Archives for September 2010

Canadian Karting league signs major sponsorship deal with Franczak Enterprises

September 30, 2010 by Gary Grant Leave a Comment

This past weekend at Inisfil Indy kart track, Canadian Karting League owner Russ Bond announced a huge development in the long term growth of the CKL. Bond and long time racer Chris Bye announced that Bye’s company Franczak Enterprises would be providing a sponsorship opportunity that is pretty much unheard of in the Arrive and Drive karting world.

Later this Fall, 10 carefully selected CKL drivers will test a Formula Vee prepared by Vallis Racing courtesy of Franczak. Beyond that, Franczak and Bye will sponsor one driver who competes in the 2011 CKL season by providing a fully funded Vee ride for the 2012 season.

What makes this announcement so unique is that this type of opportunity is rarely offered in the world of arrive and drive karting. Usually sponsored rides go to the folks who have competed and won at a National level. In most cases, these drivers are already well funded.

The beauty of arrive and drive is that when done properly, as Bond has done with the CKL, the competition comes first and evenly prepared karts ensure lots of close racing. Even more important is that a driver who is successful in low powered 4 cycle karts, which reward smoothness and consistency, is almost certain to succeed in a Formula Vee. In both cases, the low power threshold means that drivers must be very skilled at keeping their momentum up.
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Canadian Sport Compact Series draws to a close

September 29, 2010 by Jay Tomchuk 1 Comment

Cody Loughead hitting his stride on the final lap of the Drift event at CSCS 2010 Season Grand Finale

For those of you who have been reading about Drifting on the pro level in Canada you need to see what the amateur level has waiting in the wings.

Drifting, as Gary has explained in his articles, is a mix of racing and judging and therefore is becomes somewhat subjective. The good thing is that the crowd does have a lot of influence on how the judges score. If the result is too close to call you will very often see the judges throw the cars back in the ring for another set of runs if the crowd begins the chant “One More Time!”
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Early Aero part 2

September 24, 2010 by Leighton Irwin Leave a Comment

My last couple of articles have been on current Indy car female drivers but I will now revert to my long ago years in racing.

After I exploded my good Coventry Climax engine in 68 I tried to find a replacement. For quite a while no luck but finally a rather tired unit was found. In retrospect I should have probably changed to another make but I didn’t. By the time it was installed CASC had decided to change the Canadian Championship to Formula Cars which basically devalued any sports racer big time. It was a sore point as the drivers were not consulted. Although most of us were against the change it was in retrospect the correct decision. Anyway I decided to sell the Elva and did plan to buy a formula car, probably a Formula Ford. It took a while but the Elva did sell but after I paid off my debts I was still broke.
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2011 BMW 335i Cabriolet: A country cruising dream come true

September 22, 2010 by Gary Grant Leave a Comment

It seems like Fall has come early in Ontario this year. During the 3rd week of August, the family here in The Garage spent some time in cottage country and noticed that the leaves had already begun to change. On Sunday this past week, when I finished up shooting the Drift Mania event at Mosport, I decided that it was warm enough to drive home with the top down. I was in for a real treat.

Sliding behind the wheel of the 2011 BMW 335i Cabriolet, I belted up and reached down to the center console and depressed the button that brings us to open sky mode. All 4 power windows lower themselves and then the folding hardtop begins its Transformer act, as it disappears beneath the rear deck. A quick stab of the ignition button and the 300 horsepower, twin turbo 6 rumbles to life with that distinct straight 6 growl. I shift the automatic shifter over into manual mode and roll away gently in first. Pulling out of the track, I lay firmly into the throttle and the back end steps out a little before the stability control reigns it in a bit.
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Mosport DDT hosts Drift Mania

September 22, 2010 by Gary Grant 4 Comments

The Garage took in a different type of motorsports last weekend: Drifting. As the popularity of drifting has grown around the world, here in North America it has been a bit slower to catch on, at least among traditional racers. The problem seems to be that they don’t consider it to be real racing. Well, they are right, it isn’t racing. That is not to say that there isn’t a whole lot of cross over between the two sports.

Drift cars are pretty much race cars with funky alignment settings. All the safety bits we’ve come to expect on a race car are there on a drift car. Racers have been working to control the perfect drift angle since they started racing. Drifters look for the perfect drift angle too, it is just a little further out there.
Racing isn’t cheap and neither is drifting. In fact, keeping a drift car in top shape might even be more expensive than maintaining most race cars.
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Drift Mania comes to Mosport

September 17, 2010 by Gary Grant Leave a Comment

Drifting is to motorsports like figure skating is to the winter Olympics. It takes a heck of a lot of training, talent and ability yet the scores come from judges, not from the clock. For that reason, drifting has been frowned upon by many an old race fan who doesn’t see it as racing.

Sort of like when snowboarding came on the scene in the Eighties and many ski hills refused to allow boarders to ride at their facility. Eventually, the masses came to see that the two sports could exist alongside each other and the popularity of snowboarding exploded.

It is interesting then that today’s media drive event leading up to Sunday’s Drift Mania Canadian Championship round at Mosport should be conducted by one the of sports elder statesman. Far from being an elder, Claude Poirier is older than most drifters. In fact, Poirier was likely racing cars years before many of his competitors were even thought of. The DMCC driver has driven Formula Ford, Formula 2000, Players Challenge, Firehawk Series and even ice raced and yet his chosen form of motorsport these days is drifting. Why? Pretty simple really: FUN. Drift is the only form of motorsport where fun and passion reign over outright speed.
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What instructors really want to say to the Nightmare Track Day Student. NSFW

September 17, 2010 by Gary Grant Leave a Comment

A few months ago, we introduced you to that fellow we all know: the Nightmare track day student. That wonderful little creation detailed how the conversation often goes when instructors encounter an overly difficult student.

We all know the instructor in that case was on his best behavior. Now, thanks to the creative mind of youtube user blahblahblah55209 we can hear what he really thought!

Video after the break is very NSFW, nor should the kiddies be anywhere within earshot.
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Porsche Classic and PCA team up to Revive The Passion

September 16, 2010 by Gary Grant Leave a Comment

At this year’s Rennsport Reunion at Daytona, some folks from the Porsche Club of America, Porsche Club Service and Porsche Classic were chatting about restoration projects when someone came up with a pretty cool idea. Why not restore an old 911 in the public eye and then raffle off a new old Porsche?

A suitable project car was found and the program is under way. In this case, suitable means that it would have to be a desirable model and would preferably be a bit of a challenging project for the restoration team. In other words, they wanted a rat. As you can see above, the car they found is indeed pretty rough.

The PCA raffle is for club members only, so hurry scurry over to the PCA website and join the largest Porsche enthusiast club in the world.

press release after the break
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Craigslist find of the day: Ken Block’s wheels!

September 15, 2010 by Gary Grant 3 Comments

Ever wanted a true piece of motorsport memorabilia? How about a set of mildly used wheels from Ken Block’s WRC spec Fiesta? They would make a perfect…ummm…something. Lopsided coffee table perhaps?

Here is the seller’s description:

FOR SALE: Two slightly used 18-inch Volk Racing TE37 rims painted Monster Energy green with distinct DC Shoes logo on contrast painted spoke. Never been curbed! These are RARE and very special wheels! Only driven for 5 miles!!!!!!! May need new tires, about 3% tread left on Pirelli P-Zero. Will fit 2011 Ford Fiesta.

Buyer must pay shipping from France. Moving! MUST sell before 9/14.

Shoot me an offer, also down to barter.

Something tells me this is a joke, but if true, some gearhead skater boy might actually snap these up.

Not sure how they got so scruffy looking? You’d better visit here.

Ed note: It would seem that this scoop is no scoop at all and that perhaps your humble editor should spend more time reading and less time taking photos. The good folks at Jalopnik noticed this ad last week and began work on deciphering the code hidden within the ad. Then, the folks at team DC GYM3 verified that they were indeed behind the prank.

Oh yeah – one more thing. I won’t be spending less time at the track!

Product review: Craftsman ratcheting wrenches

September 15, 2010 by Gary Grant 2 Comments

Every now and then I’ll receive products to review that are nothing short of awesome, yet it takes me ages to do a proper review as I don’t have the need to actually use said products. These little jewels are one of those products. Sadly, I just don’t spend as much time working on projects in The Garage as often as I’d like and I can’t really use a ratcheting wrench on a camera or a keyboard.

I had seen ads on TV for these Craftsman wrenches and thought they would be cool to try, so I was happy to receive not one, but two sets to test out. Who doesn’t love new tools? They come in two styles. The chrome set are open end wrenches with a different imperial size at each end. One side of the box surface has a unique shape with a spring loaded cam that allows the wrench to turn on a nut, without removing the wrench. This turns out to be pretty handy if the project is in one of those spots where you only have room for a quarter turn at a time.

The ratchet effect works very nicely, if not as quickly as a traditional socket ratchet but certainly easier than a traditional open end wrench. The sloppy worker will have to pay attention to putting the wrench on the nut straight, as once there is an angle these tools may be inclined to slip off the nut. Keeping any wrench straight is a good practice anyway, as it prevents the rounding off of nuts.
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