ChumpCar: Calabogie Motorsports Park
“Car 998* was four wheels off track, contacted the tire wall, and is now back on track and continuing.” “Car 731* was four wheels off track, no contact, and got the clear from the marshals to return to track and continue.” “Car 309* went four wheels off track, was too hot into the corner and all over before going off. Car 901* following and had no place to go, appeared to be minor contact.” *Car numbers and incidents have been changed and modified. Apart from #998, that did happen but the modification was that it happened when I was driving the car Sunday morning and not when I was standing in the tower.
The radio in the race control tower is rarely silent on a race weekend. The ChumpCar World Series, sponsored by Optima Batteries, taking place at Calabogie Motorsports Park was no exception as the calls were coming in ensuring that Race Control was kept informed of the action that was happening all around the 20 corner full track. Sal Sanfilippo, ChumpCar director for the North region, was recording all of these incidents. Over his shoulder he explained that one or two could be understood, but more than that occurring in a driver’s session and their team needed to be contacted. If it did not clean up, then the car would be black flagged. At that moment Sal was contacted on the ChumpCar radio channel, that car 309 appeared to have been hit hard in the incident and the Chief Tech was wondering where the other car was? All teams are very aware that contact between cars results in a black flag with both cars having to sit in technical impound before being allowed to continue.
309’s account of the incident was very different than the marshal’s report. Sal had the chief marshal, Ian, contact the corner marshal for clarification and also to black flag 901. The corner marshal reiterated their observation of the event. 901 reported to technical impound and they reported the same facts as the corner marshal. Sal’s decision, 309 was at fault and 901 could not avoid the contact. 901 sat in impound and 309 went to their trailer, unable to continue the race.
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