VARAC 44st Vintage Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park – June 13th to June 16th Race Report6/19/2024 The Enhanced Performance, Good Cars Only, Gabo Solutions #77 Formula Mazda Team had an excellent weekend at the VARAC 44th Vintage Grand Prix, held at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park (CTMP). We were placed in the Formula Classic Race group. There was a total of 31 cars in our race group including, Formula Fords, F2000’s, F1200’s, a Super Vee and several Formula Mazda’s as well as a few other historic open wheel cars. The weather ranged from raining to beautiful sunny days with temperatures ranging from 20°C to 27°C. Over the course of Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we were on track a total of 10 times; 3 on-track practices during the Thursday test day, followed by one practice and on qualifying session on Friday, Race 1 & 2 on Saturday, as well as the Ludwig Heimrath Open Wheel Challenge and Races 3 & 4 on Sunday. Our race group included some beautiful open wheel race cars. On the Thursday test day, the weather was mixed with some sun in the morning and a torrential rain storm Thursday evening. Our best lap for the test day was a 1:24 – a pretty respectable lap time, however off from our typical lap times in the 1:22’s. Friday morning, the weather was quite nice – we set a time of 1:28.994, which was the 2nd best time for the session of all the other cars. During our qualifying session, we ended up with a fair qualifying time of 1:26.083 – 4 one hundredths of a second off the leader, placing us in P2 in our race group and class. The weather on Saturday was sunny and warm with a high in the low 20’s. During Race 1, and together with the leader, we pulled away comfortably from the field on the first lap, we finished P2 in our race group and P2 in our class with best lap time of 1:24.474. During Race 2, once again we pulled away from the field on the first lap with the leader and finished P2 in our race group and P2 in our class with a best lap time of 1.25.705. Late Saturday afternoon, we participated in the Ludwig Heimrath Open Wheel Challenge. There were 9 cars in total in our race group and we cruised to a P1 victory with a best lap time of 1:25.965. The weather on Sunday was just beautiful with sunny skies and a high of 23°. During Race 3, we set a best lap time of 1:24.739 finishing P2 in out race group and P2 in our class. During Race 4, we held steady in second place in a caution filled , shortened race, setting a fast lap time of 1:24.897, finishing in P2 in our race group and in our class. All in all, a superb race weekend! A special thank you to our guest crew chief for the weekend, Christina Murdoch. And to Bill Vallis & Shirley Vallis of Vallis Motor Sport for their trackside support during the VARAC VGP and to Canadian Tire Motorsports Park for hosting such a fantastic, safe event!! And last, but certainly not least, we want to thank our long-suffering family which allows us to continue to race……….
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The Enhanced Performance, Good Cars Only, Gabo Solutions #77 Formula Mazda Team had a good race weekend at the BEMC Spring Trophy Races held at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. We were entered in the Formula Classic/Formula Libre race group. There were a total of 17 cars in our race group including, six F1200’s, three F1600’s, two Formula 4’s, one Historic Formula Ford, one Formula Four, one Van Diemen F2000, amongst some other cars. The May weather was very nice Friday and Saturday with rain and fog Sunday morning, with some sunshine on Sunday afternoon with temperatures ranging from 10 to 20° C. Over the course of Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we were on track a total of 8 times; 4 on-track practices during the Friday test day, followed by qualifying and Race 1 on Saturday and Race 3 on Sunday. We opted out of racing in Race 2 on Sunday morning as we felt the conditions were just not safe with the amount of fog around the race course. Our race class had some beautiful open wheel race cars including Jim Morton’s unbelievably fast Gamma Tercero F4. Our best lap for the test day was a 1: 24 flat on old Hoosier tires from the previous year, pretty impressive for old race tires. Saturday morning, the weather was perfect – about 17°C and a clear sky. We switched to another used set of Hoosiers. We set a reasonable P3 practice time of 1:24.747 (P1 in our class). During qualifying, we set a P4 time of 1:25.824 (P2 in our class). During Race 1, we diced back and forth with Jim Morton and spun on the outside of turn 2, relegating us to P6 in our race group and P2 in our class. Our best lap time in Race 1 was a 1.24.740. The weather on Sunday morning was dreadful, with rain and a very heavy fog. We elected not to run in Race 2 as we just did not feel comfortable with the amount of heavy fog around the race track. As it turned out, lap times were way off as drivers struggled to see. We had a great start at the beginning of Race 3 right behind Jim Morton gapping the rest of the pack by the end of lap 3. Sadly, Jim was able to get away from us using lapped traffic, we were never able to catch up him. We finished the race in P3 (P1 in our class) with a best lap time of 1:27.028. Not a great lap time, as the track was still very green from all of the rain over the course of Sunday. Here is our video race report from the weekend. And a big thank you to Bill and Shirley Vallis of Vallis Motor Sport for their trackside support during the BEMC Spring Trophy Races and to Canadian Tire Motorsports Park for hosting such a fantastic event!! And last, but certainly not least, we want to thank our long-suffering family which allows us to continue to race………. Our first engine start if the 2024 season!!! It sounds awesome!!!!! This is our first maintenance update 2024 for the 10th of April. Stay tuned as we start the race engine in the #77 Formula Mazda for the first time in this year!! Sadly, our Subject Motorsports Facebook page has been taken over by hackers. As a result, we will not be using that particular social media platform for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, we will still post regular updates to our YouTube Channel and our LinkedIn Page.
Please do not accept any Facebook direct messages from our Subject Motorsports account. If you need to contact me, please use email or phone. Sorry for the inconvenience. At this special time of year, we want to take a moment to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy 2024.
Please join us at a track near you to watch us during our 2024 racing season.
SVRA U.S. Vintage Grand Prix at Watkins Glen International – September 6th through 10th Race Report9/20/2023 The Enhanced Performance, Good Cars Only, Gabo Solutions, Melanoma Canada #77 Formula Mazda Team had a reasonably good race weekend at the 2023 SVRA U.S. Vintage Grand Prix at Watkins Glen International. We ran in Group 9 – Monoposto Wings and Slicks. The weather was mixed with very hot weather the first few days and rain on the final day with temperatures ranging from the high-teens to the low 30’s Celsius. Over the course of Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we were on track a total of 8 times; 2 on track practices during the spilt Wednesday/Thursday test day, followed by 2 practices, 2 qualifying sessions, Race 1, and Race 2. There was a large speed differential within the qualifying group!! We definitely had our work cut out for us, as most everyone in our group had much more horsepower than we did. Lots of beautiful race cars! In the first qualifying session, we placed 7th of 11 race cars, 1st in our 9F4 class with a time of 1:57.269. In the 2nd qualification session, we qualified 6th out of 7 cars, 2nd in our class with best lap time of 1:59.404 (we were scuffling in new tires). For Race 1, on the afternoon of the 9th of September, our race Group 9 included 12 high powered open wheel race cars, including Lola’s, Elan’s, Ralt’s, Swift’s and a number of F5000’s. The weather was perfect for racing, clear and mild, about 24 Celsius. We started in 10th and finished in 9th position, 1st in our class, with a best lap time of 1:56.771, our best lap time of the weekend!! Here is the YouTube video link to our first race https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPWOh2Z7dxQ – our race begins at about time mark 5:07.22. In Race 2, on the 10th of September, weather was light rain, which continued throughout the race. We made the mistake of going out on slicks. The majority of the race, we were able to navigate our way around the track without too much trouble. Sadly, we hydroplaned in corner 11 and made contact with another car that had contacted the tire wall on drivers left. Our race car had too much damage to continue. Lots of work to do over the winter to repair our #77 Formula Mazda – stay tuned for repair updates on our website www.subjectmotorsports.com, our YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkrPKqGp6WSukj3qKzMiKhw, and our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/SubjectMotorsports/.
Despite the damage to the #77 Formula Mazda, we did manage to finish 3rd in our class and 9th in our race group. A special thank you Bill and Shirley Vallis of Vallis Motor Sport for their trackside support. A very big thank you to the SVRA for hosting such a great event!! And last, but certainly not least, once again we want to thank our long suffering and tormented family which follows us from racetrack to racetrack and allows us to continue to do the racing thing……. VSCDA Vintage Grand Prix au Grattan XXXVI at Grattan Raceway – August 10th to 13th Race Report8/15/2023 The Enhanced Performance, Good Cars Only, Gabo Solutions, Melanoma Canada #77 Formula Mazda Team had an fantastic weekend at the VSCDA Vintage Grand Prix au Grattan XXXVI held at Grattan Raceway. We had registered our #77 Formula Mazda in the VSCDA Formula Classic (Group E). There was a total of 24 cars in our race group including Vintage Formula Fords, Club Fords, S2000’s, a lightning-fast Formula Continental, a Brabham and as well as a many other historic open wheel cars. The weather was beautiful all weekend with temperatures during the weekend ranging from 20°C to 25°C. Over the course of Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we were on track a total of 7 times; 2 on-track practices and the first qualifying session on Friday, followed by the second qualifying session and the Sprint Race and the Heat Race on Saturday and Feature Race on Sunday. On the Friday test day, the weather was very nice with a sun cloud mix. Our best lap for the two practice sessions was a P2 1:23.377 – a pretty respectable lap time considering that we haven’t been to Grattan in 15 years. The leader, Scott Durbin in a very nice yellow Formula Continental, was P1 at 1:21.382 – so we had some work to do. During our first qualifying session on Friday, we were a bit slower, P2 1:23.835, while Scott bettered his practice time to 1:20.549 – clearly, we had to improve our on-track performance if we were to challenge for the win. The weather on Saturday was perfect, sunny and 24°C. During our second qualifying session, we improved our lap time to P1 1:22.315 (Scott decided not to waste his tire for the second qualifying session). With qualifying over, and based on the best qualifying time, Scott qualified P1 and we qualified P2. During the Sprint Race, we managed to get a good start and gapped Scott down the front straight to turn 1. Scott caught us in the technical portion of the track and passed us during the first lap. Scott finished in P1 with a best lap time of 1:20.802, while our best P2 lap time was 1:22.471. During the Heat Race, once again we managed to beat Scott to the first turn – we battled for 2/3rds of the race – Scott was able use the back markers to his advantage and developed a gap of 7 seconds at the finish. He finished in P1 with a best lap time of 1:20.585 compared to our P2 best lap time of 1:20.922 – we were definitely making progress. On Sunday, the weather was once again beautiful a per day to be on the track. Our last race of the weekend was scheduled to start at noon – it was delayed by 20 minutes due to track clean up from a shunt in the previous race. During the Feature Race, I managed to get an excellent start, beating Scott to the first corner. He and I battled for the first three laps, and then my tires started to go away due to the abrasive nature of the track. In the end, Scott finished in P1 with a best lap time of 1:19.949, we finished 16 seconds behind him in P2 with a best lap time of 1:21.539 – clearly, our tires were done. A fantastic weekend and a great race result!!!!
A very special thank you to our guest crew chief for the weekend, Christina Murdoch. We would not have been able to accomplish what we did during the weekend without her expert help. And many thanks VSCDA Vintage Grand Prix au Grattan XXXVI for hosting such a fantastic, safe event!! |
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