After crashing in practice the race car was beat up really bad, but we had to make it through the 2 races in order to win the championship. After yanking on the front end a fair bit we were able to square up the car and get her out there.
Unfortunatly the front bumper was damaged and the downforce from the splitter pull the bumper off, causing into drag on the ground. This resulted in our disqualification from the race for being below legal ride height.
All of our marbles were in it for the last race, where we were being forced to start last. We had to finish 6th or better to win the championship, and with a badly hurting car and a feild of over 50 cars to work through I knew we had our work cut out for us. A smooth and careful drive, full of yellow flags kept everything together and allowed us to finish 4th!
Downtown Fought Hard, But SG Brought it home in 1 peice!
The Toronto Indy was likely one of the best races in SG's history. With plenty of close racing and concrete walls there wasn't ever a dull moment. With thousands in the crowd watching and cheering as the CTCC went out with its 45+ car field the excitement was greater than ever.
We were ecstatic to practice fastest at low boost (a 2 second handicap on ourselves) and figured we had qualifying in the bag easily. And we did; or so we thought. In the last minute of qualifying our pole time got outdone by the white C5 Corvette of Roberto Sabato. Heartbroken yes, but we were determined to find more speed in Sandra.
Working through the night in preparation for the Saturday race we made some cooling improvements to help the car be consistently fast throughout the race. A closed street circuit on a 35 degree day is one tough oven on cars, but we knew Sandra would hold out for us.
And she did, but we didn't quite have the speed to catch the Corvette. Finishing 2 nd was a great success for us though, and infront of thousands of spectators it didn't do any harm either!
Sunday was a different story though. Raining all day right up to the start of the Speed World Challenge race before us, we were sure it would be damp or raining for our race. So we raised the car as is necessary to fit the smaller rain tires and still stay within the mandated 3” ground clearance, and threw the rain tires on. About 30 minutes before our race was scheduled to begin the rain stops and the track starts to dry, uh oh. Literally the next minute they call us to grid up at the front.
So it looks like SG is going out there with skinny rain tires and an unknown alignment setup after having raised the car a full inch all the way around. That's ok, maybe the small tires will help my gearing! Right?
On the first lap we were able to take advantage of the cool track and passed the corvette coming into the hairpin after the long straightaway, and to our luck immediately after a full course yellow flag came out. But that was the end of our glory. One lap into green and we had essentially melted the rain tires, everyone was picking up great speed and it was just a matter of hanging on for dear life, as our lap times dropped from our 1.22 of qualifying to a saddening 1.27 – midpack speed at best. We managed to bring it home 10 th after giving Bob Munroe a bit of a scare in his M3 (to get him back for Shannonville of course). All in all, it was more fun racing on Sunday with the super slidy setup than Saturday, despite the finish!
Our next race is July 28 at Calabogie Motorsports Park , we hope you can make it up! A youtube video from the Indy, Sandra on the big screens:
A Tough Weekend Turns Out Bright For SG
The second race in the Canadian Touring Car Championship was held at Shannonville Motorsports Park, just west of Kingston Ontario. Shannonville is a very tight and technical track where we had expected to have a slight advantage over the bigger more powerful cars.
Unfortunatly in practice we had an oil filter block failure which caused the engine to lose all of its oil. The oil slicked the rear tires resulting in a nasty spin. Had it been anywhere except the flat grassy runoffs at Shannonville and it may have been disasterous!
Missing qualifying to fix the problem while one of our close friends brought the part from toronto, we had to start at the back of the pack for the first race on Saturday, and we weren't even sure if there was permanent engine damage or not. Hoping for the best but being skeptical we went out there and ran through the feild.
Near the end of the race we had an incident with an Acura RSX and a Subaru WRX. There was minor front damage to the car which resulted in a pinched radiator hose and a broken intercooler. Limping the car to the finish line we finished 23rd on Saturday.
We managed to get the intercooler welded for Sunday and fix the rest of the car. Starting 23rd the goal was a top 5 finish to try and retain 1st place point standings in the series. We had a great run through the pack and an intense battle with 4th place Peter Hanson's M3. After finally getting by him for good we had another amazing battle with the E43 M3 of Bob Munroe. Unfortunatlly we couldn't get by before the chequred flag told us time was up.
Finishing 3rd on the podium after a dramatic weekend like that was extremely satisfying. Look for our next race at the Toronto Indy July 6/7/8!
SG Motorsport Qualifies 1st And Wins At Spring Trophy!
We had an absolutly fantastic first weekend at the track. We got out there for qualifiying and turned a 1.28.3 which was enough to set the pole and keep it for the entire qualifying session. While it was enough to take pole, Marco's beauitiful white Z06 had a broken gearbox which kept him from turning his usual laptime - something in the 27s or 26s! Nick Majors was also getting used to his Viper Comp Coupe so we will expect him to be in the 28s in no time.
In the first race our front splitter failed on the 2nd lap and caused us to go from doing 1.28s and 1.29s to doing 30s and 31s. This was enough to hold 3rd position but we could not keep ahead of the big boys. Luckilly saturday night we had some good help and after working early into the morning and getting a few hours sleep we were ready for Sunday's race.
Setting our personal best lap time ever of a 1.27.4 (with an absolutly full tank of fuel) the car was in flying mode. It was ridiculously quick and we were neck and neck with the Viper through trafficwhich was currently being piloted by Tony McGrath. Unfortunatly for Marco he had a problem with a lapped car and ended up off track, and soon the same would be true of our poor S14. While attempting a soemwhat kamakazi move - passing a lapped car and the viper at the same time through Corner 3 we had a bit of an incident. The lapped car did not go where I had expected him to, and in turn i had to apply full brakes to attempt to slow to his entry speed. Unfortunatly I could not shave the speed and was forced to either hit the car or fly off the track. Well it had been a long time since a little rally session had been had so i thought why not. Luckilly I was able to keep it off the tire wall (though just barely) and get back on track, only losing five or six seconds of my lap.
The car started to run a bit hot so I decided to take it easy and only spin it up to 5700rpm or so and not apply full throttle through some of the shorter straights, as well as lift off early for corners. The stratagey was that we knew the Viper was too far away to catch and it was better to maintain the car's health than to go for it and potentially lose an engine.
We finished second and I was extremely pleased that we were able to turn a 1.27.4. Unfortunatly for Nick and Tony, but fortunate for us, they were caught for passing under the Yellow flag, as was Marco Cirone. They were excluded from Sunday's race and as a result SG Motorsport takes the win! While its not the best way to win a motor race, a win is a win and we'll take it!
We look forward to Shannonville where our car should have a slight advantage over the bigger cars due ot the nature of the track, and hopefully we can win one outright!
This year SG-Motorsport is competing in the brand new semi-professional Canadian Touring Car Championship. A professional series in its infancy matches SG-Motorsport's current position perfectly: new growing and ambitious.
All of the races this season are sprints unlike the endurance events of last year. Five of the eight races will be held at Mosport International Raceway, the other events being held at Calabogie, a new beautiful track near Ottawa, Shannonville, where our car works rather well. The premiere race for the series this year will be held at the Steelback Grand Prix of Toronto (formarlly the Molsan Indy). We hope our lightweight low power car will do well on these tighter circuits, but only time will tell!
The points structure is setup in such a manner so that a consistant reliable car that enters all the races will dominate, so our goal is to be conservitive on the boost and with the power and take care of the car as much as possible to finish all of the races in the series.
For more information about the series I invite you to visit touringcar.ca the official website of the seires.
The Race Car
The race car is SG's very own 1997 Nissan 240sx. For 2007 we have made a few very important changes to help improve its performance. Reducing weight as well as rotating mass helped a lot, as well as doing some tuning to improve the reliability of the engine. New shocks from Stance made a more than significant difference improving the car's laptimes. An AIM Datalogger and a Painless wiring harness was installed to simplify the overcomplicated street car wiring and to record important information from the car so that I can monitor my driving performance as well as the car's performance and *hopefully* detect any problems before they cause a terminal failure.
