Thanks to our tight Father’s Day schedule, I wasn’t able to stick around to see the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series battle it out. It’s a bit of a shame, as the always unpredictable Mosport weather dropped a bunch of rain on the roundy round gang. We spent a few moments with Pierre Bourque, who was a bit disappointed with his 20th place starting position. Bourque was hoping for a top ten finish for the first weekend of a new, untested car. Fortunately, his road racing experience (doesn’t it always rain at Daytona) with The Racer’s Group paid off when the skies opened and he worked his way up to 7th by the time the checker fell. On the last lap, J.R. Fitzpatrick came from third to take the win on a wet track.

Check out our gallery of paddock shots after the break
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Mosport and Trans Am. The two names have been intertwined since the early days of both institutions. Unfortunately, one continues to flourish, while the other has more or less died gone on hiatus. Way back in the early days of The Garage, I sent an open letter to Paul Gentilozzi and friends suggesting that a workable modern formula for the ailing series might be found in the roots of the series. While I never expected a response (and never got one) the data recorders showed a healthy bit of traffic from the Trans Am and SCCA offices. Let’s hope the message sunk in.

If Trans Am is to have a snowball’s chance in hell of having a resurrection, the Mustang Challenge for the Miller Cup certainly could show the way. These modern Ford race cars are beyond exciting. A production body shell, prepared initially by the factory to go racing. An affordable, exciting platform that provides equal excitement for fans and drivers. These cars look great and sound absolutely incredible. They scramble for traction and slide all over Mosport’s undulating surface, just like the real Trans Am cars way back in the 60’s and early 70’s. These are real race cars the crowd can relate to, unlike the tube frame monstrosities that populated the series for the last decade and a half of it’s life.

After the break, there is a huge gallery from the paddock, qualifying and Sunday’s race. Grab a cold one, sit back and enjoy!
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What better way to spend Father’s Day morning, but hiking around the infield of one of North America’s most storied race tracks? That was how my Father’s Day began, shooting race cars and pretty girls at Mosport. It was bright, sunny and hot as hell this morning and the on track action was pretty hot too. Also hot were some of the hired help around the circuit.

Check out the gallery of paddock girls after the break and watch over the next few days for some of the 400 or so racing shots I grabbed too.
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We only had a very short time to visit Mosport this weekend, but I just couldn’t let the first race of the season go by without hearing some race engines and sharing some photos with our readers. For the first outing of the year, there was certainly a wide range of cars in the paddock. Vintage cars were out in full force and the Ontario GT Sprints crowd were well represented also. There was even a big horsepower floppy body Ford pick up that was trying to find a way past Darth Viper. Our next visit to the track will be the Grand Am event on Father’s Day weekend and you can be sure we’ll have a ton more photos, and an interview or two.

Follow the break to for a big slideshow
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Over the past few years, we’ve sort of put our own involvement in racing on the back burner while we do important things like shuttle kids and pay the mortgage. Fortunately, we’ve been lucky to have friends still involved in racing and we live vicariously through their stories. We might even pop in and help out every now and then when time allows.

One of those lucky folks who we’ve glommed onto is Perry Ianuzzi, the jolly leader of Team Mad Macs. TMM is essentially Sentra central in Ontario and Perry and his crew have assembled a new beast for the 2008 Ontario GT Sprints season and the Castrol Canadian Touring Car Championship presented by Toyo Tires.

The 2008 season started well, as once Perry “shook off the cobwebs” he was able to put in a podium finish on Sunday in the GT-B event. Great way to start the season guys & girls.

Photo gallery and Perry’s race report after the break
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Racing is under way in Ontario for the 2008 season. Yippee!

We only had a couple of hours at the track early yesterday morning and a bunch of that was spent in the showers cleaning poo off the 7 year old. Thankfully for him the Panoz team actually installed water heaters a couple of years ago!

While we didn’t have time to hear many stories, at least I was able to grab a couple of hundred photos around the paddock. With all the Mother’s Day festivities going on (ok…she’s doing kid stuff and I’m going to a wedding) there won’t be much time today to edit and post photos. No worries though, we’ll have a huge gallery soon!

The Escort RS you see above is reflected on the curvaceous posterior of a vintage, front engine open wheeler of some sort that was just stunning. The owner wasn’t around and there were no visible markings so I’m not sure what it was. I would guess that it is an early Formula Junior. I’ll do some digging to see if I can find the answer.

It’s not much of a photo, but it’s the only one I can find right now. The white car is the Datsun B210 once piloted by Vince Whitehead. The two made quite the pair, capturing a Canadian championship way back when.

We think the B210 might make a pretty cool project here in The Garage. I’ll keep you up to date on the decision to move forward or not over the next couple of days.

It has been a long hard winter here in Ontario, but it looks like the snow cover is finally beginning to recede somewhat and most racers are thinking about that first race weekend. One of the best ways to get the juices flowing is to visit with some old friends and make new ones at a local swap meet. Tomorrow marks the first annual Canadian Karting Expo at the Pickering Markets in Toronto’s east end. Whether you are an old pro looking to hook up with friends, or are racing for the first time in 08, this event should be just the thing to get your blood pumping on a cold but sunny Easter weekend.

For all the details, visit Mosport International Karting

Falling squarely in the “I gotta get me one of these” category is the just announced 50th Anniversary poster from Lola. In fact, I may just have to get 2. You see, this somewhat unique poster has images on both sides.

The poster has drawings of 50 Lola race cars, one for each year of the company’s existence, beginning with the 1958 Lola Mk1 to the 2008 B08/80. It will be available for free at selected events that are involved in the 50th Anniversary Celebration. The first two events will be at Brands Hatch World Sportscar Masters race in May and the Oulton Park Gold Cup in August. Let’s hope that they free up a few for the VARAC Festival at Mosport in June.

More images after the break
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It’s been a great day of cooking and the odd celebratory beverage as we wait to welcome the new year. The house is about to get really rambunctious as 6 families arrive to share New Years Eve 2008. In these last few quiet moments I thought that a gallery of vintage F1 cars from this year’s VARAC Festival at Mosport would be a great idea. Grab a glass while it’s still quiet and enjoy this great show.

Created with flickrSLiDR.

Oh yes! Happy New Year!