Bowmanville, ON – The Super Production Challenge had a busy Victoria Day SpeedFest weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, with a trio of races to start its 2024 season. The opening two rounds took place on Saturday, with the Super Production, Production and Compact classes in action.
Super Production
Nathan Blok led the first 14 laps of the 30-minute opener, before Guillaume Labbé took the lead. Labbé drove his 2022 Honda Civic Type R to the overall and class victory, followed by Eric Hochgeschurz and Blok.
“We’re in our second year with that car and the team dialed it really well, pace was really strong,” said Labbé. “Things turned on my side and I was able to take advantage of the traffic, catching the Compact class, and just building a little bit of (a lead) and it was a really good race.”
Defending champion Kurt Wittmer had a blown clutch and an infraction during qualifying, which led to a 13th-place starting position, which was last in the Super Production class. It took him eight laps to reach the top-five before ultimately finishing fourth.
In race two, Labbé led the opening 13 laps before Arek Wojciechowski took the lead. Driving the 2009 BMW 325i that Hochgeschurz piloted in the previous event, Wojciechowski went on to win by just 0.617 seconds over Labbé. Wittmer finished third.
Sunday’s race got off to a slow start, with an incident involving Matt Briand bringing out the caution on the opening lap. Chiappino took the lead on the initial start and held the position for a pair of green flag laps, before a caution for an incident involving Alexandre Bélanger.
The race ended under the yellow flag, with Chiappino taking the win, ahead of Labbé and Blok. The series uses standing starts, which can sometimes create tense moments at the drop of the green flag.
“Starting P2, I was a little nervous on the start to make sure I got a good launch,” said Chiappino. “Me and (Shawn) Bernier were kind of side-by-side through (turn) one; I was able to get a good exit and get the lead going into turn two and basically controlled it from there…I was really looking forward to having a green race, but it ended how it ended.”
Chiappino finished fifth in both of Saturday’s races; he says that figuring out the handling and balance of the car was the difference in getting a better result. His 2017 Honda Civic Si is serviced by a group of volunteers from Honda Canada Manufacturing.
Labbé starts the season with a win and two runner-up finishes. With three different winners to start the season, he expects the standings to remain close all year.
“What we saw here this weekend is that it’s basically everybody’s championship, because there’s probably eight to 10 cars that could contend for the championship, because the pack is really close this year,” said Labbé. “Those points are a really good thing because we’re taking an advantage into the championship (battle).”
Production and Compact
In the Production class, Vincent Desautels won the season-opening race, ahead of Marc-Andre Bourdages and Sylvain Laporte. The result marked Desautels’ first career Production victory, in his second season in the class, after moving up from Compact.
“I had a great start, I got first on the first lap, then it was all about consistency,” said Desautels. “I was able to put in some good laps, one after another, that’s what gave me a gap and that gave me the win at the end.”
As with the Super Production class, there were three different winners to start the season in Production. Matt Briand took the victory in race two, followed by Bourdages and Desautels. The weekend finale saw Laporte take the win, with Bourdages and Desautels rounding out the podium.
In the Compact class, Eric Coulombe won both races on Saturday, with Trevor Hill and Zack Lalonde rounding out the podium in race one; Hill and Frédéric Bernier were next across the line in race two. Hill took the victory in the weekend finale, ahead of Bernier and Coulombe.
The next event on the schedule is Calabogie Motorsports Park, with a trio of races on June 22-23.
