Ontario Time Attack: High Performance Driving School
Friday forecast – rain.
Saturday forecast – rain and cold.
Sunday forecast – rain, cold, windy but clearing as day progresses.
When you're planning a spring auto sport event, usually the booking is taking place in November so you do not have the luxury of ordering the weather. You can beg and plead with Mother Nature but that will have no impact. Weather has been one of the most talked about topics across the United States and Canada this winter and spring. It will go down in the record books. There is often cool weather during Ontario Time Attack's High Performance Driving School and, despite the weather, it sold out in early April as drivers anticipated getting some seat time to improve their daily driving or maybe to give them an edge in Time Attack competition. May 3 and 4, 2014 was the date of our annual High Performance Driving School.
May 3rd at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park saw a full house of auto enthusiasts. And if they didn’t have layers and rain gear, they were in for a cold and wet day. But it was still fun!If you are thinking there cannot be much competition in Canada, let alone Ontario which is just one province (a province is like a state. Ontario borders New York, Michigan, and Wisconsin), allow me to point out that you would be mistaken. Ontario is home to several road race courses – Toronto Motorsports Park, Grand Bend Motorplex, Calabogie Motorsports park, and Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. There are three primary Time Attack organizations – Sigma, CSCS, and Ontario Time Attack (a division of CASC-OR) and there are over a dozen organizations that hold lapping sessions at one or more of the above mentioned tracks. I will not say that you will get schooled on the track if you cross the border and participate in one of our local time attack events, but you will face some good competition. If you are a follower of One Lap of America, you will remember Will Chan’s twin-charged Honda Civic. Time Attack fans will remember last fall when Jimmy Houghton and Chris Boersma went south-west to participate in Global Time Attack and did quite well at Buttonwillow Raceway. Jimmy placed 2nd in Limited FWD with Chris placing 1st in Street FWD.
Here’s Jimmy’s ITR. After a massive rebuild of the supercharged K24 by Eric Lavigne at R-Division, it put down 520 whp.
Chris’ Civic is a beautiful car and he has put a lot of work into it over the winter. Watch for both of these cars in 2014!May 9th and 10th Sasha Anis, William Au-Yeung, and Michael Gardener crossed the border to race at Road Atlanta with Global Time Attack. Borders should be irrelevant when it comes to racing (not that we should disrespect the laws at our borders); but racing at tracks in different countries is the way Motorsport was intended to be. My first track lapping event was with a great group of guys from the New York Speed forum at Toronto Motorsport Park. It ignited a latent passion of mine into an addiction to racing that I continue to feed!
The Canadian Contingent did well during competition. Sasha in his highly modified, naturally aspirated OnPoint Dyno Nissan 350Z finished 2nd in Unlimited RWD.
