Last night, we finally got out to the track with both kids. Our 8 year old, Duncan was out for his second time practicing, and 13 year old Shelby was out for the first time this season. We’ve decided that both of them should run in the Canadian Rookie Karting Championship at Mosport International Karting. This is an arrive and drive series, that is fully sanctioned by ASN Canada. Essentially the thought here is to remove Dad’s bungling from the equation and see what our young drivers have going for them. From last night’s results, it looks like it’s going to be an interesting summer!
Continue reading →

It seems like it’s been a long time since we’ve heard from Ashley Taws. Ontario race fans and their kids will recognize her as the popular pilot of the Barbie Car. Here in The Garage, our 13 year old racer still has one of Ashley’s fan cards in her room. Taws took Ontario grassroots open wheel racing to heights it had never seen with the successful partnership with Walmart and Barbie. Sadly, Miss Taws was a passenger in a serious road crash that caused sever injuries. A return to racing was short lived, as the ongoing pain prevented her from driving.

That is all in the past now. On Thursday, Ashley Taws announced a two pronged attack on the racing world. Not only will she be road racing in the Canadian Touring Car Championship Super Touring Series in a BMW E30, but Ashley will also tackle the Ontario Sportsman Series in a Dodge Charger. That’s right, the Barbie Car is going stock car racing! This is going to be great.

Press release after the break
Continue reading →

Tony George, the man who single handedly has ruined open wheel racing in North America has bruised his ego in a crash at Daytona. Apparently, George has decided to come out of retirement as a driver and enter a car in next month’s Daytona 24 hour race. He was testing the Crawford Porsche on Friday when he lost control and crashed. He was not hurt.

read more at grandprix.com

Earlier this Fall, The Garage reported on Katherine Legge becoming a Road Warrior in Pink on behalf of the Susan G Komen Foundation to generate awareness for Breast Cancer Research.

Over at Blair Valley Media’s newest blog Bomberino, Sandy has written about the volleyball world’s efforts. Dig For The Cure is a grassroots movement to raise money for the Komen Foundation. It’s a great idea, as we’ve all been touched by breast cancer, and most of us played volleyball in Junior High.

A great post about a great cause. Welcome to BVM Sandy!

Danica’s pappa is exploring the possibility of her making a swap from IRL to NASCAR, possibly even as soon as next year. It seems that her contract with Rahal Letterman ends this year and negotiations have begun with several teams in IRL and NASCAR.

While it’s somewhat of a given that Montoya should have some success in the tintops, what should we expect of Danica? Are there enough potential winners that she might actually win a race, or will she continue to be a fast also ran? Only time will tell. One thing is for certain though, the NASCAR officials must just be wetting themselves over the chance to have the marketing power that comes with Ms. Patrick.

Source ESPN

Whenever a blogger misses their stride, they always seem to post some sort of apology to their readers. In most cases, life has just caught up with them and the blog suffers. In The Garage, it really isn’t all that much different, except for the fact that it really is garage stuff that has been catching up with things.

Over the last week, I’ve been busy moving from the Nissan store to the Mazda store & the change has been fairly time consuming, not to mention a bit stressful. The up side to this is all the new road test candidates! First up will be my new 2006 Mazda6 wagon. I know it’s got all the toys & a gearbox, but I don’t know what colour it is or even how many gears it has!

Kart racing season truly starts for our house this weekend, with the arrival of the new engine, fresh from Arnold Racing Engines. Both days this weekend will see the Grant family invading Mosport once again.

Last weekend saw me cleaning a winters worth of kid crap out of Mamma’s Protege5.

Occasional contributor Petri has been getting caught up in the IRL world lately. The daily grind of highway management has been interrepted with schmoozing with the likes of Dan Wheldon and Buddy Rice, not to mention Scott Pruett and a certain Nascar champ. Hopefully he’ll have some time to bang off a few words here and there in the near future.

As for The Garage, we should be back up to our normal pace soon, as life settles in at the dealership.

Watch soon for opinions on street racing penalties from The Garage, along with more road tests and maybe an interview or two.