprint-X. I wanted redemption from last year. I was so excited for Sprint-X leading up to the weekend last year, and although the Sprint race was awesome, I really was hoping the new formula would have some great racing. Unforturnately, the race had a total of 7 cars…..so I decided to go home after the Sprint race and I watched the race on the series website.

Damn, the race was awesome. With so many cars on track at the same time, there was always a battle to watch. I watched the majority of the race from the start straight and then took a shuttle to the outside of the famous turn 2 to watch the last 20mins or so. I honestly thought Long and Bergmeister won the race, but I guess I missed something while on my way to turn 2 because Jordan Taylor and co. won the race by 50s. That is huge for only a one hour race at Mosport.

Next up was the absolutely amazing Nissan Micra Cup series. I’m sure most people know of the insane crash at Calabogie last year where 2-3 cars flipped over and half the field was taken out. I was hoping for some really close racing, but unfortunately…..we had another case of the flipping Micra’s. It happened down at the other end of the track from where I watched the race, but a car flipped over and caused a lengthy SC period. I think out of their 30min race, they were only racing for maybe 7mins. There was another safety car at the beginning of the race but it wasn’t nearly as bad. I rushed over to the paddock after the race to see how bad the damage was and to ask the team if the driver was ok, but they had the car tarped up by the time I whipped my phone out to get a quick pic. I did however, see the car, and it was pretty mangled.

Lastly and certainly least was the CTCC race. I learned that they let a Ferrari 458 (not a GT3 car, but I think a challenge car) into the GT class this year. A Ferrari….in a TOURING car championship. Sounds legit. Well done.

They certainly didn’t BOP it either, as it qualifed 3s ahead out of any other car in the field. It didn’t have that much pace during the race though. I’m not sure if the series attempted another go at slowing it down or it sandbagged during the race, but it wasn’t a 3s per lap quicker car. I loved Kwok’s Honda Civic TCR car ripping it up to a 3rd place finish. That car is just seriously cool. Partly because its the current Euro spec civic, which obviously isn’t sold in North America, but I love the TCR Class of cars. That and the Audi RS3 are the only ones I’ve seen in person, and I hope to see more in the future.

Now, I didn’t go to the track on Sunday because it was a sopping wet day. I’ve done wet and cold at Mosport before, and I don’t know how I didn’t get pneumonia either time. That being said, I would have only gone for the TC race, having missed it on Saturday and the Sprint-X race. I don’t particularly care for the Pinty’s series and after the catastrophe that was CTCC, I wasn’t going to wait till 5pm again to watch it.

Turns out, it was a great call on my part, because although the TC and GTS races went as scheduled, the Sprint-X race got cancelled due to heavy rain. CTCC which only went an hour after the PWC race’s originally scheduled time, was an absolute load of garbage. Half the competitors didn’t race. I wonder why…..

Well that’s it from me. I hope you enjoy the photos from Saturday!

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