Mosport report

Mosport ALMS
Hotter than hell as far as I was concerned. I was up early yesterday and on the road for Mosport at 7:30, a bit later than I planned as I figured it was 4 hours to the track at Mosport from Gatineau. I took Highway 7 through the interior of south eastern Ontario and enjoyed the drive through the twisty, hilly, beautiful area of the Kawartha’s lake district. As I approached Peterborough the traffic held me up so when I arrived and stepped out of the Subaru to stretch I was just in time to see the parade lap roll by and the start. Did I mention it was hot? The thermo was stuck at 35C and I was melting on the spot like a discarded ice cream cone. I managed to remove my bike and headed up the hill for a better look at corner 2 and 3. At this point I would like to say the rfactor track does not give an exact impression of the hills at Mosport. They are an extreme challenge at that temperature, on a bike. (Note: next time leave bike at home). The bike was an excellent idea as I was able to get around the track quicker than walking about at 35C but up and down the sand covered hills in the interior of the track was a killer.

When it comes to following a race you have to admit it sure is clearer what is happening on track when at home in front of the TV but you just can not get the visceral rush of a group of race cars all on the throttle at the same time. WOW. I have been sitting here this morning tying to figure out what I had seen from the news reports of the race. The joy of a track such as Mosport is it’s free to go where you want type of atmosphere and I tried to move all around the track to get some good photos of the cars in action. As I was always on the move I missed chunks of the action but in the end it was a blast as it was my first experience watching an endurance race. When the race ended I was hot for another. LOL

A small complaint was the location of the beer tent at the top of the hill at turn 2. By the time you got to the top you needed twice the amount of suds as you intended, plus an extra to hydrate your self for the trip back down.

So that was a 12 hour day, 9 hours of travel for 3 hours of racing and all really worth while. I think today I will just lay about and recover.

Check out a few of the flicks here.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

wow... many many thanks for sharing your experience and photos from the ALMS at Mosport. Some great pictures there and many Porsches.

I have yet to find time to get to a LMS race. The closest tracks I could get to would be Spa and Brno, both are about 600 km (370 miles) away.

Le Mans would be very tempting of course, but that would be more than 1000 km (680 miles) away, that's not a distance I wouldn't take by train or a tour bus.

It was well worth while taking the trip. For me it was an 800 km round trip. Not a real challenge here in Canada as every place seems to be far from the other. I come from Thunder Bay on the north shore of Lake Superior where the closest Canadian city of any size is Winnipeg about 900 km west, Minneapolis in the USA at 650km, with Gatineau/Ottawa and Toronto at 1500 km so we Canadians are bred for endurance driving.

great photos and memories

I am a little jealous, that the alms is so delicious grid.
ELMS was with small attendance at Donington, there was only 3 gt cars. I hope WEC at Silverstone will be better.

I was only at GT1 WorldChamp at Brno, at 2008. There is no any great races near Gdansk in Poland :-(.

I think the major problem is the ACO (LMS Series) vs. FIA (WEC) regulations disaster and the ongoing disputes between them. It is my guess that because of their quarrels, interest in the LMS Series vanished this year.

You can see that this year, some of the major teams, not only GTE, but mostly, focus on different series, for example GT Open, with their race cars, developed for 2012. They left the once successful, but now FIA ridden LMS Series temporary behind or participate with their old cars of 2011 in the LMS on GTE AM level. It kind of looks like a boycott to me. The best example is always the 2012 GTE Porsche. A new car that has been developed to match GTE class performance and actually is a strong car, however it is weaker than the 2011 model because of major restrictions due changes in the regulations, for example the air restrictors. FIA calls it balance of performance when former GT1 cars, C6.R's, are tuned down to GTE level and former GT2 cars of 2011, now GTE AM, stay on the performance level of 2011, but 2012 models, now GTE PRO race cars, are slowed down to a level which lies below the 2011 standards.

It's a question of cost I believe. I mean why should the teams send their expensive 2012 race cars on track, when they're more competitive with their 2011 models?

But new regulations are coming and I hope FIA will be kicked off. Unfortunately nothing good comes out of FIA.