Round #2--Shannonville

Been awhile since I update this blog.  Been using www.facebook.com/gammaformulacars to update our trials and tribulations.

Speaking of which, Round #2 at Shannonville Motorsport Park Long Track was interesting, as the trials and tribulations of racing continued.

Perhaps we have been spoiled the past couple of seasons with fairly uneventful, trouble free weekend?  Perhaps things happen in cycles.  Perhaps we are just spoiled.

One of the major benefits of a well-prepared team is stress free, easy weekends.  Team-owner/driver/crew chief Jim has one full-time job--running the team.  This includes maintaining the current car, continuing to build the new car, and "Kaizan" the never-ending quest for improvement.

But I am getting ahead of myself, let's start at the beginning.

Left London at about 4am Friday to avoid the traffic through Toronto.  East of the provinces capital, we drove through sleet and snow--not a good sign.

Arrived at the track shortly after 10am, and set up the trailer, awning, etc.  It was cold and camp, so the trailer heater was soon fired up.

Saturday started cool, but quickly became a nice day.

'98 Suzuki GSX-R 750

With a fresh ('98) Suzuki GSX-R 750 motor following the issues at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park the previous weekend, Jim took it very easy in practice to make sure every worked, no leaks, etc, coming into the pits every other laps so I could check for leaks, etc.


Turned a 1:47.190 to grab the pole for both F4 and Formula Libre.


Race 1 (Saturday afternoon) was interesting, as Paul Subject in his Formula Mazda started from the back of the pack as he had some issue preventing him from getting a lap in qualifying.

Also, the appearance of 2 new Radicals Sportsracers from Radical Canada (with their Suzuki Hayabusa powerplants) added an interesting element to the overall FL (formula libre) competition.



Jim won, but Paul made a great show working his way through the field to finish 2nd, just 16.5 seconds back, with a fastest lap of 1:44.746 compared to Jim's time of 1:44.775.

Fantastic dinner Saturday night, as usual when DAC hosts a race.

Sunday was an awesome day for speed.  Cool air temperature with lots of sun for warm pavement and sticky tires.  Since we did not run at Mosport the first event due to motor troubles, we had new tires on the car--first time at this track.

10 cars took the mock grid again, unfortunetly Paul Subject had issues on the nock grid and did not make the track.  Jim won again, setting a time of 1:46.787.  Robert Burgess in his Radical was second with a best time of 1:50.090.  Robert Calisi with his "Francesco Bernoulli" inspired Formula Renault was third and set the fastest lap of the race at 1:45.131.



The third race for us of the weekend looked good.  Jim started from the pole again, took off into the lead at the green, and had a comfortable lead.  Then, disaster.  On the last lap, while accelerating out of the hairpin on the back straight, the motor let go....  Robert Calisi in his beautiful Formula Renault won the race, and Graham Dewhurst in a Gamma F4 was the F4 class.


Overall, very good weekend.  Set a personal best in F4, and we think a class record for F4--issue with the F4 archives right now...Motor was running great--lots of power--right up until it let go.  That is usually the way.