Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Roundup: Ken Wilden lands Trans-Am ride at Mosport

Oakville driver Kenny Wilden, the defending Grand Am Continental Tire champion who’s a veteran of Grand Am Rolex sports cars and Formula Atlantics, has joined Derhaag Motorsports to race a Chevrolet Corvette in this weekend’s SCCA Trans-Am Series race at Mosport.

Wilden and team owner Jim Derhaag last raced in the Trans-Am together nine years ago and celebrated a victory at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

In a release, Wilden said: "It's great to be back with Jim and to be racing in the SCCA Trans-Am
series once again. Although it's been awhile since I’ve been behind the wheel of one of these high-horsepower brutes, Derhaag Motorsports is one of the best in the business. I love
racing at Mosport and believe we can enjoy a successful weekend, like we’ve done together in the past."

The Trans-Am race, which will go Sunday afternoon, is one of six headline events Mosport has lined up for the annual Victoria Day SpeedFest Weekend, which starts Friday with practice for all classes.

The SCCA Pro Racing World Challenge Series and the Castrol Canadian Touring Car Championship Series will both run two races, one Saturday and one Sunday. The Sundown Grand Prix will be held Saturday evening.

Wilden has been one of Canada's most accomplished road racers since he won the Player’s/GM and Firehawk Series crowns in 1992. He very nearly landed a ride in the CART Indy car series before his sponsorship dried up. . . .

Bad weather forced Brantford-area speed plant Ohsweken Speedway to cancel last week’s scheduled opening. But with nothing but sunshine on the immediate horizon, Ohswekend’s 15^th anniversary season will kick off this Friday night when RapStar Energy Drink presents Friday Night Thunder featuring the Corr/Pak Merchandising Sprint Cars, ESSO Thunder Stocks, ESSO Mini Stocks, and Bombers, plus the first of three visits by the Mod Lite Stars Championship Tour North.

And don't anybody forget that that the Pro Modified and Quick 32 drag racers will be kicking off the 2010 season at Toronto Motorsports Park this weekend. . . . 

It has been illegal for some time to sell leaded fuel - of any kind - in Canada. There are permanent exemptions – small aircraft and the agriculture sector. There have also been temporary exemptions; the one for some racing cars ended at the end of 2009.

"Paperwork" has apparently held up another five-year exemption for racing cars – it’s expected to be pushed through by June – but this has forced the Alberta Northern Provincial Pipelines Late Model Series to cancel its race this weekend at Lethbridge. 

I wonder why those guys are still using that stuff? . . .

Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series driver Mark Wilkins of Toronto is returning to competition in the American Le Mans Series this weekend at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, joining Christophe Bouchut and Scott Tucker in the Level 5 Motorsports No. 55 FLM09 LMPC class.

This will be Wilkins’ first outing in the car since they won the class at the 12 Hours of Sebring back in March. The ALMS race will be a six-hour event, starting late Saturday afternoon and running into the twilight.

"We had a great first outing with the car at Sebring scoring the class win", said Wilkins. "It was quite the experience, the car being so different from the Daytona Prototypes, and that track is very tough on drivers. After helping the team come away with the victory, I was hoping for another opportunity to drive so it was a nice surprise when (they) called to ask if I would be available."

Meantime, the next round of the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear takes place this weekend at Laguna Seca and AIM Autosport of Woodbridge will be there with series sophomore David Ostella, 17, of Maple.

Ostella and the AIM team travelled to California after testing on the half-mile oval at O’Reilly Raceway Park outside Indianapolis where the Star Mazda cars will share the traditional Night Before the 500 program on May 29^th with the USAC midgets and the U.S. Formula 2000 series.

Michael Furfari, also of Woodbridge and who also races in the Star Mazda series for AIM Autosport, won’t be Laguna this weekend because he’s busy writing his Grade 11 exams. . . .

Dale Earnhardt Jr,’s JR Motorsports Nationwide Series team sent out a news release this week that veteran Greg Sacks would pilot the team’s No. 88 car on July 2 at Daytona.

Of note for Canadian fans is that the No. 7 car will be raced by Steve Arpin, of Fort Frances, Ont.

In a special tribute, Dale Jr. will drive a No. 3 Wrangler Chevrolet for the Daytona event. . . .

North American Rally Champion Andrew Comri-Picard of Toronto and co-driver Jeremy Wimpey of the U.S. won the Oregon Trail Rally last weekend.

"It’s a great result," said Comrie-Picard. "Everything went according to our strategy and the win is an important one at this point in the season. It’s great the the car, the teams and our partners are all working so well."

A chat with rally champs Pat and Nathalie Richard

Last Saturday, I went to the Canadian Rally Championship awards luncheon at the Delta Toronto Airport West Hotel (Subaru Canada, Yokohama Tire Canada and Mitsubishi Motor Sales of Canada all announced their continuing support for the national championship) and I took the opportunity to put some questions to two of the top rallyists in the country, Pat Richard and his sister, Nathalie.

While they started out rallying together 10 years ago, Pat Richard now competes for Subaru with co-driver Alan Ockwell of Toronto while Nathalie Richard co-drives for her life partner, Antoine L’Estage, in a Mitsubishi

Pat Richard won his fourth Canadian championship in 2009. Nathalie Richard missed out on several titles in heartbreaking fashion but during her career has won more than a dozen national and international championships.

I just turned on the tape recorder and let them both talk. Here is some of what they said.

Nathalie, how did you get started?

I have to credit my brother for getting me involved. We don’t come from a rallying family or anything. He was just a fan and one day he saw it on TV and realized we had rallying in Canada and he said, ‘I’m going to do that,’ and that was 10 years ago.

I went to his first couple of rallies and I got hooked and between the two of us we got hooked right away and we just went from there.

Our parents support us to death, they love us and they love the rallies. At first, they were a little hesitant because we were in the same car together and they thought, “Oh, my God.” You know, my mother, Josie,  in particular was freaking out all the time. But now, they find it hard because when they come to a rally it’s almost always Pat who wins or Antoine and I who win.

 She said, "I can never go to another rally. You can never be fully happy for the one who wins because of the other one who lost." That was after Tall Pines.

You didn’t win this year. . .

“No, I won the North American (co-driver) championship but I didn’t win the Canadian championship. It was a big heartbreak for us. We (she and her partner L’Estage) had just about everything wrapped up – the Tall Pines rally (the season-ender at Bancroft in November), the Canadian championship, the North American championship, the Canadian open class. We had everything in our hands. All we had to do was finish.

“And then, on the last stage of the Tall Pines, we had a clutch problem. We were going uphill and we just couldn’t get to the top. I mean, I get goose bumps just talking about it now.

Could you push?

Although I’m allowed, as co-driver, to get out of the car and push, there was no way I was going to be able to push the car up a hill. I mean, we discussed it. But then the other thing we worried about was that if I pushed and we got it started, then we would have to stop for me to get in and we’d stall again. It was very hard for us; it was very emotional.

Were you screaming at each other?

Not all all. There was silence in our car. All we could hope for was that the car would start. It took us 12 minutes to go about 120 metres. It was heartbreaking. Once we got to the other side of the control zone, the spectators there pushed us because they were allowed to at that point and we got started.

You’ve had success in the past and you know you’ll have success in the future. So although this was disappointing, was it really all that crushing?

It was devastating. We rallied all year and, in the end, we didn’t come away with what we were after and we were so close to having. It was really, really hard to get over that.

Pat, your sister says you got the idea to go rallying from watching television.

I used to drive around the back roads of British Columbia with my buddies near Whistler, where I live. We knew rallying existed but we didn’t know it existed in Canada. Then I saw it on TSN and I said, “Wow, I’m going to try that.”

In 10 years, you’ve gone from an armchair to win four national championships. That has to be some kind of a record.

Well, I wish I’d started when I was 18 instead of 26. But it’s been a great 10 years. I’ve won the Canadian championship four times and the North American championship three times so it’s been fantastic.

Have you ever thought of going overseas and competing in the World Rally Championship?

Sure, but I’ll tell you what the problem is. Rallying in the world is a lot bigger than it is here in Canada so for North Americans to put a package together to do that sort of thing is very difficult.

I did some WRC events in 2002 with Subaru Canada and did okay but to keep doing it you need a big international effort and that just didn’t happen. I get great support here in Canada but it takes a lot more support to take on the world.

You live in Whistler. Is there anything in your contract that forbids you from skiing, or snowboarding?

No, but there probably should be. I had an accident last winter. I broke three ribs and was laid up a month. I nearly didn’t make it to a rally.

Dakar may return to Africa, Canadian Hacking says

Lawrence Hacking of Georgetown, reporting by satellite telephone from deepest South America, says the 2011 Dakar Rally could possibly return to Africa.

Hacking, who became the first Canadian on a motorcycle to finish what’s called the world’s most gruelling rally, was knocked out of this year’s Dakar on its second day in his quest to become to first Canadian to finish on four wheels.

As wheels.ca correspondent Larry Tate reported earlier this week (you can read his account by clicking here), Hacking and co-driver Christian Gerouard of Ottawa (driving a Mason Motorsports prorunner chassis, powered by a 1.9-litre Volkswagen turbodiesel with a five-speed Toyota transmission), were the victims of a bizarre mechanical failure that turned out to be repairable but not within the time allowed to make it to the checkpoints at the end of the day.

Althought he was out of the event, Hacking told Tate: "We are now going to follow the rally, support the Canadian bike riders and learn as much as possible about what is takes to finish this beast."

And following the rally he was when he telephoned me Friday afternoon from Antofagasta, Chile, where the seventh stage had just been completed.

“There’s a huge difference between the Dakar in Africa and the Dakar in South America,” he said. “It’s much more structured, for instance. In Africa, there’s a great sense of adventure that’s not evident here. In Africa, you mostly sleep in tents, for instance.

“In this Dakar (which started in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and will loop through the mountains and deserts of Chile before ending up back in Buenos Aires at the middle of the month), I was able to read my email last night and I went shopping in a mall. Most of the drivers are sleeping in hotels and showering in hot water. This has all the creature comforts, which is not the case in Africa.”

That’s when Hacking dropped his observation about the location.

“I can’t quote the fellow but I was told by one of the organizers – and people connected with the rally are talking about it – that the rally might return to Africa next year. I’d say there’s a 50-50 chance.”

Of course, the Dakar was cancelled abruptly right at the last moment two years ago because of terrorism threats in Africa. It moved to Argentina and Chile last year and this is its second running in that region.

“They wouldn’t go back to Senegal again,” Hacking said. “It it went back to Africa, the rally (Hacking said it would always be known as the Dakar, regardless of where the rally is held) would likely start in Tunisia and head east toward Egypt.”

Hacking said despite good intentions, he really didn’t have a chance when this year's rally started.

His small operation “was like taking a pea shooter to a gunfight. We have to be better prepared in future – we have to test more, for starters – and have more technical support and financial support.”

He said that on the night before our phone call, “I had a tour of (NASCAR driver) Robby Gordon’s operation and it’s there you see the level of support that’s required to do this rally properly.”

Hacking said most of the professional teams have large crews “that lets the driver step out of the car and the crew take over. I have good volunteer help but we’re lacking in resources, financial and otherwise.”

But he said he wouldn’t have missed this rally for the world.

“It’s a great experience just being a part of it,” he said. “It’s important to learn as much as you can in order to go home and build interest and develop a long-term plan to tackle this thing the right way.”

Incidentally, the Associated Press is reporting that Carlos Sainz and Cyril Despres had  extended their leads after the seventh stage of the rally, a 370-mile leg through the Atacama Desert in northern Chile.

VW driver Sainz finished third in Friday’s stage, 4 minutes, 21 seconds behind winning teammate Nasser Al-Attiyah. Sainz leads Al-Attiayah by 11:03 overall.

Two-time motorbike champion Despres won the stage on his KTM, 29 seconds ahead of defending champ and teammate Marc Coma. Despres leads Coma by 1:06:50 overall.

Italian motorcyclist Luca Manca remained in hospital in critical condition a day after sustaining life-threatening head injuries in the sixth stage.

$9.2M loss for Edmonton Indy race is mind-boggling

Things are percolating on a number of fronts so chew on this:

A fine piece of reporting by Dan Barnes of the Edmonton Journal has revealed that the Rexall Edmonton Indy has cost the city of Edmonton nearly $10 million the last two years.

My God.

Wrote Barnes: “The open wheel auto race has been operated . . . on budgets of $15 million in 2008 and $12.1 million this year and has generated a combined loss of $9.2 million, a bill picked up by the City of Edmonton on behalf of its taxpayers.”

For the whole story, click here.

Okay, here’s what I want to know. It’s okay to say $9.2 million has been lost – but it didn’t disappear into thin air. If it went out of one pocket, it went into another.

So my question would be: who’s making the money?

Who’s ripping off whom?

Because, ladies and gentlemen, that’s what’s happening.

 

I would suggest that Kimi Raikkonen’s official move to the World Rally Championship will be followed soon by Michael Schumacher’s announcement that he will return to drive in Formula One next season.

Reuters news agency reported on Thursday that the Kimster was on the verge of signing a contract with Citroen to compete in the WRC in 2010. As Sebastien Loeb has won the last six world rally titles in that marque, it would appear to be a wise move by Raikkonen and he could perhaps become the first driver to win both the F1 and WRC titles.

The reason there’s been a delay in the Schumacher announcement is because Raikkonen’s managers have been talking to Mercedes. Now that he’s been thoroughly rebuffed (there was a chance for him at McLaren, too, once upon a time), Mercedes GP (formerly Brawn GP, formerly Honda, formerly BAR, formerly Tyrrell) can go ahead and do what it’s wanted to do all along: announce that the seven-time world champion will return to the cockpit in 2010 and be reunited with Ross Brawn – an unbeatable combination when the two were at Ferrari.

Schumacher has been dropping hints that he’s fit again and raring to go. When Felipe Massa was injured this year, it was expected that Schumacher – who remained on the Ferrari payroll until recently – would step in.

But he begged off, citing a neck injury suffered in a motorcycle accident that hadn’t fully healed. However, he’s been telling people at various karting events he’s contested recently that the neck is fine.

 

'Rocket' Richard wins fourth Canadian Rally Championship

Pat (Rocket) Richard of Squamish, B.C., won his fourth Canadian Rally Championship when he captured the annual Rally of the Tall Pines held at Bancroft, Ont., at the weekend.

Richard and co-driver Alan Ockwell of Toronto finished the Tall Pines in one hour, 53 minutes and 48 seconds in a Subaru. Second-place finishers Andrew Comrie-Picard of Toronto and Jeremy Wimpey of State College, Pa., were about three minutes behind in one hour and 56:44 seconds in a Mitsubishi while third-place finishers Frank and Dan Sprongle of Georgetown, Ont., did the rally in 1:57:07 in a Subaru.

Two-time national champions Antoine L’Estage and Nathalie Richard of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., were winning when clutch problems on their Mitsubishi prevented them from starting the final stage on time.

They eventually finished the rally in fifth place but suffered a double whammy by losing both the Canadian championship to Richard as well as the North American Rally Cup to Comrie-Picard.

Said L’Estage: "It’s been said that the highs in this sport are really high but that it can also be cruel. We definitely felt that today."

Richard previously won the national championship in 2002 and 2004 as well as last year.

Canadian rally championship up for grabs at Tall Pines

With the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship still undecided, and with almost-daily announcements coming from Formula One (the latest being Mercedes-Benz purchasing the Brawn F1 team), the attention of most motorsport observers has continued to be fixed on auto racing.

Which is too bad, because on Friday and Saturday in Bancroft, the annual Rally of the Tall Pines is scheduled and the winner of the 2009 Canadian Rally Championship will be determined.

Last year’s national champions, Pat Richard of Squamish, B.C., and co-driver Alan Ockwell of Toronto, must win the Tall Pines in order to hold onto their title. Meantime, Antoine L’Estage and co-driver Nathalie Richard of Ste-Jean-sur-Richeleu, Que., can win the crown by either winning or finishing second in Bancroft.

Although out of the running for the Canadian championship, Andrew Comrie-Picard of Toronto and Jeremy Wimpey of State College, Pa., hope to put a lock on the North American Rally Cup with a good finish in the Tall Pines.

According to organizers, more than 50 teams have entered, including 10 teams from the U.S. Other Canadians hoping to do well include brothers Frank and Dan Sprongl of Georgetown, Zbigniew Szewczyk and Tomasz Karzynski of Calgary and Martin Walter of North Gower and Ferdinand Trauttmansdorff of Ottawa.

For the uninitiated, rallying is not like it was years ago when navigators tried to figure out how to go from checkpoint to checkpoint, and at what speed, and so-on. Modern-day rallying, in which competitors bomb around in cars like Subarus, Mitsubishis and Nissans, is really rally racing with speed (and staying on the road) the deciding factors.

The Canadian Rally Championship is made up of six events starting in Quebec in February. Competitors then head west for events in the Rockies and along the Pacific coast before returning east to Ontario where the series will wrap up this weekend.

Although November has been somewhat mild in the Bancroft area, temperatures are dropping below freezing after dark so it’s possible – possible – that one of the Tall Pines’s major attractions, roads covered in snow and ice, will be a reality by the weekend.

Rally cars slide around anyway but the introduction of ice or snow might add a little slippin’ to the mix, which will just spice things up.

For more information – schedules, accommodation and so-on – please see www.tallpinesrally.com

One tough Mexican road race attracts Canadian competitors

One of my favourite racing stories involves the late Indianapolis 500 champion Bill Vukovich and the time he travelled to Mexico to compete in La Carrera Panamericana road race.

(What is this race? This is the description that I’ve lifted directly from www.panamrace.com

(The modern event is a revival of the famous international Pan Am that was conducted between 1950-1954. Many of the world’s most famous drivers, including world champions like Phil Hill and Juan Manuel Fangio, came to Mexico during these years to test their cars, skill, and stamina. The race was started in 1950 by the Mexican government to inform the world that Mexico had a new system of highways stretching across the country – from north to south – for commerce and tourism. When the race was cancelled in 1955, its purpose had been accomplished.)

Okay, so Vukovich – who didn’t know the definition of the word "slow" – was in the 1954 edition of the race and was reportedly scaring the daylights out of his co-driver who was getting on Vuky’s nerves by constantly imploring him to be careful and not to go so fast and so-on.

As they rounded a particularly dangerous mountain corner, Vukovich lost control and as the car plunged over an embankment, the two-time Indy 500 champion reportedly took his hands off the wheel, looked at his terrified passenger, and said: "Okay, you drive."

The modern version of the Pan-Am was started in 1988 and is more of a rally than a balls-to-the-wall, 2,000-mile top speed run from southern Mexico to the Texas border, as was the case in the old days.

In any event, it’s on this weekend and two of my racing friends, Bob Harrington and Ken Graham, have sent me copies of the entry list and there are some Canadians competing:

Stewart Robertson and Linda Robertson (they’re in the vintage class, driving a Studebaker!), John Nielsen and Emine Nielsen, Anthony Strelzow and Lee-Ann Strelzow, Randy Penner (co-driving with Wilhelm Ostrop of Germany),and John Gregory and Chrislana Gregory.

Ken reports that 77 of 102 entrants completed qualifying, five dropped out because of accidents and two have been admitted to hospital.

I’ll let you know how our folks made out in a follow-up report. They're in against some tough company as one of the competitors is none other than Stig Blomqvist, the 1984 World Rally Champion.