One of the things I have always loved about amateur road racing in the US is that if we are racing at a particular track, we get to run on the same course as the professionals. No eternity of nights on the local dirt track, no time spent on the "Legends Course" at Daytona or Charlotte like my oval-track friends have to put up with. If you're a North American road racer, you just get in your damn car..and go out there. They're the only tracks we have. The stopwatch never lies, and you will discover that Boris Said or Randy Pobst or somebody else (in my case, most everyone else!!) was faster 15-20yrs ago than you are *now*.
The cool thing about having to do that is that some of the same places the professionals drive are the same places where our legends drove. Where Hulme, Sir Jackie and Donahue drove. And if you pick your races right..sometimes, the places where Hunt, Lauda, and Bruce & Jimmy drove. Mosport would certainly seem to be one of them.
Thanks again to my SCCA buddy Greg Amy for the source tape. I am extremely jealous that he got to drive the place, and I didn't. He was in an SCCA Showroom Stock B Nissan NX2000. Yeah, those old BF Goodrich ads with Bob Strange made it look like Showroom Stock cars had grip..but no, they didn't. Ancient onboard speaks truth, especially around a place like this.
I should also thank Ron Fellows for helping to save the place. I can't help but wonder if he'd run it before he went pro, and thought, "Wow. Jimmy Clark used to run here." I might even call Mosport "Canadian Tire Motorsports Park" every once in a while, just to thank Ron for the effort. ;)
4 окт 2024
