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A bit of Fiat history in The Garage

November 5, 2010 by Gary Grant 12 Comments

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

September 5, 2010 by Gary Grant Leave a Comment

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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A real bargoon

August 24, 2010 by Leighton Irwin 1 Comment

What has to be just about the best entertainment bang for a buck, if not the best, in Ontario are the CASC Regional races at Mosport. You can go to any of the three remaining races for either one day or both days for the huge sum of zero. That is correct. Nothing, Nada, Zip. Well almost. You do have to drive to get there. Judy and I came from Victoria Harbour on Georgian Bay and our total gas usage was less than a half tank for the round trip in a Cobalt. Judy made sandwiches for lunch and we bought a 6 pack of beer. We were there just for Saturday as Judy had to work Sunday.

Free tickets are available to the races through the CASC website and follow the link for complimentary tickets at the top right of the front page.

As mentioned you can take your own food and drink, unlike a certain race in Toronto. That includes booze. You are going to eat if you stay at home anyway.
Of course, you can eat at the track restaurant where the food is fairly good and reasonably priced. For the Region races the various concession stands around the track are not open.
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You never know what you might see

May 7, 2010 by Gary Grant 1 Comment

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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