The Garage Blog

The Garage: Your daily dose of automotive news, reviews and motorsports coverage

Gallery: Oshawa Motorsport Club autocross action

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Something really cool happened last Fall, when I introduced my kid Duncan to the world of autocross: He brought his best friend and his Fifty-something year old Dad along with their respective machines. Since that first event, the trio have become autocross buddies, learning the ropes of competitive driving from the ground up. Watching from the edge of the circle so to speak, has been good fun and surprisingly satisfying. Yes, I am still addicted to driving, but it is just so cool watching these guys grow. Even the old guy!

On Sunday, they took in their third event with the Oshawa Motorsport Club in the parking lot at Durham College here in Whitby, where there was a super mix of rookies and old dogs competing in a wide variety of equipment.

Forgive me if there seems to be an overabundance of images of my kid’s Subaru shod with Toyo R888Rs, mounted on FASTCO wheels. I think it looks pretty sweet.  

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Catch the fever, go racing in Ontario Watch a GT3 driver crash at the Nurburgring

Catch the fever, go racing in Ontario

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Racing, you watch it on TV. You accelerate through the on-ramp thinking about the F1 race you just watched. When you have been pulled over and the red lights are flashing in your rear veiw mirror, you just sigh and think that only if you were on the autobahn this would not have happened. Or if you had purchased that 3 cylinder slowpoke instead of the V8 or turbo-charged adreneline inducing machine that you are currently driving – or rather, sitting in patiently while receiving a ticket.

It is time for a lifestyle change. For less than the cost of one speeding ticket (not counting insurance hikes) you can sign up for a day at the race track with Ontario Time Attack, a division of CASC-OR. Yes, this is the same CASC-OR that hosts many of the races that occur on Canadian soil at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park (formerly known as Mosport) and even in downtown Toronto at the Indy. 
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Racing Towards the Sunset: Gord Green Remembered

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The P & G Special MK5 was one of many in a series of race cars built by Gord Green

A long time friend of Leighton Irwin, Gord Green held a special place in Canadian sports car racing history. Even here in The Garage, he left his mark, with the P & G Special. This memorial story was written by Colene Allen.

On March 23, 2012 long-time CASC Regional competitor and official Gord Green passed away at hospital in Haliburton, Ontario. Gord is remembered for the significant accomplishments he made as a competitor, good friend, car builder, and official. His contributions to racing are many, significant, and well known. In the summer of 1966, Gord competed in the Sundown Grand Prix at Mosport International Raceway. Gord’s race that day was a recipe of a pinch of grit, a teaspoon of determination, a lot of talent and skill, and a sprinkling of luck. Gord’s co-driver, Ron Evans, told me the story of that historic race.

Ron and Gord met back in 1958 when Ron started racing. Both competed in various cars and classes, with Gord racing a Lotus 7 starting in 1964 and Ron following Gord with a Merlyn 6A in 1965. By this time, Gord and Ron had known each other for six years. They both slept at the track on race weekends, paddocked next to each other, and began combining their resources to save money. They were part of a larger group of racers that spent time together that included Al Sutter, Gary Magwood, Willy Cleeland, and Leighton Irwin. At some point, Ron tried to convince Gord to buy a Merlyn, but Gord was happy to keep racing with his Lotus 7.
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Mosport’s Victoria Day SpeedFest On Track In Two Weeks 2011 Sundown Grand Prix 3 hour May 21 2011

2011 Sundown Grand Prix 3 hour May 21 2011

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GT Sprints crest Corner 2 at start of the first race of 2011

CASC press release

CASC-OR and Mosport are pleased to announce the 2011 Sundown Grand Prix will take place on Saturday, May 21, 2011.

The event is planned with practice, qualifying, and race to take place on the same day.
The schedule (subject to change) is planned to be;
* 8:00 AM – 8:30 AM PRACTICE
* 12:20pm – 12:50 AM QUALIFYING
* 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM SUNDOWN GRAND PRIX

Cars will be classed by the CASC-OR GT Sprints classification. Supplementary regulations will be published shortly, but the rules will follow 2011 CASC-OR Race Regulations Appendix “U” ENDURANCE RACE REGULATIONS.
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Mosport’s Victoria Day SpeedFest On Track In Two Weeks

Mosport’s Victoria Day SpeedFest On Track In Two Weeks

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Mosport press release

In just two weeks, Mosport International Raceway will kick off its 2011 season with the sights and sounds of thundering GT and Touring car racers on the Victoria Day SpeedFest Weekend, May 20-22.

Some of North America’s best road racing sedan championships – the Pirelli World Challenge Series, the SCCA Pro Racing Trans-Am Series, the Castrol Canadian Touring Car Championship, the classic Sundown Grand Prix endurance race into darkness and new to Mosport in 2011, the SCCA Pro Spec Racer Ford and SCCA Pro Formula Enterprises – take to the 3.96 km circuit for Mosport’s traditional holiday season-opener.

Headlining the three-day weekend is a Pirelli World Challenge doubleheader, with combined class races for GT, GTS and Touring cars. The “Sports Car Wars” entry list is full of popular brands such as Acura, BMW, Cadillac, Corvette, Honda, Mazda, Porsche, Viper, Volkswagen and Volvo. The 2010 GT Rookie of the Year Fred Roberts of Toronto, coming off an eighth place finish at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah, placing him 11th in points, will have his work cut out for him as he battles against the brand new Cadillac CTS-V one-two punch of Johnny O’Connell and Andy Pilgrim. Roberts’ Viper teammate Jason Daskalos is coming off a win and currently sits third in the driver’s championship. Two-time defending American Le Mans Series GT champion and Porsche factory driver, Patrick Long will look to take back the points lead after missing the last race. Long got his 2011 campaign off to a hot start, winning the first two races of the year.
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Memories from The Garage

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I was shuffling the desk around over the weekend and I discovered a couple of photos that I had printed from some old slides my Dad gave me. One of them was this cool low down angle shot of the AMX he raced in 1969. The car raced in Ontario in the A Sedan class. Even though I was only 2, I remember this beast!

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A bit of Fiat history in The Garage

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Alongside the great Porsche discussion on the Canadian Motorsport History group on Yahoo, there has been another thread about some early racing Alfa’s in Ontario. Our old friend George Commachio’s Alfa was brought up, as was the Fiat 124 he raced prior to the Alfa.

The car was a late Sixties (George thought ’67 but wasn’t sure) Fiat 124 Special. Twin cam, 5 speed, 4 wheel discs. A neat machine that did indeed later become the Lada, but missing a cam, a gear and had drums in the back. George eventually sold his 124 to Lloyd Service who then raced the car. There is a tale that perhaps he had a major crash with the car in turn 3 at Mosport.

I can’t remember the name of the guy Lloyd sold the car to, but I think the next guy only raced it once. It was then sold to a guy named Neil Burns. In fact, we met because of the car, when as a teenager I poked my head into the shop where he kept it.

Years later, I convinced Neil to finish the car up and race it. I don’t recall any evidence of heavy crash damage at that time so I’m not sure about Lloyd crashing it. Neil was on a tight (ie none) budget and struggled to get the car to keep running without blowing head gaskets. Even then the car ran in the high 1:50’s.
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On Track Today: BARC regionals

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Some of our readers may have noticed that my contributions to The Garage have been somewhat sparse lately. While I’d love to apologize, the truth is that I’ve been spending most of my days at Mosport taking pictures. As much as I love writing, photography is beginning to pay the bills, so track time it is. Besides, what self respecting gearhead wouldn’t rather spend time at the track than in front of the computer.

It occurred to me that this is a photo series for The Garage just waiting to happen. Let me introduce On Track Today, a photo series of whatever I happen to be shooting on any given day. It might be race cars, it might be a lapping day consisting of street cars. Either way, we can share a bit of the fun.

Today’s photos were actually shot yesterday at the BARC Labour Day club races. Given that I wanted a bit of long weekend action myself, I only went up for 1 session to get some shots for an article I’m writing for a print story. I ended up being there for a couple of sessions, so I got some Historic Sports Cars and some of the Group 70+ cars.

Our first OTT, after the break…
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You never know what you might see

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Yes, that is indeed 2 NASCAR Canadian series cars bearing down on an Eighties era Trans Am, likely an ex Player’s Challenge car. That was far from the strangest thing I saw today at the BEMC test day at Mosport. How about a bugeye Sprite climbing the Andretti straight, struggling to hit 100 mph, while one of these monsters sails past at maybe 150-160?

Ed Note: From the driver of the Trans Am “I was the jam in the sandwich but it looks worse than it was – these guys are total pros and it was fun to share the track. Besides the weather on Test Day was way better than the BEMC weekend! BTW – car 79 has no history in the Players series but races in VARAC in G70.”

Test days near the beginning of the season bring out all sorts of interesting machinery and today was no different. From a body in white NASCAR stocker to a Honda Civic showroom stock car that has obviously undergone some re-constructive surgery over the winter and everything in between.
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Video: 1987 Rocky Mountain Rally

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I just came across this great video of the Rocky Mountain Rally way back in 1987 courtesy of Shawn Bishop at Rallysport.ca
This was a time when rear wheel drive rally cars still dominated the Canadian rally scene. I was at the Rally of the Tall Pines in 98 or 99 when Tim Bendle brought that yellow Datsun 510 out of retirement to have another go. The man is stunning to watch in the snow. In the early 90’s, I spent some time driving a Plymouth Fire Arrow that had a full rally suspension that had been pulled from a rally car that had some level of success. I wonder if it was one of these shown in the video.

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