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Misery at Mosport, April 28, 2002

Speedorama 2002

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Editorial Exhaust

The start of the 2002 season has finallyarrived, although the Ontario weatherseems to be doing a right terrible numberon the racers this year. Yuck! I've been outto the track four times in April: SpringFling, MCO Race School, BMW DriverTraining and the BARC GP. The first andlast had horrible, bleak weather.

But at least the writers are feeling verboseI'm so happy with the submissions thismonth; this is the first 24 page Link I've

been priviledged to produce. Keep thesubmissions coming, the Link keepsgetting better and better!

As I've mentioned before, I'm hoping totake leave of this position over the coming5 months. I'd like more time to devote toMotorsport in general and to this club inother capacities in particular.

One area that I would like to devote moretime to is writing, in this case writingabout Motorsport. Moving from the editorsrole to a contributor is one way ofdistributing my time to make room forother pursuits such as writing. This monthI was able to take my laptop with me toeach of the four events and found time to

jot down 3 articles this month. I have twomore articles for next month.

I would have liked another 2 days to finishthis month's Link, but alas, I'm running a

bit behind, so the two unfinished articleon Volunteerism and the successful MCORace School will have to appear in the

June 2002 edition.

Til then, keep all four wheels on thepavement!

Cover Photo: Lotus Elan by RichardMuise, Speedorama pictures by Mark Atos

Motorsport Club of Ottawa

Founded 1949

Founding Member CASC 1951

Incorporated 1953

2002 MCO Executive

President andOntario Race Organizing Rep.

Ron WoltmanH: (613) 831-8682W: (819) 997-6988

C: (613)75 [email protected]

[email protected]

Vice-PresidentBennett Leckie

W: (613) 822-1765 [email protected]

Directors

Open WheelRick Miskiman

H: (613) [email protected]

Closed WheelSteve Greiner

[email protected]

RallyCraig Hamm

H: (613) 727-3192W: (613) 596-7107

[email protected]

MembershipPatrick WeightmanH: (613) 831-3749

[email protected]

TreasurerRobert Benson


SecretaryJohn Powell


Solo-IIGreg Kierstead

H: (613) 274-3942

W: (613) [email protected]

Solo-I LiasionJeff Graves


Hotline(613) 788-0525

Website

www.mco.orgmaintained by Rob Microys

Hosted byAnjura Technology Corporation

General Meetings

Louis's Steakhouse1682 Cyrville Rd., Ottawa, ON

FirstTuesday of every monthAll are welcome

M.C.O.P.O. Box 65006,

Merivale Postal OutletNepean, ON K2G 5Y3

The LINK is the official publication ofthe Motorsport Club of Ottawa. Theopinions expressed in the LINK do notnecessarily reflect those of the LINKEditorial Staff or the Club's Executive.Though all efforts are made to ensurethat facts stated in the articles hereina r e a c c u r a t e , t h e i n d i v i d u a l c o n t r i b u t o r s s h o u l d c h e c k t h eaccuracy of thei r ar t ic les pr ior tosubmission.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS:18th day of every month.

KartingPaul Swinwood

W: (613) 237-8551 [email protected]

Ontario Race Committee RepCindy Armstrong


Club Merchandise Co-ordinatorWarren Haywood

[email protected] Editor

[email protected] Muise


1

May 2002

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May 2002

CASC 2002 Ontario Region Schedule:

Spring Fling Shannonville April 13/14 *BARC Mosport April 27/28BEMC Mosport May 11/12CRDA Shannonville June 1/2MCO Shannonville June 22/23VARAC Mosport June 29/30DAC Shannonville July 20/21

BARC Mosport August 10/11CRDA/SCCA Mosport Aug 31/ Set 1BEMC Mosport Sept 14/15CASC/Panoz Mosport Sept 28/29* Spring Fling is now 2 days

Solo-I Schedule

Open House, Cedarbrae VolkswagenApril 7th 1pm to 5pm OMSC

Solo I School, SMP, May 11, TACSolo I School, SMP, May 12. TACEvent #1, MDDT, May 18, OMSC

Event #2, MDDT, May 19, OMSCEvent #3, SMP, June 15, HADAEvent #4, SMP, June 16, HADAEvent #5, MDDT, July 6, BACEvent #6, MDDT, July 7, BACEvent #7, TMP, July 27, HADAEvent #8, TMP, July 28, HADAEvent #9, SMP, Aug 10, TACEvent #10, SMP, Aug 11, TACEvent #11, TMP, Aug 24, BACEvent #12, TMP, Aug 25, BACEvent #13, SMP, Sept 14, OMSCEvent #14, SMP, Sept 15, OMSCTop Gun Shoot Out TBA TBA TBA

Solo Banquet November 2nd.

MCO Solo-II Schedule

April 14 Event #1May 5 Performance Control SchoolMay 26 Event #2June 2 CADL Invitational Solo IIJune 9 Event #3June 29 St. LAC Invitational Solo IIJuly 14 Event #4August 11 Event #5August 18 Performance Control School

August 25 Event #6September 8 Event #7October 6 Event #8October 13 Event #9* all events at Jetform Park

MCO Karting Series

Please note that this series has been cancelled.Please see notice on page 18.

MCO Rally Championship Series Schedule:

Mississippi Valley Drivex- November 16, 2001

Lanark Winter Highands Rally- night time drive, January 12, 2002

Slush n'Slides - January - March 2002

Mangy Moose- daytime drivex, April 27, 2002, 200km

Totally Silly Drive (TSD)- night time learnex, July 13, 2002, 132km

Solo-II schedule- See bottom left

Golden Pine Rally- daytime drivex, September 14, 2002, 200km

Lanark Highlands Drivex- daytime drivex, October 19, 2002

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May 2002

Sorry Sir, But YouCan't Go in There!

by Sam Mandia

I wish I had a dollar for the number oftimes I have heard that phrase. Securityguards are of course just doing what theyare told. Right? The amount of securityrequired at races around the world thesedays is simply amazing. It wasnt alwayslike that.

Reflecting back to the 70's. A 3-day passat Mosport was the perfect way to get tosee, and talk to just about everyone whowas involved with motor sport in theworld. Friday was a special day, every onewas laid back and things weren't quite sohectic. Drivers had a practice session inthe morning and second session in the af-ternoon. You could stand around and lis-ten in on all kinds of conversations withKen Tyrell and Jackie Stewart, ColinChapman and Emerson Fittipaldi etc . The

taking of photographs was the order of theday. In 1973 at the Canadian GP, I got tosit in Arturo Merzario's Ferrari. Heck Iwas invited to sit in the car. The GrandPrix itself had no real bearing on one's ac-cess to the drivers and cars. As long youkept quiet at the right time, stayed out ofthe way, and didn't do anything stupid,you could move about, as freely as youliked.

Saturday and Sunday were car picturedays. Although, I much preferred to keepshooting the drivers. In 1973, I took ahead and shoulder shot of all 24 drivers

for the Canadian GP in their cars with lit-tle more than a 50mm lens. Some wouldeven pose for you.

When the Grand Prix moved to Montrealthings changed a little. Security was tight-er, and had more 'layers'. My favorite

means of going into areas where I had noreal access was to simply approach the se-curity guard, walk past him until he triedto stop me and say: "it's OK he's with mepointing to my brother-in-law as he fol-lowed me through the gate. I used thismethod on many occasions, and if youlooked like you belonged then you wouldget in. Never even slowed down for thegate. My two favourites are of Clay Re-gazzoni and AJ Foyt.

Report from thePresident's Chair...

It was a bright and sunny spring day threedecades gone by. I was hurtling blithelyalong in my bright red MGA, through theCarleton University Campus, and while anundergraduate, I was not always keen onthe class part. The road swept right, off-camber and down hill east towards theBronson Avenue exit! And wouldn't youknow it, I found myself travelling a ticktoo quickly! Only later would I learn thiswas a decreasing radius corner, and thedamn roadster seemed to sliding awayfrom me! The top, was of course, off andwithout seatbelts, I knew if the car rolledover, I would have no trouble getting outquickly.

Instinctively, I let off the throttle (well, Iwas going too fast!) to correct whatseemed a 'loose' condition. Well damn, ifthe bloody, little under-powered 1500cc,four banger, didn't gather itself up with asomewhat jerky lurch back to centre.

"Hmmm", I muttered. "Am I good?"

Safety Fast - the motto of the Abingdon-on-Thames MG Car Company - thankGod.

Fast forward to Shannonville MotorsportPark 34 years later. Mee bum is tinglingjust like that very day, and I have the samestupid grin on my face. I am piloting anow very expensive and rare 1959 MGATwin Cam vintage racecar round the"twisties" of the Fabi circuit. The car isnot BMW M3 quick, but it boy-oh-boy, itgoes exactly where you point it; stops in-

credibly efficiently and the cut-downwindscreen whips my "hair" into a frenzy.Oh, what a feeling -- and Toyota can buzzoff.

Sorry about that - sometimes memoryblurs direct point making - in any event, acircular way of coming to the MCO's Rac-ing School (2002) -- the weekend of April21-22 at Shannonville Motorsport Park.Did we have fun? A full comple-ment ofenthusiastic students, with automobilesspanning the generations, from new Bim-

mers to the aforementioned MGA TwinCam. The Treasurer even says we madesome "dinero"!

I have tried to thank personally everyonewho contributed, attended, assisted, andvolunteered at every opportunity. Allowme to publicly do so again. But most es-pecially, I want to pat on the back all ofthose individuals who quietly go abouttheir volunteerism; contributing endless

time and resources, even sacrificing fami-ly commitments, without fanfare, seekingno other satisfaction than a job well done.To all of you - and you know who youare - THANKS. That's class. Good teamwork, all.

Our next big challenge is the CanaskaCup. Scheduled this year for June 22-23,again at SMP. Much work has been done:much more need doing. Please VOLUN-TEER. I need trucks. Specifically, pickup trucks to aid in the rescue and inter-vention. If an individual is willing to loanhis/her truck, and want to drive it, as well,

I shall endeavour make it so.

Other needs, besides the all-importantVOLUNTEER, are gifts for the workers.Pins, hats, coupons for service at yourplace of business, vouchers, a pace car(want to show off your latest toy?). Un-less, you are qualified as a pace car driver,we will put someone in the seat. But youcan go with said individual.

Insurance has been for the most part set-tled. Thus far, it has gone "smoothly".We have more paperwork to do for ourevents - especially Solo II - but it is get-

ting done. Also, more cost, but as I haverepeatedly said, that is the cost of doingbusiness.

All the time and space for this month en-joy your club more by contributing.

rpw

Workers need for theMCO Race Weekend,

June 27-28. If youcan volunteer yourtime for a wonderfulweekend of speed,please contact the

MCO executive

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May 2002

Speedorama 2002by Rob Microys

2002 proved to be yet another successfulyear on the show car circuit for MCO.The first Annual Speedorama at Lans-downe Park was a success! Thanks haveto be given to all the people who helpedmake the display a success - it seemed to

attract a lot of attention and the cars allgot their pictures taken by many people.The cars at the booth included my Volks-wagen Jetta GT-D racer, Craig Seko's veryattractive Red Porsche 944S2, and GregBrady's wild Subaru Performance RallyImpreza 2.5RS.

The two nicely painted cars got greatlooks, and the rally car had to be cleaneddown hourly from the drool marks - it wasa great crowd pleaser. It was constantlygetting pictures snapped, and people werealways peering in through the windowsand asking howfast it went.Craig's car withit's spectacular red

paint was certain-ly ogled at bymany passer by,and also photo-graphed regularly.Although my Jettadoesn't have ashow car paint

job, a racey 'fastand the furious -look alike' decal

package, starkracecar interior,

and certainly'unique' power plant certainly had many

people looking at it and asking questions.Craig's Porsche won Best in Class (Pro-duction Road Racer), the Jetta was theClass Runner-up. The Subaru took classwinning honours in the Rally Car Class.I'm doing this from memory, so I apolo-gize now for any names I miss - you alldid a great job and without the help thedisplay would not have happened. First,thanks for the members who donated theirtime to man the booth for the weekend.Ron W, Mark A, Jim M, Jean M, Craig H,

Sam M, Greg K, Jeff G, Ayan G & JodieS. Then the workers who helped setup,tear down, polish cars, and hauled in stufffor the display and make it all happen!Bennett L (thanks goes to Hovey Indus-tries for their display booth), Jim M, JeanM (additional thanks to Jim Holtom &Control Microsystems for his booth dis-

play), Mike W (for hauling my car to andfro), Greg B, Steve F, Jay S, Jeff G, CraigS, and many others - oh how my memoryfails me... Of course, thanks to Craig S &

Greg B for their great cars. A well de-served special thanks has to go to JeanMacGillivray for pulling all the displaymaterials for the booth together - therewas a incredible amount of reading mate-rial and photos that was there to catch

people's eyes. Pictures from the show, inthis issue of The Link, and on the website,are courtesy of Mark Atos' great digitalcamera.

The show generated great interest in Rally- by far and large the most recognizablesport in the booth this year - even my Jettawas frequently called a 'Rally Car' or athought to be a Mini-Stock 'Roundy-Rounder'. The number of issues of TheLink, membership forms, and event andinformational flyers handed out over theweekend should help continue to make

people aware of MCO in a broader sense.This is one of the only chances where theclub really has a chance to interact with

people outside of our regularly scheduledevents - it

provides a

great oppor-tunity to

bring innew blood.I'm sure thatwe are go-ing to get afew newmembers tothe club as aresult of theworker's ef-forts.Again, I

thank ev-erybody who was at the show to help out.It couldn't have been done without allyour help.The best club display was the NationalCapital Corvette Club - which had a greatdisplay of 'vettes, one of each generation,all in spectacular shape. It was a verywell done booth. The best of show was a'70 'cuda - it won just about every 'best of'category - Paint, Interior, etc. The showwas run under new management this year,formerly known as Autorama, and wassomewhat 'sparse' in comparison to previ-ous years. The show just didn't have thesame intensity, nor number of booths - al-most one quarter of the Aberdeen Pavil-li-on was empty, and the setup of the CivicCentre, although mostly full, seems some-what hollow. As a whole Speedorama2002 gets mixed reviews from me....and for the record, my car has 'plenty' ofhorsepower, and its top speed is 'fastenough' - I can't possibly remember howmany times I got asked "how much HPdoes it make" and "How fast does it go?"

CASC-OR 2002 Mobil 1Solo 2 Regional Cham-

pionship Seriesby Wes Tanney

I would like to take this opportunity to in-form the Solo community of the CASC-OR 2002 Mobil 1 Solo 2 Re-gionalChampionship Series.

The new Solo Ontario Solo 2 Web Page isup and running at; http://www.soloontar-io.com/solo2. If you couldn't make it tothe Open House, registration can be done

by contacting;

Solo 2 Series Hotline / RegistrationVoice: (416) 252-9813 (to 11pm)Fax: (416) 252-0938 (to 11pm)E-mail: [email protected]

The series will be taking place in parkinglots across Ontario this year, from Londonto Ottawa with a number of stops in be-

tween, from the Solo 2 school on May 5thto the Top Gun Shoot-out on October12th. There are ten series events tentative-ly scheduled (with six being scored to-wards the championship) including events

by clubs that have been hosting events foryears to clubs that will be hosting theirvery first Regional Solo 2 events.

The schedule and rules are either availa-ble at the Open House or online at the So-lo Ontario Solo 2 Web Page. The CASC-OR 2002 Mobil 1 Solo 2 ChampionshipSeries Schedule is TENATIVE, so check

back on the web page for updates.

***Please Note:*** The only "OfficialCopy" of the 2002 Solo 2 Regulationswill be the printed version available atCASC-OR Head Office or at the Solo On-tario Open House, April 7th, 2002 at Ce-darbrae Volkswagen 1 - 5 pm. There areno changes planned for the rulebook andwe have put a copy on the website as acourtesy to all of our competitors. Due tosecurity reasons, the ONLY official recog-nized version will be the printed version.

If you have any questions or comments,direct your inquiries to the appropriateSolo Committee member.

Solo 2 Series Hotline / RegistrationVoice: (416) 252-9813 (to 11pm)Fax: (416) 252-0938 (to 11pm)E-mail: [email protected]

photo by Mark Atos

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March 2001May 2002

BMW PrecisionDriving Schoolby Richard Muise

There comes a time when everythinghappens in the car at exactly the righttime: driver, vision, transmission, tires andthe go-pedal. You're hooked up. At theBMW Precision Driver Training school, it

was the last two laps of the autocrosscourse. I was driving the 333-horsepower2001 BMW M3 around a generally simplecourse consisting of some nice straightswith connected with two chicanes and onelarge, one small diameter hair pin. I hadhad trouble the first time on the course 7minutes earlier because I didn't know howto deal with the slow pull out of thechicanes caused by the BMW tractioncontrol (DSC) and because I blew thebraking and understeered off the course inthe small diameter hair pin. But thesecond attempt was on, I was in the zone.I timed the throttle a little earlier so that

the engine started getting into the shoulderof the horsepower curve just when thewheels started to straighten out. Floor thethrottle letting DSC soak up the excesspower to prevent the wheels fromspinning when the torque peak wasreached. Full power all the way down thestraight into the long sweeping hairpin,hard on the binders then bring the speed

back up to just below the point whereundersteer would start. Keeping it there,light on the throttle, balancing the grip,hold it, hold it, now dive to the outside toget as more room for the second chicane.Time the DSC onset again and blast past

the start-finish.That's why I paid $1000 for this one day.This was the money run.

The day started in the BMW 330i with amore modest 225hp. We did some simplewarm up exercises concerning brakingand the differences between ABS and non-ABS. Most schools go through these typesof exercises, no need to review here, otherthan to note that these cars had a switch inthe glovebox to turn off ABS. Next thegroup was split in 2 (there were only 12students with 3 instructors). Half went tolearn some trail braking (but not in the

racing sense) and the other half when tolearn reverse 180 spins.

The spins were fun, but were not like whatI was expecting from doing the same incomputer games. Driving in reverse, onehand on the steering, twisted around in theseat to look out the back, drive through agate to start the maneuver. Flick thesteering briefly left, then 90 degrees rightto get the heavier front to swing out, thenstraighten the steering, select 2nd (easierthen first because it's a simple pull back

and to the right, not a U-turn to select 1st),look up at where you want to go (vision,vision, vision) and power out of the spin.Most of us were able to do it a few times,but one student, Jim, was much moresuccessful and was about ready to changehis name to Jim Rockford.

After 40 minutes, the groups wereswitched. Trail braking in this school wasabout learning to control both braking and

turning at the same time (such as havingto avoid an accident on an off-ramp),which is different from the racing sense oftrail braking which is used to set the carand maintain the weight over the front tirecontact patch. It required a delicate touchwithout ABS, but with ABS, it was a no-brainer. This was the best demonstrationof ABS I have seen yet. I did well here,something I chalk up to spending a lot oftime at noon-hour in our winter drivingschools.

Lunch was a time to socialize with thestudents and instructors (I found out that

the chief instructor, Pierre Savoy is alsothe chief instructor at the HRC school).Strangely, most participants spent thenoon hour bragging to each other aboutwho had been in the bigger accident. Istayed out of those types ofdiscussions/one-up-manship, instead Ispent noon thinking about getting into theM3.

After lunch we did more accidentavoidance (brake, release, vision, turn). Idid well here too; have I mentioned goodvision before? Using only my peripheralvision, I was able to pick up the yellowlights that signaled which way to avoidduring the maneuver and complete theexercise without looking away from mygoal (the left or right lane).

Then we switched to the controlledoversteer exercise. The point was toinitiate, then control a power-on oversteercondition through an entire loop of thewet skid pad. This was the exercise I waswaiting for, because it's the one I can'tpractice in my Civic. I also thought Imight be good at it because it seemedeasy, or at least easy on my computer. Butreal-life is a very different place, and I didhorribly. Too much power, too little

steering and the car snapped into a 360every time. Frustration on my part justmade things worse. Trying a second time10 minutes later was a bit better, but I stillcouldn't get it right, only keeping it goingfor 10-20 feet before spinning. At least Inever stalled the car. I had the vision right,but had no previous experience; perhaps itwill come with more practice. By-the-by,anyone got a rear-drive car I can borrow?

Around 3:15pm, it was time to switch intothe M3. The level of chitchat and nervous

fidgeting increased as we adjusted theseating position. Then turn the car on.Wow. The M3 sounds like an angryanimal. Blip the throttle and the chassisshakes with power. Keep the foot down,the engine zips through 6000 on the wayto 7900rpm; now the animal soundsseriously pissed-off!

We started with a not-so-simple slalom.The cones were placed randomly from 15

to 22 paces apart. Then as we weredriving through the slalom, the instructorat the very end would randomly raise hisarm, indicating that we had to skip thenext gate, even if we had already startedthe turn-in. The M3 was incredible; evenon street tires it would instantly turn out,no hesitation, just working at the speed ofthought. Ian, the student with whom I wassharing the car, was very aggressive,driving much quicker than myself, butseemed a bit ragged with the effort ofgoing as fast as possible. I took my time,not slow, just a pace that I felt comfortablewith, building up speed on each run. This

exercise was a great way of really hittinghome the vision message. You had towatch the instructor, not the pylons.

The final exercise was the autocross withall 12 students. This was a damn lot offun, and gave the first opportunity to seeall the other students and how much theyhad progressed. The age group waseverywhere from early twenties through toan Austrian couple who were in their 60's.Watching the white-haired retired womanand her husband throw the M3 through thechicane was an eye-opener.

After two runs (each run was one warm-up lap and two timed laps), we retired tothe classroom for presentations. The groupwas a little quieter now, having expendedall the accumulated adrenalin in theautocross.

There was a final presentation for the 3fastest laps. The third fastest was Jim at29.67 seconds. I'm just beaming withpride as I write this; I got the first andsecond fastest laps at 28.77 and 29.29! Ajump in the air, fist thrust to the sky, hey,where's the champagne?

In the end, it was a most incredible day

with great instruction and magnificentmachines.

Note: The BMW Perfection DriverTraining school is the second level of athree level course. The first level is a moremodest $455 in the BMW 330i. The finallevel, planned for 2003 is a two-dayweekend at Mount Tremblant in the M3and M Coupe. No price has beenannounced for Level 3, but it is planned asa weekend get-away for couples, allexpenses paid.

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May 2002

MCO General Meetings - 8PM, First Tuesday of every monthExecutive Meetings - 6:30PM, Third Tuesday of every month

LOUIS' STEAKHOUSE1682 Cyrville Road (613) 741-2130

From the 417, take the Innes Road exit (by 417 Nissan and Costco)

all are welcome!

Spring Fling Reportby Richard Muise

Saturday, April 13:The 2002 season started with a misery ofa weather system (who knew it would on-ly get worse, see page 9 - ed). Pissing-in-the-wind drizzle thrown by a unremittingwind. But by 9:00AM the pits were openand ready to start the first hot laps of the

2002 season. I didn't recognize any of thecars, but I didn't have time to check withregistration before heading out onto themarshal station.

For those who have not been to SpringFling, it's a kind of test-and-tune weekend.

No races, just 25 to 30 minutes of openlapping alternating between open wheeland closed wheel.

The open wheel racers were in short sup-ply. There were never more than 4 on thetrack at once. In fact, none answered thefirst green flag and starting at 9:30AM,

the first hot laps were recorded by theclosed wheel racers. It's hard to find agood reason to stand, freezing in the rainwhile only 1 or 2 formula cars circulate.Perhaps a dry track on Sunday will help

bring out wings-n-things. (I don't faultthem, I'm sure I'd wait for dry too! In factI was wishing the same for myself the en-tire day.)

Closed wheel sessions also started slowly,but built to a peak just after lunch whenthere was a continuous stream of carsaround the track. A number of driverswere there for observation, some in their

street cars. The closed wheel entrantsranged from the 2 or 3 street cars (Talonsand a BMW M5), a few vintage vehicles,through to a few Porsches 911's, a Cor-vette and a Firebird. Oh, and a truck -Ford F150. A very loud truck. Fast too,certainly not impeded by any noise reduc-tion devices. Did I mention it was bloodyloud?

By far the most populous were the OntarioStreet Stock - all identical prepped NissanSentras. There were only 5, but they were

out at every opportunity, lapping theirbrains out. Judging by the informal racingfrom day 1, this is going to be a great ser-ies to watch this year. It's exciting, excep-tionally close racing. By the final sessionat 4:30, only the OSS cars were out, still

pushing up to and beyond their limits.Even on a test day, these guys and gals aregoing for it! More than one pushed be-yond the limits, the most spectacular wasa green model that went over the outside

bank of Turn-2 before plunging throughthe lake that had formed through the in-field. It looked like those off-shore unlim-ited powerboats from my vantage point in8; two plumes of water from each frontwheel. But many of the other cars weretesting the limits, sometimes just barelysaving it, especially through Turn-2.(Note: this series was renamed as I wentto press. It is now known as the ActionFront Street Stock Challenge (AFSSC) -ed).

Sunday, April 14:The weather forecast was a bit better - norain, no wind, but the temperature barelygot above 10 before dipping back down tosingle digits in the afternoon. At least thetrack was dry and so were the marshals.There were two marshals-in-training join-ing us from the CRDA marshal school thisweekend.

As with Saturday, the sessions were 30minutes each for closed wheel and openwheel before repeating. So each day, thedrivers would get about 3 hours on track.

Red flags would repeatedly halt the ses-sions, which may sound odd, but with noactual racing going on, the course would

shut down for any car stalled on the cir-cuit. As soon as the car was cleared, the

pit exit would open again and the packwould stream back out.

Most of the cars were looking well sortedby the afternoon, or at least the cars thatwere still running. There were still a fewcars that were having difficulties in themorning. One example was the ex-LenClue Nissan 240SX, which spun a fewtimes, deflated a tire, got completely stuck

in the mud and finally was black-flaggedfor a loose front wheel.

The formula cars were still sparse, reach-ing up to 7 cars on track during the earlyafternoon before finishing the last sessionwith only 2 cars. One Formula-2000 hadquite a moment after the apex at the trou-

blesome Turn-2. I didn't see how it start-ed; perhaps he overcorrected when the

back-end got loose through the apex.

When I saw him, he was already flyingover the edge of the track and just missingthe swamp that claimed the OSS car onSaturday. Mario (I didn't catch his lastname) kept it going, but only seemed toget in deeper, finally coming to a stop in 2inches of mud. The scary part was that hehad hit a rock that tore back the undersideof the nose, stopping just before the driv-ers' feet.

At one point in the morning, the closedwheel session was red-flagged after 3spins on different parts of the circuit onthe same lap. One of the vintage cars, anMG, had put down a 1-foot wide streak ofoil around 75% of the Pro-track. Wecouldn't put down concrete dust on thestill damp pavement, it would have turnedto, well, concrete. So all the drivers wereinstructed in the pits about the oil and themarshals displayed the debris flag at the

beginning of each session for the rest ofthe day to remind the drivers.

By mid-afternoon, the closed wheel carsback to where they started, that is to saysomewhere just past the limits of adhe-sion. But attrition and common sense

brought most of them back into quies-cence. The last 60 minutes had no flag

calls at all, just a few blues as the twoCanada-GT cars lapped through the OSS

pack. The OSSes had traded some bumperpaint in the morning session but settleddown in the afternoon. Spring Fling is in-formal enough that even a novice like my-self could throw the blue flag and I was inTurn-8 without a corner captain. It was agreat learning weekend in that respect.

The day ended at 5pm, just 10 minutes be-fore the rain started again. Bloody rain.

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May 2002

MINUTES OF MEETINGM.C.O. Executive

CommitteeApril 16th, 2002

Louis's Steak House, Ottawa, Ont.

PRESENT:Executive: Ron Woltman, President; Ben-

nett Leckie, Vice-President; Bob Ben-son, Treasurer; Rob Microys, WebsiteEditor; Rick Miskiman, Open Wheel;Steve Greiner, Closed Wheel; CraigHamm, Rally; Jeff Graves, Solo I; GregKierstead, Solo II; Richard Muise LinkEditor; John Powell, Secretary.

Members / Guests: Nick Berry, FRS Ra-dios; Jean MacGillivray, PromotionalDisplay Material; Bob Armstrong, Rac-ing School.

ABSENT WITH EXCUSES:Executive: Paul Swinwood, Karting; Pat

Weightman, Membership; Warren Hay-wood, Club Merchandise Co-ordinator.

NOTE The position of Public RelationsDirector is still vacant.

The President opened the meeting at 6:15p.m., and the following business was dis-cussed:

Racing School:Ron Woltman opened the discussion onthis topic, and the following points wereraised:- The St. John's Ambulance and BBQ and

lunch arrangements have been finalised.Preferred roommates at the hotel will be

arranged as requested.- Shannonville has no line marker, and a

classroom has been reserved for Fridayevening.

- Bob Armstrong noted that 2 studentshave not yet paid in full, but 4 on the re-serve list are fully paid. Bob 'Fearless'Benson advised that these 4 representedpure profit. Bob Armstrong then saidwe could take 34 students, or if the twonot paid up drop out, then 32. Later inthe discussion, Bob Benson said that thepresent projection was for a $1600 prof-it.

- Other items in the discussion concerned

the pick-up of pylons, drinks, etc., thecertificates need to be printed, we willneed 20 radios, and that Paul Swinwoodwould not be available for personal rea-sons.

FRS Radios:Nick advised the executive that we nowown 12 FRS radios with chargers, but ex-tras would be needed for the Drivers'School.President's Phone Update:Ron Woltman advised those present that

he can now be contacted by mobile phoneat 613-863-5360.Membership:Rob Microys reported for Pat Weightmanas follows:- The membership issues raised by Pat are

under control, but the issue of a servicecharge for late or rush renewals shouldbe discussed, as well as a uniform re-newal date which he suggests should beDec. 31st .

- Ron Woltman asked that these items bediscussed at a future executive meeting,and Bennett Leckie noted that the pres-ent system tends to retain more mem-bers.

- Ron then stated that he would like to seea discussion paper sent out on the vari-ous points, which also include socialmemberships and a software upgrade(which Steve Greiner is investigating),for the next meeting.

- Rob closed this topic by requesting anew printer for the Membership Dept.,which was approved, and stating that thepresent membership stands at 216.

Insurance:Ron Woltman gave a brief run-down ofthe present insurance status. We are nowfully insured for all events and the eventforms are available for event organizers touse.Solo II:Greg Kierstead briefed those present anthe following:- We need an equipment storage room, to

which a member suggested that we ap-proach JetForm Park. We also need a12 amp charger for the timing system.

- In a discussion on entry fees, Greg notedthat they are now set at $25 for membersand $30 for others, but that he wouldlike to see a greater difference. Therewas also a proposal to allow for a fullseason rate. Ron Woltman asked for aproposal on the matter. Craig Hammclosed the discussion by noting that Ral-ly entry forms show the entry fees andthen a separate $10 insurance levy.

OJOA Solo II Event:There was a brief discussion on this topicincluding our organising fee, insurance is-sues, and free runs for MCO workers at

the event.Karting:Ron Woltman reported for Paul Swin-wood on the Karting situation as follows:- Amongst the issues were the insuranceproblems for the track at Quyon, unre-solved event date conflicts with NCKC,and the uncertain financial exposure of$8,000 to $12,000 for the Club's seriesas NCKC has now been granted ASN-FIA affiliation. Accordingly, Paul's rec-ommendation is to cancel our series.

- Ron then acknowledged Paul's tireless

efforts on behalf of the Club in the fieldof Karting. He also noted that, whileShannonville relies on race organisers tobring in their own insurance, Paul haswisely decided not to risk the interestsof his family or the Club by dependingon such a measure at this time. Theremay be a possibility in the future formembers' Karting open practice at histrack if it is found that bringing in theClub's insurance is an acceptable risk.

The Link:Richard Muise reported that we still needa replacement for him as editor.Lifetime Memberships:Discussion of criteria for Lifetime Mem-berships was postponed to the next execu-tive committee. On a related matter, RonWoltman suggested that we begin theprocess of nominating the late Ted Powellfor membership in the Canadian Motor-sports Hall of Fame.Special Events/Promotions:Jean MacGillivray gave a summary ac-

count of disbursements for the $140 ad-vance for the Club's promotional displayfor Speedorama, and requested informa-tion on how they should be reported. Shethen indicated hat she would be willing toassemble small displays throughout theyear provided sufficient advance notifica-tion was given.Spring Fling:There were 44 teams present, and it wascold and rainy.Treasurer:Bob Benson reported that we currently

have $19,899 in disposable funds availa-ble.Speedorama:Rob Microys gave a brief wrap-up on thisyear's Speedorama. Our booth elicitedlots of spectator interest, especially therally cars.Solo I:Jeff Graves reported that the open housefor season registrations was well-run.Rally:Craig Hamm gave a brief up-date on the

Mangy Moose rally, and reported that weare now expecting 20 or more teams. Healso informed the meeting that Ryan Hub-er will probably be moving to Toronto,but will finish the organising duties on thenext rally (the Totally Silly Drive).The meeting was adjourned approximate-ly 7:15 p.m. in order to allow time for thefollowing Racing School Instructors' andWorkers' meeting.

Prepared by John Powell, Secretary,MCO, April 24th 2002.

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MINUTES OF MEETINGM.C.O. General Meeting

April 2nd 2002

Louis's Steak House, Ottawa, Ont.Prepared by John Powell, MCO Secretary

PRESENT:Executive: Ron Woltman, President; Ben-

nett Leckie, Vice-President: Bob Ben-son, Treasurer; Rob Microys, WebsiteAdministrator; Steve Greiner, ClosedWheel; Rick Miskiman, Open Wheel;Craig Hamm, Rally; Jeff Graves, Solo I;Greg Kierstead, Solo II; Richard MuiseLink Editor; Warren Haywood, ClubMerchandise Co-ordinator; John Powell,Secretary.

Members: Sufficient members were pres-ent for a quorum.

Guests: Colin Parr, NCKC, Karting; PeterThomas, Media Inc., TV pilot.

ABSENT WITH EXCUSES:

Executive: Paul Swinwood, Karting; PatWeightman, Membership.

NOTE: The position of Public RelationsDirector is vacant.

The Club was forced to hold the monthlymeeting in the general restaurant area asour regular room was again being used fora training seminar. The President openedthe meeting at approximately 8:00 p.m.,and the following business was conduct-ed:

General:

- Ron Woltman first apologised for theroom we were using, and asked mem-bers to keep conversations to a mini-mum as the poor acoustics make it hardto hear speakers.

- He next gave a brief up-date on the ASNinsurance situation, including the Presi-dents' meeting on the topic, and advisedthat the matter would be dealt with inmore depth later in the meeting.

Ron then welcomed the guests present,which included Colin Parr of NCKC, andPeter Thomas of Media Inc.

Racing School:

Richard Muise reported that we now have28 deposits or full payments, leaving 2positions open. Any questions regardingthe school are to be directed to Richard.2002 Tech. Inspections:Bennett Leckie reported that 6 cars wereprocessed, all from MCO, and there wereno problems. He also reported that CraigSeko and Pat Weightman conducted pre-tech. inspections for Solo II.

Membership Issues:Bennett also reported that he had talked toPat Weightman about problems he washaving in such areas as workload, latecalls and last-minute requests for renew-als. Ron Woltman reminded memberspresent that Pat runs a business and has afamily, and that they should ensure thatthere should be no last minute panic re-quests. He also stated that the Kartingmembership package has more forms,

would involve more work and take moreprocessing time, and Pat will need somehelp in this area.Executive Committee:- Ron Woltman advised that no replace-

ment for Basil Chiu as Public RelationsDirector has yet been found. Anyone in-terested is invited to contact the Execu-tive.

- Ron next introduced Warren Haywood,who has volunteered to fill the new postof Club Merchandise Co-ordinator.Warren then gave a brief explanation ofhis role as contact point for the pur-

chase, storage and sale of club merchan-dise.Speedorama:Rob Microys gave a brief description ofthe present state of preparation of theClubs display for the April 12th to 14thevent, and asked for volunteers to helpwith set-up the preceding Thursday and towork the booth.Solo II:Greg Kierstead reported the following:- Registration is now open for the first

Performance Control School on May

5th, and there is room for 20 students. Inresponse to a question regarding costs,he stated that it would be $75.00 formembers and $100.00 for non-members.

- The first Club Solo II event is scheduledfor April 14th and we need organizersand workers for the series.

The schedule for the Club series will beposted on the web-site.

Race:- Steve Greiner reminded members of the

CASC Spring Fling test days at Shan-nonville, and advised that a Race li-cence is not required. John Powell not-ed that he had received conflicting infor-mation from Bob Varey at CASC, andRon Woltman asked for the details in or-der to verify the licence requirements.

- Steve then gave a brief report on the TedPowell Memorial, stating that there wasan archival display of Ted's achieve-ments going back to Brooklands prior toWorld War II.

ASN Insurance Problems:Ron Woltman gave the meeting a briehistory of the present ASN Insurance situation, as follows:- Although it was recognised that th

events in the U.S. of Sept. 11th woulhave some effect on insurance, there wano early indications from K&K Insurance as to what they would be.

- Early in 2002, K&K did indicate therwere some problems, but promised

policy would be forthcoming. The situation dragged on, however, with no resolution.

- ASN recognised early in the process thaall was not well, and made other inquiries in the meantime.

- When by mid-March K&K did eventually fail to come through, negotiationwere well underway between ASN ananother underwriter, with just the finadetails to work out.

- At a meeting with ASN, CASC-OR anthe club Presidents on March 20th, althe basic issues were resolved regardinthe new policy, except for some admin

istrative provisions.- ASN will act as broker for member organisations, and will handle all their motorsports-related insurance. Premiumincreases will probably be in the ordeof 50% to 60%, and the final packagwas promised for the Easter Weekend(Note: The actual receipt by e-mail waApril 5th 2002.)

- On a question regarding the ineligibilitfor coverage of non-member participantand workers, Ron replied that he haspoken to Paul Cooke, who said that thiwould not be the case in most instancesbut membership in a club would proba

bly be a good liability measure. Rothen stated that members would be kepinformed regarding insurance matterthrough the Club's web-site.

- Jean Blouin asked if there would be another increase in Race entry fees due tthe increase in insurance premiumsRon replied that this is unknown at present, but some consideration to an expected premium increase was givewhen the 2002 entry fees were established. He then stated that MCO could offset some of the increased costs by givinextra crew passes at Shannonville, anwe are actively considering it.

At 8:55 the President called for a briebreak, and the meeting resumed at 9:10.

Solo I:Jeff Graves advised that if any memberwanted their registration forms to be delivered to Cedarbrae VW, they should bgiven to him, and the first event will be athe Mosport DDT on May 18th and 19th.

(continued on next page...)

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Karting:In the absence of Paul Swinwood, RonWoltman reported that information onKarting licences and medicals will beavailable on the Club's web-site. He theninvited Colin Parr of NCKC to address themeeting, a summary of which is:- NCKC has been in operation for 20

years, and they are currently runningHonda engines which give a top speedof 85kph or more. They are also look-

ing at a class with Rotax engines, andhave recently signed with CHEZ 106 asa sponsor. They are currently running at3 tracks, one of which is in up-state NewYork

- NCKC is looking for a Race Directorand workers with experience, with theRace Director's position possibly beingpaid a per-race fee.

- Their next race is a charity event forCystic Fibrosis sponsored by Space-bridge, and they have league racing atTop Karting.

- They are now in the process of joiningASN-FIA, and are also affected by theinsurance situation.

- Information can be obtained at theirweb-site, http://www.nckc.net.

TV Car Show Pilot:Ron Woltman next invited Peter Thomasof Media Inc.(?) To address the meeting.Mr. Thomas explained that his companywas looking for test drivers for a proposedTV show dealing with performance cars.As the show will be aimed at viewers inthe 20 to 35 year age group, they wouldlike drivers of similar age, who are knowl-edgeable, good test drivers, and who canarticulate their findings regarding the ve-hicle that they are reviewing. Interestedparties can contact Mr. Thomas through

the Executive, if they wish.Capital City Speedway:The President then advised members thatthe sale of Capital City Speedway has yetto be finalised. Representatives of theprospective buyers have been invited toaddress the Club, but we have yet to hearfrom them. We have been advised to ex-ercise discretion when dealing with them.Rally:Craig Hamm reported the following:- RSO posters and Rally flyers are availa-ble.

- The Club's next rally, the Mangy Moose,

will start in Navan. Several members,almost in unison, advised Mr Hamm onthe correct pronunciation of Navan.

- Craig next outlined some highlights ofhis Rally column in the Link, includingthe Club's display, the Doug Mephampresentation and his appreciation for JimHoltom's projector, Jim Morrow andJean MacGillivray's report on the RSOmeeting, including MCO's good reputa-tion, and the next MCORG meetingdate.

- He then welcomed new member ClaytonJenkins, who played a large part in the

use of HAM radios in the Lanark High-lands rally.

- Craig closed with a briefing of the newsto date on the Targa Newfoundland.

Treasurer:Bob Benson advised members that:- Since Nov. 1st 2001, outflow has been

$47,200.00 and inflow $26,300.00.- The current bank balance is $29,000.00,but there are outstanding Accounts Pay-

able of $14,000.00, making a net bal-ance of $15,00.00.- The Winter Driving Schools showed a

net profit of $5,368.00.- The 50th Anniversary Book Reserve

stands at $5,500.00.- Richard Muise noted that these figures

did not include Racing School tuitionand deposit receipts of $10,000.00.

Affiliation Dues:Ron Woltman gave a brief outline of howMCO apportions dues to RSO and CASC-OR. Apparently the latter has concernsthat our formula is costing them a loss ofrevenue. We currently have an agreement

by which we divide our members' duesequally between the two regional bodies,which we think is fair and efficient for allconcerned. We also make a flat fee pay-ment to OKRA for Karting members.Ron has mentioned to CASC that it mightbe a good idea for all clubs to use such amethod.

The meeting was adjourned at approxi-mately 9:50 p.m. on a motion by JeanBlouin, seconded by Dave Butler.

BARC GP Reportby Richard Muise

A week ago, it would have been incon-ceivable to me that I would get sunburnon Saturday and had to help dig out froma snow storm on Sunday, but it happenedat Mosport this past weekend (April 26-28). A snow cancellation is unprecedentedin Mosport history from what I gather.

Friday was the test day, and a number ofnew and returning faces were out to give afinal check of the cars before the racingbegan. Steve Greiner had his Beretta out,but due to some niggling issues, didn'tstay for the qualifying on Saturday. RobMicroys was out with Mike White in his

new (ex-Fearn) Jetta. Rob was able towork up to speed quickly, up to 1:54 onthis circuit. Neither he nor Mike had driv-en at Mosport before and were showingsome amazing speed a good sign!

On Saturday, the clouds cleared, but itwas still chilly. Good horsepower weath-er.

Rob Microys and new MCO member Mi-cheal Mori were out for their first qualify-ing, Mike White joining Rob in the Jetta.Rob was having a blast and had a grin ear-

to-ear most of the day, punctuated bysome deeper conversations about tiretemps and fuel pressure. He qualified 3rdin his first sprints race, and finished 3rd.However, being expectedly quick, hebroke out of GT.D with a 1:45.58. It's aquick Jetta that will only get quicker.

During Rob's only race, the sprints on Sat-urday, he diced with Michael finally loos-ing a place on the front straight. Michael

had taken the HRC course with Rob, butalso came out for the MCO school as well.

Jim Harrison was the only MCO memberout for the Canada GT qualifying, placinghis Porsche 911 in position two next toKlaus Bytzek on the front row.

The new series was the Ontario StreetStock (OSS) series. This is a spec series,all cars identical prepared Nissan Sentras.There were somewhere between 11 and16 cars so far, with a maximum of 20 al-lowed for the series. The Nissans are alsostreet legal, a remembrance of 'race-what-ya-brought' of yesteryear. This looks like

it's going to be a really fun series towatch; a good portion of the paddockturned out to watch the first (4-wheel)standing start on the main Mosport circuitin a long time. Last year the 3 OSS carswere very close, literally bumper touchingbumper all the way down the back straightand into the brake zone in 8. An off-dutymarshal watching the start with me sug-gested a prudent business case would beto start stocking lots of extra Sentra bump-ers, selling at a healthy profit. It's beforemy time, but this is very similar in con-cept to the Honda Civic series of the late-80's(?). (Note: this series was renamed asI went to press. It is now known as the

Action Front Street Stock Challenge(AFSSC) - ed).

Sunday was biblical. Well, ok, it wasn'tthat bad, but well outside of the bounda-ries for safe racing, until we get a Canadi-an WRC event.

Most teams were leaving as I drove to thetrack, the snow on the ground gettingdeeper and deeper as I drove north. Therewere already an inch of snow down whenI got there at 8:50AM. The karters on theMosport DDT where leaving en-mass. Ican't imagine driving a kart in an inch ofwet snow when there's only half inch of

clearance. Aqua-planing? More like snow-planing!

At 9:05AM, Bill Lobban called a driv-ers/marshals meeting to announce whateveryone already knew, the race was be-ing cancelled. Unfortunately there couldbe no refunds for drivers.

This weekend does not bode well for therest of the season. Drivers and the race or-ganizers, BARC, lost a considerableamount of money on the weekend.

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MiscellaneousRumblings IIby John Powell

1. Another 'For Dummies'

I need someone to write a book. It shouldbe called 'Modern Racing and High Per-

formance "Tires for Dummies Who'veOn-ly Needed to Shop at Canadian Tirefor the Last Thirty Years Because TheyCouldn't Afford a Race Car". A longishtitle I agree, but we're aiming for a speci-alised market here, namely me.

This book would contain a description ofthe improvements in tire technology since,oh, about the time when the Beatles first

burst on the scene, and a comparative list-ing of high performance and racing tires.The author would concentrate on suchareas as price, durability, grip, and behav-iour at, and indications of nearing, thelimit of adhesion. It should also be rea-

sonably priced and written in layman'sterms. And I'm dreaming, aren't I?

2. Back in the Saddle - Episode VII - TheDark Side At Bay

Well, as we saw last month, the Dark Sidegot to us at the Shannonville lapping eve-ning and the first September Test Day atMosport. Back in the shop I started to re-solve some of the problems that croppedup, first and foremost of which was theright rear lower trailing arm. Thanks toBob Armstrong, I found someone whomachined new spacers for the Heim joints.

You know, the ones that were scattered allover the Mosport landscape when the nuton the mounting bolt came off and it drop-

ped out. By the way, when I checked theother side, I found that nut was loose too,so I checked all the rear suspension boltsand discovered that none of them hadlockwashers. Well, all those bolts forwhich Valley Hardware had the sizes instock now have lockwashers and locknuts.They had nothing to fit the Watt's linkage- are they really our only supplier of met-ric fasteners? Also, during this exercise Idiscovered that, as of 1983, Mazda stillhad a lot to learn from Volvo about serv-

ice accessibility. They specified torquesettings for the nuts, but you can't get atorque wrench on some of them, or even a

plain old ratchet, for that matter. I had totorque those from the bolt heads and hopeit was close, which was not really the de-sirable solution. Anyway, jobs done, itwas off to Mosport for the last Test Dayof 2001.

I arrived Thursday afternoon, un-loadedand set up, and then went to Orono tocheck in at my (cheap) motel. I won't

mention the name, but after the one at Na-panee and the other at Orono the previousTest Day, I'm developing a generic namefor these low-budget accommodations -"Bates' Motels"! (Clue: Tony Per-kins/Alfred Hitchcock.) The Fridaymorning was cold and the track wet, so Itook my time and waited for the secondsession. I was really lucky and foundsomeone to play with. Tom Hnatiw (oneof The Car Guys) was set up next to me,and I went over and chatted for awhile. Itturned out that his partner, Debbie Scott,was going out to test their ex-works Hy-undai Tiburon, and she offered to lead mearound for a few laps. This worked outquite well, as it helped me make some

progress in unlearning my referencepoints of 32 years ago, most of whichwere now gone or radically altered. Somy thanks go out to Debbie for helpingme get back on the right foot.

In the following sessions I started to feelmore comfortable, so I upped my rev limitto 7000 then 8000 (the car will do 9500+).

The car felt stable, and was easy to catch -yes I had a couple of bobbles - but it stillfelt a bit loose in the fast corners. PaulTaylor had told me the car was pretty wellneutral, so I think I still had the tire pres-sures wrong. As my goal was learning,not lap times, I made allowances and sol-diered on. In the last of the sessions, I

picked up Debbie again, but this time wehad no arrangement so she was goingquicker. I decided to follow her and see ifI could stay close and pick up anythingnew. I found I was a bit quicker in 1, 2, 4,and 8 to 10, but with my 8000 rev limitthe Tiburon walked away from me on the

back straight, so she couldn't lose me andI couldn't pass her. Talking after the ses-sion, I found that she had been doing1:50s, so I must have been doing roughlythe same. That wasn't great, but given allthat had transpired up to this weekend, Iwas reasonably satisfied. So, I decided togo up to 9500 revs the next session andsee what happened. And yes, I forgot toadjust the tire pressures!

There was no next session! I was startingto have fun and was so pleased with theday's progress that I had lost track ofwhere we were on the schedule. My firsthint, as I was wandering the paddockwhile the formula cars were out, waswhen I noticed that Tom was closing upfor the day. I finally checked my watchand realised that it was past 4:30, and thatwas it. A real disappointment, as I wasready to go out and play again.

Oh yes, there were a couple of problems -what else? The brake light connectorcame off the pedal switch, but as therewere no meatball flags, no scrutineers,etc., it wasn't a big problem. Except

maybe for those behind me who thought Iwasn't braking for 5b. The other problemwas a guy in a Porsche something or otherwho tried to pass me on the outside goinginto 3, and we almost touched. Why dosome these glorified VW drivers thinkthat they can barge in whenever they like?Even though I was the slower car, I hadthe line, I was not shown a blue flag, andhe's the one who's supposed to ensure thathe can pass safely. And he was the onlyfaster car to try something like that on meall day. Some things don't change - therewere Porsche drivers like him 32 yearsago! O.K., end of rant, end of story. Itwas back home to the shop, prepare thecar for winter storage, and get to work onsome of those neglected chores around thefarmstead. And, think of next year, thestart of which will be dealt with nextmonth.

3. Speed Kills? - Part I

According to a recent post on the ClubForum ("We can only hope..." General

Car Talk, Apr. 4th '02), a traffic engineerhas proposed that the speed limit on 400series highways be raised to 130 kph.This has, of course raised immediate pro-tests from the O.P.P., soon to be followed,no doubt, by howls of indignation fromthe insurance industry.

I have always maintained that speed limitsare an artificial barrier based not on logic,

but cultural perceptions, especially in thepolice and insurance communities. Thepolice seem to believe that only they canhandle a vehicle at speeds in excess of100 kph, and the insurance industry, at

least in Canada, betrays its dour Presby-terian roots in the belief that anything en-joyable must be sinful. For the rest of us,I am sure that they both think that we areonly safe drivers when proceeding at 4.5mph, with someone walking in front ofthe vehicle and carrying a red flag, as wasthe situation 100 or more years ago. Thetruth, at least as I have observed over 44years of driving, is that the average mu-nicipal police officer is only a slightlymore skilled driver than the average moto-rist, which means not overly competent. Iwill admit, though, that members of theO.P.P. are somewhat better, about on a parwith a novice enthusiast driver. The in-surance industry, for their part, believethat our sins must be punished, in thisworld if not in the next, by means ofcrushingly high insurance premiums for"speeders".

One of the common perceptual problemsregarding velocity concerns the conver-sion from Imperial to Metric measure. Isuspect that to most people, numbers inexcess of 100 carry a much greater conno-tation of quantity or velocity. Or price.

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Witness all the items placed "on sale" for$99.99. Thus, 70 or 80 mph may seemmoderately fast, but 100 mph is excessive.In metric, we have come to accept 100kph as fast but legal, but 130 kph is, againexcessive, even though it converts to onlyabout 81 mph. I would hazard a guessthat if you asked the man on the street totell you, without thinking or calculating,which of the two speeds are the greater,

the answer in most instances would be130 kph. The truth of the matter, at leastat the earthly speeds we are considering,is that the velocity of an object does notcause crashes, all things being equal. Andthere's the nub of the matter. If the rate ofspeed caused crashes, planes would befalling from the sky without the help ofterrorists, the space shuttle would not getoff the ground, and mankind would neverhave gotten to the moon! Velocity only

becomes a negative factor when some oth-er factor goes wrong, but in such cases itcertainly will compound the results. Aswe can not realistically stop people fromdriving, the logical course would be tominimize failures in such other factors,the "front-end", as it were. These cangenerally be divided into three categories:transportation infrastructure, vehicle de-sign and maintenance, and operator train-ing, licencing and performance.

Infrastructure basically means roads andtraffic control systems. To be sure there isroom here for improvement, witness thedesign of some of the interchanges on ourown Queensway, but the basic system issound. Modern multi-lane freeways, mo-torways, autoroutes and autobahns are thesafest roads ever developed on the basis of

crashes per vehicle/mile travelled, and insome countries they have no speed limitoutside urban areas. In the back of mymind is the memory of an article I readyears ago that highway 401 was originallydesigned for sustained speeds of 80+mph.. And parts of it were opened in the1950s!. By the same token, vehicles to-day are safer than ever, and more mainte-nence-free. Oh there are some problemsand occasional defects, but generally theyhandle better, brake quicker, are more re-sponsive, and have better safety measuresand crash-worthiness. This includes,thanks to modern tire technology and sus-

pension design, front wheel drive vehi-cles. We are thus left with the most diffi-cult, but most logical area to tackle, thevehicle operator.

I say difficult mainly because addressingthe principal factor, that of operator com-petence, requires some political will .Would you, as a provincial Minister ofTransport, have the courage to tell theaverage motorist and voter that he or sheis incompetent behind the wheel of a mo-tor car? We, as motoring enthusiasts who

are interested in improving our own driv-ing skills, know that at least 60% of to-day's drivers operate on the level of what'sknown in staff training circles as"unconscious incompetence". That is,they don't know what they're doing be-hind the wheel of a car, and are not awareof that fact. There are four stages in thismodel: unconscious incompetence, con-scious incompetence, conscious compe-

tence, and unconscious competence, andthe following are examples using driverperformance levels involving an encoun-ter with black ice on a curve:

- Unconscious incompetence - the driverencounters the ice, starts to skid withoutrealising it, wouldn't know what to do ifhe did, and slides off into the boonies.- Conscious incompetence - the driver en-counters the ice, starts to skid, realises he'sin trouble and that he doesn't know whatto do, and slides off into the boonies.- Conscious competence - the driver en-counters the ice, starts to skid and realisesit, thinks about his alternatives and appliesthe appropriate control inputs, and nar-rowly avoids sliding off into the boonies.- Unconscious competence - the driver en-counters the ice, senses that his vehicle ison the point of skidding, applies the ap-propriate control inputs, all without con-scious thought, and proceeds without inci-dent.

This model is normally used in conjunc-tion with what's known as the TrainingCycle, and with a good system of on-go-ing performance assessments. And expe-rience in performance improvement hastaught that no amount of punitive meas-

ures alone (in this case fines, etc.) willmove a performer from the first to the lastand most desirable stage. Yet this is ex-actly what the MOT and police are tryingto do by enacting and enforcing unrealis-tic speed limits, and the insurance industryis trying to do with their punitive premiumpolicies.

I'm not against realistic speed limits wherenecessary, such as in congested ur-banareas. And I do support strictly enforcedlimits in school zones. In fact, I wouldn'tobject to permanent photo-radar in the lat-ter, as here we really are dealing with an

unpredictable element - the care-free andimpetuous behaviour of children. Buteven with such measures, there will be"accidents" due to the unconscious in-competence of most drivers, regardless ofthe speed at which they are travelling.What, then to do?

To me, the most logical step would be toapply some of the concepts of technicaltraining and performance assessment tothe task of improving driver performance.These processes are not cheap, at least at

the front end, but those that are well de-signed, implemented, and consistently andcontinually applied, have been shown tomore than repay their costs. And designing such programs, though sometimestime consuming, is a simple, logical proc-ess - it's not rocket science, even thoughthe technical subject matter may well beIn a future column I'll outline my thoughtson how these processes could be used to

improve the current unsatisfactory per-formance of the average driver.

5. Announcement

Dave Jameson, a volunteer with the Cana-dian Motorsports Hall of Fame, men-tioned to me recently that they are lookingfor "stuff", which I think is a technicalterm for potential archival material. Any-one who has anything of historical interestthat they would like to loan, have copiedor donate can contact Dave at [email protected].

6. Winter? What winter?

A club member who attended the HRCschool in early April expressed concernthat an off-track excursion could be ex-tremely hazardous to both car and driver(no plug intended) due to the waterloggedcondition of the ground around the trackSuch a condition is due to the fact thatdespite a mild winter, as I write this onApril 12th, there is still frost in theground, and frost inhibits soil drainageAt this point we haven't had enough rainto melt it, and it is the comparativelywarm spring rain that melts the deeperfrost, not the temperature of the air. Early

spring temperatures here are not highenough to penetrate more than 6" to 12"into the ground, so they only melt the firstlayer of frost, and most of the water justsits there in the soil. Without rain to washthe deeper frost away, it would take atleast 3 to 4 weeks to get rid of it, andmuch more if it's a really deep frost,which brings me to my point.

When I first started to re-acquaint myselfwith motorsports a couple of years agothe first thing that puzzled me was the rac-ing schedule, including schools and openpractice. It now starts very early in April

when the frost is still in the ground, andwhen there's still snow lying about inmany places. I can look out of my win-dow right now and still see some hangingaround, even with the mild winter. Andspring snowstorms are far from unknowneven in the Big Smoke. Likewise, theseason now ends the last weekend in Sep-tember, when there's still another 3 or 4weeks of good weather left. Thirty-twoyears ago, (yes, I'm on that again) we

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May 2002

The Way We Wereby Don Roger

It was 1962 and I was using my fresh-ly-issued CASC national licence torace my going-obsolete Canada Classcar at the back of the pack on the St.Eugene 'airport' circuit; when BillPickthorne said. "There's a race atWatkins Glen. They always like tohave Canadians race there, let's en-ter!" So far; we'd only raced at Mo-sport and St.Eugene. And my otherracing experiences had been the MCOGatineau Hill-climb and the Mont Ga-briel Hillclimb, plus an ice-race or twoat St. Pierre. But we sent off our en-tries, were accepted, and got ready togo.

There was only time for last-minutepreparations, so for me the tasks were: load up my collection of Sears

Whitworth tools, hook the race car to the tow bar and

the tow-bar to the 12 year old $150tow car,

make sure the requisite gallon ofCanadian Tire oil for the tow carwas on board

convince my mother towash and 're-fireproof'the shirt and chinos Iwore as a race suit -really!

Throw my tent andsleep-ing bags in thecar

My girlfriend made ahuge pile of smokedmeat on rye sandwiches,grabbed a case of Cokesand we were ready forBill to swing by for our"right after work" Fridaynight departure.

Bill got delayed, both from emergencyovertime work then loading his carsingle-handed and securing it onto hisnewly acquired used homebuilt trailer.

But we finally got under way in con-voy with Bill in the lead.

This trailer was a big step up for Bill.He was now one of the few MCO rac-ers who didn't flat-tow or drive his carto the track; probably only Ted Powelland Gerry Cockerill were using trail-ers then.

Our first stop was at US Customs atthe Ivy Lea bridge. Bill was still first,and I was wondering why it was a lit-

tle slow, and I could see Bill's outline(it was dark and late by now) as heseemed to be digging in his wallet alot. Finally I saw the nod, and Billmoved ahead. Now it was my turn.After the usual "Where were youborn" etc, the nice man asked "Do youhave a license and ownership for yourrace car?"

"Er - no! I don't; ummmm I have abill of sale, that's all."

My tiny mind raced! Bill's lights weregrowing smaller in the distance. Theywon't let me past, even to turn around,I can't even back up with the race carin tow! Oh LORD!

The customs agent's silence seemed togo on forever.........."Oh well. I guess that will do. Comein here and we'll write up a Tempora-ry Import Permit for you."

Whew!!

So off we went, heading for the NYThruway and the Glen. By now wewere getting tired, a bit....

It was as we gathered speed on theThruway that we discovered that Bill'strailer really didn't like straight aheadrunning and 50+ mph. At about 48mph it would start a rhythmic swaythat increased its excursions rapidly asspeed increased. No 'driving through'this little speed zone to reach a'smooth speed'! So we set the spee-dos at about 45mph and trundled on,and on, and on. Bill was trying to goas fast as he could while keeping thetrailer's antics to a gentle waltz; butfor me, watching the steady to and frosway combined with the slow speedand the fatigue, it was getting soooo

hard to keep awake! We stopped atevery rest area and downed that won-derful freeway coffee.

Finally, we got there and somehowgot into the paddock with the cars,flopped in the tow car and tried to getsome rest. But visions of the swayingtrailer, too much strong coffee, andthe thrill of being there worked

against sleep.

It was during scrutineering that thetruth slowly started to seep in..... I was'waaaay outclassed! This was no clubrace: it was a divisional championshipevent! My 'classmates' were drivingPorsche RS61 Spyders and Elvas, Lo-tus' and Lolas with Coventry-Climaxengines. I had a souped-up flat-headFord Anglia engine! Oh my!

Practice was something else. All

around me were some of the fastestclosed-wheel race cars of the day.Cars I'd only read about in my dog-eared copies of Road & Track. Thiswas going to be a great place to watchthe race! As my car was an 'F modi-

fied' car, I'd be in thefeatured race. Andour race event wasfor ALL the modi-fied cars, classes 'A'down through what-ever. I found it hardto learn the trackwhile keeping one

eye on the mirror andhoping for a few not-being-passed oppor-tunities to actuallytry for the correctline through one ortwo corners. Thenthe engine startedshowing signs of get-ting hot and theclutch began to slip!!

Oh well! We survived our practiceand moved on to pit for Bill.

Bill's car was running well for a near-ly-stock MGA Twin-Cam, keeping upwith most of his classmates in the cor-ners, but the big-dollar semi-pros weremoving away on the straights. Still, itlooked like he'd have some good op-portunities for some great dicing.

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May 2002

During the interval before the qualify-ing races we cut a slot in the fibreglassnose to let in more air to the rad, andsloshed fire extinguisher fluid into theclutch in the hope that somehow we'doiled the clutch and could maybe clearit with the aggressive solvent. Withno idea if either fix wouldwork, I crashed on a blanketbeside the car and sleptthrough everyone else's noiseuntil I was shaken awake torun in my qualifying heat.Now THAT was FUN! Some-what rested, and aware that myaim had to be to stay out of ev-eryone's way and so not getblack flagged, I started to en-joy the thrill of actually drivingthe track and it sunk in that Iwas really racing at THE Wat-kins Glen! The engine still ranhot, but seemed to stay just thisside of boil-over; and theclutch was still slipping: butwhat the heck! We were here!

Sunday was the big day; andBill had a great event. TheTwin-Cam ran well, he had acouple of guys to dice with andhe came in with a big grinfrom ear to ear.

For my race, I was at the very back ofthe grid (no surprise there!), and whenthe flag dropped I was suddenly all

alone on the track. I had about sixlaps I think before the race leadercaught me. Until then I was happy asa clam and starting to think I was real-ly learning the circuit. Once the packcaught me it was a steady processionof really neat cars passing me. What agreat place to watch the race from! Ikept a super-sharp eye in my mirrors,and made sure to stay out of every-one's way. I did notice that attritionwas setting in, there were a few lesscars lapping me; and a few to be seenoff in the boonies. I even made a pit

stop to see if Bill had seen anythingleaking, and also just to see how it feltto make a pit stop. Eventually the 30or 40 laps of the leaders was over. AsI pulled off my string-backed drivinggloves and removed my Bell 'Shorty'helmet with bubble shield; Bill toldme that throughout the race he'd beensidling over to listen in on the clerk-of-the-course' conversations. TheClerk had been asking - "Is that slowcar, - 74FM, is it getting in the lead-

ers' way? Should we bring him in?"

Fortunately the feedback was "No -he's staying out of everyone's wayOK; but we'll watch him."

Trophy presentations and the post-

race party were held down at SenecaLodge, and we got there just as trophypresentations were wrapping up. Oneof the drivers from my race came up

to us and said "Hey! Aren't you DonRoger?"

"Yeah: why?"

"They just called your name! Youwere the only other finisher in yourclass! You got second place!"

Not sure if this guy was pulling myleg, I sort of sidled up to one of the of-ficials who was tidying up at the headtable.

"Er - excuse me? (polite Canadian)Could you tell me who got second inF Sports Racing?"

"Hmm, yeah, let's see - Don Roger.Why?"

"Er, well - that's me!"

"Oh! - Well here's your trophy! Con-gratulations!"

And he handed me this nice silver rosebowl!So there I was, wandering around in abit of a daze, clutching my rose bowland grinning like a fool. If someonehad said I was drooling I'd have be-lieved them. We bumped into one of

the racers who'd been in thepaddock beside us. He waspretty drunk. When he saw mewith the trophy he slurred"Hey! Where'd ja grab a guy'strophy?"

"Er - Its mine. I got second inclass."

"Hoe - Lee Sh**! Hey Fred-die!" Freddie appears, bearingtwo fresh beers. "Freddie ol'buddy; this guy won a trophywith a $600 car. Did you win atrophy?"

"Nope"

"Well we gotta help this guycelebrate! We oughta fill hispot with champagne, but cham-pagne's too good for a $600car, so..." - And he dumpedthe two freshly-arrived beersinto my trophy!

Somehow, a drunk pouring beer into asilver rose bowl draws attention. Be-fore we knew it, my new pal wasloudly sharing my good fortune with

all and sundry; picking mid-pack folkshe knew, and ribbing them about thecost/trophy ratio. Somehow theyhumoured him and they good-natured-ly helped him keep my rose bowlawash with New York State's finest

brew.

Bill left early the next morning, doinghis slow waltz up to the Thruway andtowards home. We trundled home viathe side roads; the race car, ahem: -the trophy-winning race car; rollingalong behind. We didn't make very

good time on the way home. And youknow? It was one of the very fewtimes I just didn't mind at all!

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May 2002

From the Frying Pan...in to the Ice Chest?

My First Race Weekendby Rob Microys

Having spent my last 5 summers at theracetrack, almost nothing could have en-tirely prepared me for my first race week-

end. I spent a great amount of time underthe wings of the Armstrongs with a verysuccessful team - it was time for me tospread my wings and "leave the nest". Ihave heard that the first flight is the hard-est; nothing could have been further fromthe truth!

Mike White and myself journeyed to Mo-sport on the Friday for the Panoz TestDay, and jumped straight in, both feet firstto go and get our first laps at Mosport.The trip was about as exciting as thewhole weekend, as no sooner that we goton the 416, Mike mentions - 'Maybe we

should stop and move the car a bit furtherup on the trailer', and then we're in a tailslapping, ditch to ditch view, trailer sway-quick reactions by both Mike (steering)and myself (applying the trailer brakes)had the trailer back in line, and we quickly

pulled to the side of the track to repositionthe car. Wheew! With the trailer adjustedthe rest of the drive was uneventful andwe arrived at Mosport, other than whatseemed the longest drive in our lives.

Along with my first laps at Mosport, itwas also my first time driving my Jetta.

Not even my lapping, or the race schoolprepared me for what was to happen. Thedriving experience was intense. Learninga car and a track all at the same times re-quired an incredible amount of concentra-tion, and when Klaus Bytzek comes fillingyour mirrors and flying past you once ev-ery 4 laps or so, it's quite an experience.The test day was quite a handful. The carsoldiered on, and we didn't have any seri-ous issues. Our lap times quickly brokethe 2min barrier and got down to about1m53s. The test day was also really use-ful for us to apply some dark mystic artson our carburetors - the Mikuni 44s are a

bit of a mystery to me still. Our 4-channelEGT gauge proved invaluable, and we

were able to get the right settings in thecarbs and prevent an impending cata-strophic motor meltdown from happening;the car was running really lean. With theEGT and plug cuts, we managed to keepthe motor properly fueled and developinggood power. Richard Muise dropped byon Friday as well, and helped out a bit.Finally, by the last session of the day, Iwas starting to get 'comfortable' (I will usethat term loosely) in the car and was ableto really begin concentrating on my brak-ing and turn-in points. After a successful

day, we registered for both the OCC andSprints, and then we went out for dinnerand relaxed a little before climbing in tothe tent for a cool night of camping.

Saturday, we woke to a frosty tent - thefrost was on the inside! As the day pro-gressed weather was perfect, if just a littlecool - but brilliant and sunny. Chris andKrista arrived and helped crew and take

photos. The day started with OCC quali-fying, and I put Mike in the car first - henever managed a clean lap, and had a besttime of 1m52s or so. I jumped in a bit

past halfway through the session and man-aged to get a 1m49s, my best yet of theweekend. I think that one of the biggestissues for the team on Saturday was not

being able to find the BBQ's propane tankregulator - so we all had to grab a quick

bite from the canteen. After a quicklunch, I strapped in to the Jetta for mySprints qualifying, after a interrupted ses-sion by a car getting stuck off in a six, Imanaged to turn another 1m49s lap toqualify 2nd in the GTD class for the after-

noon's race.

Then my first race. The start was great,and the pack sorted out nicely going in tocorner one. A few of the fast cars whowere placed on the grid behind me quicklycame through in to corners 3 and 4. Oncethe race settled down, I ended up racingMichael M. in the Ex-John Bondar Yel-low #4 Honda Civic. An intense battleensued, culminating with me losing my

position to him after botching the entry to10 and having him drive up beside me onthe entrance to corner 1, and I had to fi-nally concede the position after laps of

side by side driving. Still in hot pursuit,we managed to crack times in excess ofthe GTD class allowable time, and the lastlap of the race I clocked off a 1m45.580slap. Had you asked me what my lap timesmight be prior to the weekend, I wouldhave never had guessed to be that fast!Darn - looks like I'm going to have tomove up to GTC now!

Immediately following our race, Mike leftto go in to Toronto to hook up with hiswife for the Theatre, to watch the LionKing - from what I hear, the show wasgreat. That left myself, Chris and Krista

to clean up the paddock for the night andto mount up the rain tires in anticipationof Sunday's activities. We were all

packed and set for the evening. Chris,though, was on a mission - we had a num-

ber of hours to spare, so the three of usjumped in the car and headed to Mississa-gua for Krispy Kreme doughnuts - well,not that I had anything better to do otherthan have a beer by myself sitting in acold tent, what else to do other than tagalong? Hmmm... At least I have to say,they are good doughnuts.

Sunday was, errrr, different. During thenight I woke constantly to the sound ofcrashing canopies, and flapping tarps. Iwas worried that the cover to my gear andracecar would blow off. Half waythrough the night, I climbed out of the tentand secured the paddock down better. By6:30am I woke again, but this time to thesound of my tent pegs getting ripped outof the ground, and once I opened the doorto the tent and looked about, a scene thatwas of a winter wonderland greeted me.There was two inches of snow on theground! The track was completely cov-ered in slush, and there was no way theweather was ever going to warm up - itwas only going to get worse throughoutthe day.

After a nice hot shower (in which westeamed up the shower room like a Turk-ish Bath), we proceeded to start packingup the gear in the tent. Mike spent hisevening in Toronto at a nice warm hotel,the lucky guy, and I was waiting for himto arrive to start packing the truck - there

was no doubt in my mind that the eventwas going to be cancelled. Needless tosay, without much further delay, a driver'smeeting was called; in which we were all(appropriately) informed that the day's ac-tivities were cancelled. I managed toquickly find Peter Jackson, the weekend'sChief Steward, to get a signature, and wethen went back to the paddock to pack up.We loaded up the truck and trailer, thegear all sopping wet and covered in snow.At least I did have a change of dryclothes. We carefully drove home in thestorm, and on Hwy 416, seeing at least 7cars in the ditch and a Ford Explorer gone

turtle on pavement - it wasn't fun.

All things considered, when the worstthings that happened on a race weekendwas not being able to cook a burger be-cause of a misplaced BBQ regulator andthe weather going sour, well, then I'd haveto say it went pretty darned well. I haveto give thanks to Mike, Chris, Krista andRichard for all their help and work on theweekend, and especially to Sherissa for

putting up with my high revving energylevels - Thanks Guys! I'm sure that theweekends from this point on will be trivialcompared to this one!

Keep the shiny side up!

photo by Krista Ritchie

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May 2002

My First Solo IIor

How to Have a ReallyGood Timeby Mark Atos

Saturday, 1:15pmGet up, get out of bed. Lazy bum. It's

not like I was out partying all last night.Let's hit up Denny's for some breakfast,and then think about installing my newsuspension parts.

Saturday, 3:30pmOkay, finally on the road now, drivingdown to Brockville to do my suspensioninstallation. Parents with garages are agodsend. If only they lived a little clos-er.

Saturday, 5:00pmPut the car up on stands, take off therear tires, have a look at what's going onthere. Well, this shouldn't be too hard,(note to self: NEVER SAY THATAGAIN!) there are only three nuts hold-ing the strut on.

Saturday, 6:00pmThe first strut came off nicely, and thesecond one tried to break my arm. Stu-pid fourteen year old car and it's stupidseized nuts in akward places, and stupidwrenches that slip off the nut and makeme smash my wrist against the stupidfloorpan. No, really, I do love workingon my car.

Saturday, 9:00pmOkay, the rear of the car is back togeth-er without much hassle, we'll just set itdown now and jack up the front... Andthis is where things go wrong.

Saturday, 10:30pm...and I'm still trying to undo the first offive bolts on the passenger front suspen-sion. I think it's about this point where Idecide that I'm going to ask Chris Tapphow much he wants to install my frontstruts. But Mark, you say, isn't your cargoing to look silly lowered in the rearand not the front? That may be true, butright now, I'm tired, and I don't care.

Saturday, 11:00pmPut the front wheels back on, pack upthe tools and parts and crap, now it'stime to head back to Ottawa, get a good(short) night's sleep, and get up wellrested for the Solo.

Sunday, 1:30amYep, I can fit a lot of stuff in the trunkof my car. And it is a long walk frommy trunk to the townhouse. But the caris nearly empty now, so I'm happy. Itprobably didn't help that I sat down andwatched half of Spy Game when I got

home. Time to go to bed.

Sunday, 7:30amBeep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!Aaargh! Stupid alarm! Why did I set itso early? (Pause for six minutes) Crap!The tires. I knew I should have put mysummers on yesterday.

Sunday, 8:15amWell, I'm wide awake now, and I'vechanged two of the tires, and rolled thesnows into the back yard (after rollingthrough some nasty dog-doo, I hate myneighbours). Have I got time to do the

fronts now? Sure, I should anyways.

Sunday, 8:48amThere. That's the front tires done now, Iguess I should check the pressures, andthen take the snows back into the

house... OHCRAP! I've onlygot twelve mi-nutes to get to Jet-form Park!?! Howlong does it takefrom Bayshoreanyways? So,

throw the remain-ing two snows inthe trunk, jump inthe car, realizethat I forgot thefaceplate to mystereo, (which isprobably a goodthing, because theCD in the deckjust makes mewant to drive su-per-fast) and hit

the highway.

Sunday, 8:52amGet out of my way! I'm late! I'm gointo miss registration!

Sunday, 8:56amGet out of my way! I'm late! I'm gointo miss registration!

Sunday, 9:00amPuff, puff, wheeze. "Am... I... Too.Late... To... Register?"No, I made it on time. This is about thpoint in the day where things startegetting better. I got the car number wanted, and that makes me super happyNow, it's time to walk the course, whicI do three or four times, thinking abouthe line I'm going to take. Now, it's timto unload all of the extra junk out of mcar into the neo240sx.ca support van.

Sunday, 10:05amThe usual drivers meeting, I've hear

this one five times before, at the wintesolo II. Here are the flags, yellow meancone down, red means stop on coursecross means off course. Have fun. Prettbasic stuff.

Sunday, about 10:30amStaged at the start line now, foot on theclutch, in gear. My god, my clutch foois shaking. This is going to be such rush. Put the car back in neutral, step othe brakes. Close my eyes, run thcourse in my mind twice, take a couplof deep breaths to calm down. Opeeyes, to see that the green flag is wav

ing. Thank god the timing doesn't stauntil I cross that beam. Countdown tmyself, three, two, one...

The scrabble of tires seeking purchason the grave

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