Nothing like the smell of burnt rubber and race fuel in the morning. It was about 8:22 when we arrived at Mosport. The boss’s name is Chris, my partner’s name is the PehPeh. My name is James Jordan.
It was May 18, it was fair in Bowmanville. The cars are just about to enter the racing surface for practice. The weather of course a factor this weekend. Through the week the forecast has changed. It’s supposed to be overcast all weekend with warmer temps than usual. Track is “green” as they say. This means that the track surface doesn’t have much rubber build-up and heat. It’s been a long winter and this track is pretty fresh. Lots of cars out today from the other series so there is a greasy build-up of rubber in some turns.
Practice didn’t even start when the #02 TJ Rinomato had some sort of mechanical issue. There are word of some issues out of the LP Dumoulin camp despite a decent practice time of 1:23:38 which was 5th fastest. Ranger 4th with a 1:23:35, Tags 3rd with 1:23:18, Kevin Lacroix 2nd with a 1:22:89 and M.A. Camirand P1 with a solid 1:22:45. These practice runs will give us an idea of how qualifying will go down in a couple of hours. Notable runs today is Alex Labbe who is returning this season full time after giving the Xfinity series a try for the 2018 season. He ran 6th with a 1:23:78. Which was almost nearly as good as the defending champ LP. But Labbe will have a run for his monies worth trying to trim some time for qual.
Interesting to note that we may or may not see Andrew Ranger and Kevin Lacroix run around each other tomorrow as there is about a 1 second difference between the 2 driver’s. The last spring race here at Mosport, we saw a last lap fuel between the drivers, resulting in them wrecking each other and giving the lead away to the #47. But don’t count out the possibility of some old school payback.
Stay tuned here or @CKMSWWOM on Facebook and Twitter for more updates throughout the weekend!
Here are some more shots from around the track.
@CKMSWWOM Full gallery
6:30 PM Update
Track hasn’t changed since practice.
Klutt broke track record by 6 tenths of a second. The only driver to get into the 1:21 in qual. His own Dad had a faster lap which made him go a little faster. As discovered by one of our compadres Bryce Turner, Klutt’s last Pole at CTMP was in 2015 in which he earned his first win.
Here is our interview with Gary.
https://www.facebook.com/CKMSWWOM/videos/595230610971706/
More updates Sunday here or @CKMSWWOM on Facebook and Twitter