For racing enthusiasts who live in Ontario, Mosport is an almost mythical place. It has seen the birth and heyday of series like the Trans Am and Can Am. It has played host to the Canadian Grand Prix. All of the great drivers from every decade from the Sixties onwards have driven at Mosport and called it one of the best tracks in the world. Corner 2 has often been called one of the most difficult corners on any track in the world. There are stories of victory and tragedy. There is even a long standing rumor that an old open wheeler (I can’t recall, if it was a Grand Prix or Formula Junior car) is buried somewhere near the turn 2 tunnel.

“we headed north into the country like Knights Templar in search of the Holy Grail.”

The Holy Grail indeed.

How many young men have hopped into a sports car and gone in search of their own Holy Grail. In this case, a young Christopher Ennis and his pal were in search of a race track that was rumored to be under construction. The year was 1960 and their steed…a Bugeye Sprite. How fitting then that they eventually found their Grail and managed a somewhat soggy lap.

Fitting also that this weekend, when the Can Am cars return to our Avalon, that the Toronto Star should publish Mr. Ennis’ tale of sports car enlightenment. While many may disagree, I think Mr. Ennis’ story may be the most historically significant story that The Star’s Wheels section has ever published!

Truly, this tale exemplifies the freedom and excitement that characterized the sports car revolution of the late Fifties and early Sixties. Well done Chris and congratulations on accomplishing your mission 48 years ago.

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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Wow, yet another friend of The Garage who has a book fresh off the presses. So fresh in fact that Lauren Fix’s Guide To Loving Your Car hits the bookshelves tomorrow!

Known as The Car Coach, Lauren Fix has had a love affair with cars all her life. She has done it all in the car industry, from turning wrenches to driving instructor. She has done guest spots on just about every major market TV network you would care to name. Oh, and did I mention that Lauren has been racing cars since 1981? Not just any cars however, as this lady’s regular drive is a 1992 Riley & Scott Trans Am car!

In her Guide to Loving Your Car, Fix takes a laid back, comfortable approach that ensures that the book will appeal to everyone who drives, not just gearheads. In fact, I would hazard a guess that part of Lauren’s goal with this book was to take some timid new drivers and impart that love of cars that drives so many of us.

You will find Lauren Fix’s Guide to Loving Your Car in your favorite book store tomorrow and you can visit Lauren’s home page to learn more.

If the other videos this morning haven’t woken you up yet, then turn the speakers up really loud and this one is sure to do the trick. Gary Sheehan takes us for a lap of Infineon Raceway in the 1966 Alfa Romeo GTA that Horst Kwech won the 66 Trans Am championship with.

Here we are, early on a Sunday morning and the dog won’t let me sleep. The rest of the family is still sawing wood, so I figured a good plan would be to put on the headphones and surf the GooToobz.

This video has all the right elements to showcase racing in the Eighties. Pretty girls in funny hats. Hans Stuck and Willy T. Guys in funny hats. Oh yeah…and there are Trans Am cars!

Any seasoned racer worth his salt will tell you rules are written to be broken or should I say tested. Half the challenge of racing is figuring out what the other team is doing. In the days of Trans-Am and Can-Am series the rule book was still in the process of being written and as the following story tells us some times it was written by whoever’s check book was the biggest. None the less, it’s clear to see some things never change. As long as there is good old competitive racing someone is going to be looking for that advantage many times being kept behind closed doors.
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During the early moments of performance vs. strict emission standards, the emissions won out and performance enthusiasts were faced with a slew of overrated blow hard vehicles that had much more bark than bite. But that did not stop Hollywood from using the magic of cinematography to make these cars into classics in our own hearts… and hey, they still are kind of cool even today despite their short-comings!

The 1977 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am from “Smokey and the Bandit”-

This sleek black curvaceous classic body style of the 77′ Trans Am had a beautiful 6.6 liter engine and a slick looking shaker hood scoop to boot. Unfortunately, this was back in 1977, which was the golden era in engine humiliation. This beast pumped out a putrid 200 horsepower with the optional W72 engine. The standard L78 was rated at an even more embarrassing 180 hp. It was still a beautiful car and made some breathtaking scenes laying some thick rubber during some of the movies highlights.

1981 De Lorean DMC-12 from “Back to the Future”-

The movie version may have ran off of a 1.21-gigawatt nuclear/electric hybrid with a five-speed manual, but the actual car had a 2.8-liter Peugeot V6, which certainly could have used the extra nuclear waste to propelled it off the line beyond that of a Volkswagen Van. It was truly amazing to witness this car on the big screen make it up to 88 mph on several occasions on motor alone without a steep hill, a strong tailwind, and Carl Lewis pushing it. But all jokes aside, the gull-wing doors were certainly a nice touch, as well as the stainless steel (unpainted) body panels.

mmmmm…classic old school lines, period correct wheels, modern adaption of colour scheme and a big swingin’ wing. Wouldn’t this just look great in The Garage? One things is for sure, it would no longer be a trailer queen. It would be raced at every possible opportunity.

Current bid is a paltry $5,655, which seems a tad low for such a sweet machine.

On the race track silly! While I was putting together yesterday’s Carnival of Wheels, AC’s great post DE Smooth vs Race Smooth stuck a major chord with me. My whole life as a driver has been influenced by the pursuit of smooth.

It all began… Well, you can read about the effect semi pro racing in the Sixties had on me in the about page. Really though, at some point in my formative years I found a book called Sunday Driver by Brock Yates. Essentially, Yates wanted to race so that he could write about it intelligently. Except he didn’t want to be the guy who raced one or two regional events and then called himself an expert like so many other writers. He wanted to run a full season in Trans Am. The pinnacle of sedan racing in America at the time. One chapter hit me like a ton of bricks. While the actual words are a bit blurry, the message has stuck with me for the last 25 years or so. Yates’ team owner and team mate followed him through a practice session and then berated him for his lack of smoothness. While his teaching method might have caught him a smack upside the head from some, his message got through to Yates. Wild and woolly might be fun and look spectacular, but it beats up the car and it’s slow. Who woulda thunk?
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After watching the Chaparral video, I got wondering if there was any cool Trans Am video floating around the youtubes. I found this restored clip of a film called Trans Am Countdown that was filmed at the Daytona 24 Hour race in 1970. The are some great shots of the Javelin and cool interviews with Mark Donohue and a very young looking Roger Penske. Someone should have told Penske to visit the porta john before an interview! It’s not often you see a future captain of industry doing the pee dance!