Some time ago, Gary Faules took us on a tour of Infineon Raceway in Lucky, the GT350R. I just stumbled across this video that puts things into a completely different perspective. Vintage racer Gary Sheehan takes us for a few laps of the legendary Sears Point track in the McLaren M6B Can Am car originally driven by Jo Bonnier. While I get the feeling that Gary S is far from flying in the beast, this video gives a pretty good idea what the view was like from the cockpit of one of the Can Am monsters.
Oh yeah, you might want to crank the speakers for this one!
With all the emotion following Sunday’s tragedy at Mosport, an important awakening that happened the same day has been somewhat neglected. Our 9 year old discovered how cool it can be when you combine cars and cameras.
Armed with my crappy old digicam, Duncan worked his way through the paddock on a mission. When the internal memory was full, he was more than happy to take over my FZ-8. As you can see, The Dude has an eye for details and gets the basics of framing a shot. All last night and then again this evening he kept asking when I was going to get him a real camera so he can take more car pictures.
The sport we all love has kindled another flame, while another was extinguished.
846 photos and a sunburn. I don’t have a clue where to begin. Do I write or do I edit photos. It’s going to take days, maybe even weeks to tell all the stories and edit all the images. For now, it’s time for bed and one quick story.
I watched a Formula 1 race at Mosport today. Now if that in itself wasn’t cool enough, the company I watched it with made it almost surreal. I finished my day by watching a Formula 1 race with 2005 Canadian rally champion Peter Thomson, 1981 Canadian rally champion Randy Black and none other than legendary Canadian F1 team owner and constructor Walter Wolf!
Quote of the day goes to Mr. Wolf. “The last time I watched my cars race, they won”
The 2007 VARAC Festival at at Mosport, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Canadian Grand Prix got under way yesterday, under sunny skies. Today has dawned sunny as well, so I’m about to slap on some sunscreen and hit the road. If you are in Southern Ontario, you should do the same, as there is going to be some great racing!
We spoke with artist Paul Chenard last night and he had a busy day peddling his wonderful creations, so we are pretty excited for him.
The photo above is from the 2006 festival. This year, we are armed with our new camera and a couple of empty SD cards, so plan to see a ton of photos over the next few days.
Who needs Superbowl when you’ve got Youtube? Just one more & then I’ll let you get back to your football, I promise. Somewhere along the way, vintage racers got the reputation for not actually racing. They supposedly just parade around and make the right noises. Well, tell that to the driver of this Healey 3000. On the first 2 laps of a vintage race at Zolder, Mark Schmidt passes a whopping 29 cars! Anyone who thinks this guy isn’t pushing just needs to watch the move he pulls on the standing start. Just incredible. This is another one where the volume needs to be very loud!
All the talk about the McBearen made me realize that I’ve never posted any pics of the P & G, so here we go. This pee yellow racer is the P & G Special Mk. V and was built by Gord Green here in Ontario. I don’t know too much about the actual car, other than the fact that it was powered by a Coventry Climax 4 cylinder.
I do know a little bit about the history of the car though, and then of course there are my own somewhat abnormal memories.
During the years surrounding World War 2, thousands of Canadian and American soldiers discovered the joys of sports car racing while stationed abroad. Upon their return home, many of them decided that racing should continue here. The only problem was there were no race tracks here. The solution? Old air bases. The Canadian and American governments had these little training fields all over the landscape that were no longer needed. Sports Car racing as we know it in North America was born.
