Calabogie Motorsports is a brand new race track nestled in a new resort area about one hour past Ottawa, Ontario.  Among golf courses and plenty of beauty near the Madawaska river is a phenomenal race track that has all the potential of making it big.

The track has 20 turns, all very challenging.  As an instructor, I not only had to learn the track, the line, etc. myself, but I then had to teach the students!

COMSCC had brought in two instructors from another club in Toronto to help us out.  They said that they had about seven days experience on this new track, which told me that they were still learning too!  We followed them for about 20 minutes and then we could start “experimenting”.   There were lots of new things to learn: The line.  Reference points.  Should I brake now or later?  Can I trail-brake here without messing up?  Anyway, it got busy very early and very fast.

By the end of my session, I was reasonably confident that I had at least ¾ of the track already in some form of understanding.  I was still having trouble with the last turns:  I was debating whether to go flat-out (in 4th gear) from the exit of Hook up until Quarry One, and lift there and break hard (off camber) on Watts Up. Turned out that Watts Up was not the place to come in so fast and I spun, managing to keep the car on the track but knocking over the reference cone.  Given this, I was officially the first driver from COMSCC ever to spin on that track, a record no one can take away from me J.  The right combination (as I later found out) was to either lift at 4 Left and trail-brake in Watts Up or go flat-out on 4 Left and brake at Quarry One.  The latter turned out to be much faster, since after Watts Up was the entry to the Wicked chicane (slow speed) and the Wilson’s straight.

By the end of the day, I had it all figured out.  It helped that I was also instructing a student driving a Miata, providing similar conditions (rear wheel drive, at least).  It helped me because I stayed on the track a lot longer than normal.

As with every new track, there are always “issues”.  In this case, we had to watch for deer, bears, snakes, critters, walls, guard rails, tire walls, and boulders.  Oh, yes—Canadian black flies too!  There was minor deer activity (which shut down the track for five minutes), one critter (that got under a Formula Continental and became a wild hamburger—ugh!), but no bears or snakes.  One Honda S-2000 came in way too hot at the Kink and lost it on the wall at Jacques, and one Audi lost it where I spun but went off track and hit the boulders sideways (nice door prints!).

Race Day

The weather for both days was excellent.  It was slightly warmer on the second day (about 73), and the track surface (now with some rubber on it) was better.  Times were improving and I could remember all 20 turns.  My times during practice were anywhere between 2:42 and 2:45.

My competition again was the BMW 318 (this time with one of the brothers and an instructor who was co-sharing the ride) and a VW Golf (1.8 TDI—diesel!).  The BMW driver had just gotten his license and asked me to be in front of him so he could learn more about the line.  He was doing times like 2:44.

Ahead of me lined up for the TT race was a Miata that I used to compete with in SSB class (he stayed in SSB while I moved down to SSC due to the age of my car, displacement, etc.).  He started ahead of me by about 25 seconds.  By the end of the first lap, I could see him at the end on the Wilson straight.  I couldn’t have possibly been that much faster than he, so I concluded that he must have started slow and I didn’t.  This is the time when one needs to decide whether to call in for a catch or hope he would remain reasonably far away.  I decided to stay behind, not noticing that in this position one tends to focus on the car ahead and not on “the line”.  I wound up with 2:44, and the BMW driver (who hopefully learned something more with my line) wound up doing 2:42 plus change, good enough for 2nd, and his co-driver and instructor did 2:42 without change, taking 1st.  The diesel VW was in 4th with a respectable 2:45.

All in all, I discounted the shoulda-coulda-woulda.  I had fun—lots of it!  And I am still leading in the points.

Mike Wrigley fixed the exhaust issue prior to the race and it held up pretty well.

I dedicate this “Vinci Per Noi” to my lovely 100-year-old grandmother Thea Offerhaus, who is recovering from pneumonia in the hospital in my hometown of Rio in Brazil.  She is an inspiration for my life (great shape for 100!) and an example to all of us in my family (she had to be—my grandfather drove Giuliettas!).

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