Depending on your point of view, Paul Tracy is either brilliant or a fool. At yesterday’s aborted Champ Car race in Montreal, PT donned a wrestling mask and a Fleur-de-lis cape as a poke at French Canadian drivers who are afraid to have a go at him without taking off their helmet.

For all you readers from other countries who may not know, the relationship between French speaking Canada and the rest of the country has been tenuous at best over the years. A province full of whining separatists would be considered traitors in the States. This political nonsense has spilled over into some not so friendly ribbing over the years between English and French speaking Canadians.

The fact that Tracy chose to pull this prank in Montreal is HUGE! It shows how little sense of humour these whiners have. In these times of political correctness in racing though, I’d be surprised if Pauly survives this with his wallet intact. Personally, I damn near peed myself when I caught this pic in the paper this morning.
via The Toronto Star

Over the years, The Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame has moved several times while trying to find an appropriate venue to display its’ collection of historically significant race cars and memorabilia. Finally, it looks like the CMHF has found a permanent home at Legendary Motorcar in Milton, just a short drive west of Toronto. Legendary is the home base of Peter Klutt, host of Dream Car Garage on SpeedTV and the building actually houses the show studio, along with an incredible collection of cars. To showcase this new home, the CMHF is holding a Grand Opening on Saturday, June 10th. The entry fee is only $5 per car and the event runs from 11 to 3. I’d be willing to bet that they may be offering tours of the whole facility. If they do, take the tour as the place is stunning.
The Collection is home to such gems as the Mackenzie Financial Indy car that Scott Goodyear drove to victory at Indy and a Canadian built Walter Wolf Racing Formula 1 car along with a number of other cars that have won in the hands of Canadian drivers.

Along with the opening at Legendary, there is a track day at Mosport. This event will give participants the chance to experience one of the most important tracks in North American racing history. Several important Canadian drivers will be on hand including Scott Goodyear, Ludwig Heimrath and Marty Roth. Registration is limited to 50 participants and you can find more info here.

For years, the city of Markham, in the north end of Toronto has been known as a scary place to drive. With it’s very high percentage of Asian Canadian drivers, it is a community of expensive import cars that all sport road rash of some sort or another. Of course over the years, this phenomenon has been the root of many bad driver jokes. Personally, I’ve always found it rather amusing, rather than frightening. It’s incredible to see a little old lady who can barely see over the dash crash into something at 20 kmh, in a 50 zone.

This weekend we’ve had the opportunity to spend a couple of days on the other site of Toronto in the whopping big city of Brampton. Known by locals as Bramladesh, this place is frightening. The Holiday Inn is adjacent to the Bramalea City Center shopping mall. This mall is the size of a small city, so when I went to pick up some poolside beverages from the store on the other side of the mall I drove. Without a word of a lie, it took me almost 20 minutes to navigate the parking lot, while avoiding all the impending collisions. Unlike the Markham crowd, the driver’s here are gunning it across the parking lot and fighting to see who can be first across the many intersections. I could have walked faster, but then I wouldn’t have a steel cocoon protecting me. This is almost as bad as driving in Jamaica!