In my latest Looking Back column – in Inside Track Motorsport News – about F.J. (Fred) Smith, I stated that Canada only has two top-rated driver / chassis builders. Well, I blew it. I completely forgot about Pete Bicknell, a 2002 inductee into the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame.
Pete, like F.J. Smith, builds race cars and engines out of his two businesses in St. Catharines, ON. Over his 50+ years in the sport, he has over 500 feature wins and almost 50 track championships. Pete, I apologize for the oversight!
If you are an IndyCar fan looking to watch the Thermal Club race this weekend you had better find an accountant and a lawyer to explain things to you while viewing. Why, you ask?
I have never, ever seen so many complicated rules for a race and this, to make it worse, is a non-points race. Having said that I am really looking forward to the race.
They will actually be holding heat races to help determine the starting grid. Cool idea. And it appears that the dreaded ‘shrinkflation’ has hit this event!!
Initial announcements of the event boasted, per reporter Jenna Fryer, that “IndyCar will hold an all-star race next year at the Thermal Club in Southern California, with $1 million guaranteed to the winner of the made for TV exhibition.” Now, the winning purse is posted as $500,000. Hmm.
Further to my comments last week about the very successful 2024 Motorama Custom Car & Motorsports Expo presented by eBay Motors at the International Center in Toronto, I want to add one more thing. Every vehicle in Hall 1, for the high-dollar build show cars, was Canadian. No American cars whatsoever. A report on the show by a writer for MotorTrend / Hot Rod magazine favourably compared Motorama to the Detroit Autorama and the Oakland Grand National Roadster Show events. Just goes to show how strong the sport is in our country. Well done!
Lime Rock Park in Connecticut has announced a really cool race named the Speed Tour All Star Race. It will run Friday and Saturday, July 19 & 20 (if memory serves the track can’t run on Sundays – Puritan rules, you know!!).
They will use TA2 Trans-Am cars and there are 16 invitees from all forms of racing, NASCAR, IMSA, IndyCar and Formula One including Canada’s own Ron Fellows who knows how to drive these bad boys as well as anyone. Reportedly, there will be TV coverage. Sounds like fun.
Hands up if you ever had ‘issues’ with Rogers. Not both hands!! LOL! I’m a 56-year customer of Rogers and its two predecessors, McLean-Hunter and London TV Cable. Over those years I have had some ‘interesting’ interactions with the mother ship.
My latest occurred when my January billing was $70 too high. I called and was promised it would be fixed. February and March both arrived with each $79 high!! I asked to be connected to the Office of the President.
Enter Max from that office who immediately admitted they had screwed up and offered an acceptable solution, which I readily agreed to. Max was very professional and a true credit to Rogers. They need more ‘Maxes’!! AND… Ignite is the best thing ever for Canadian race fans, better even than any of the US systems.
As I listened to Ron Fellows being interviewed during the race at Sebring, I was reminded of a CASCAR race at Delaware in 1991. My buddy Bob Knowles, Ford of Canada Performance Manager, had arranged for Ron to drive our second CASCAR.
Unfortunately, the motor broke in my son Paul’s car and, as he was running for points, he had to move into the backup car, so Ron did not get a chance to run that day. And the next year he signed with the General!!
NASCAR Cup Series: It’s Bristol Baby and Ryan Blaney picked up the pole for the Cup race at Bristol Motor Speedway ahead of Josh Berry, both in Fords, and Denny Hamlin (Toyota).
Things went smoothly until lap 21 when Christopher Bell slid up into Joey Logano and then Logano smacked William Byron. Byron hit the wall and broke a toe link and put some debris on the track for a caution.
On lap 70 Zane Smith lost a tire for another yellow flag and he really wrinkled up his car when the tire came off. Erik Jones ended up with a piece of the fender from Smith’s car on his hood! Ty Gibbs won Stage 1.
On lap 176 Ricky Stenhouse moved down touching Michael McDowell and then collected Daniel Suarez and Zane Smith for a yellow. On lap 228 Kyle Busch got loose in the middle of the corner and spun out but made no contact with the wall. Ty Gibbs also won Stage 2.
It was ‘feeding time at the zoo’ over in the Goodyear Tire tent at about lap 260 when NASCAR released an additional set of tires for each team, due to excess tire wear. This was reportedly caused by the resin used for track treatment.
On lap 309, Josh Berry did a 360-degree spin without hitting the wall in Turn 2 for a yellow. On lap 367 Todd Gilliland slowed causing Stenhouse and Austin Cindric to spin coming out of Corner 4.
At the flag it was Denny Hamlin over Martin Truex and Brad Keselowski. Kyle Larson was two laps down at one point during the race thanks to an error in the pits ended up 5th.
In the points there is a tie at the top between Truex and Larson with Gibbs 7 points back. Their next race is COTA, Sunday at 3.30 on TSN 4 and Fox.
NASCAR Xfinity Series: Their next race is COTA, Saturday at 5 P.M.
NASCAR Craftsman Trucks: Christian Eckes got the pole for the truck race at Bristol ahead of Nick Sanchez (both in Chevs) and Taylor Gray (Toyota). Canadian Stewart Friesen (Toyota) qualified 23rd.
Six laps in, Matt Mills spun bringing out the caution. On lap 44 Keith McGee spun making contact with Stefan Parsons and Taylor gray for a caution. Kyle Busch won Stage 1 and Stage 2. On lap 143 Ty Majeski looped it and collected Ben Rhodes.
On lap 219 Friesen slid up track into Nick Sanchez for a caution. At the flag it was the three Chevs of Christian Eckes, Kyle Busch and Zane Smith. Friesen finished 22nd.
In the points Tyler Ankrum has a 17-point lead on Corey Heim and 22 on Rajah Caruth. Friesen sits 13th.
Their next race is COTA, Saturday at 1.30 P.M. on Fox Sports Racing.
Formula One: Their next race is Australia, Saturday night at 11.55 P.M. on TSN 3 & 5. All the drama continues to take place off the track as the issues surrounding the Christian Horner scandal refuse to go away.
IndyCar: Their next race is at the Thermal Club, Sunday at 12.30 P.M. on NBC.
IMSA: First and foremost, a really BIG thank you to REV TV on Rogers for covering the entire 12+ hours, unlike our American friends who had to stream it at the start and then switch to TV at 4 o’clock. Well done!!
This legendary circuit has seen some incredible battles over the years since its first race 74 years ago on the bumpy airport runways. We actually drove the circuit about 35 years ago in a Mustang at LOW speed and it was bumpy even back then.
It seemed it was business as usual with the IMSA technical staff at the Twelve Hours of Sebring. All four Corvettes were banished to the back of the pack for adding reinforcements to their rear diffusers. That would make them SO much faster? Or did they ‘exceed performance expectations’? Apparently, the parts were not ‘homologated.’ How did that get missed in pre-practice AND pre-qualifying technical inspection? Hmm.
In qualifying, the Cadillac of Derani/Aitken/Blomqvist won the GTP pole (11 class entries). The Oreca of Hyett/Chatin/Brabham (that last name has a long and rich history in sports car racing) started first in LMP2 (13 entries). The Lexus of Hawksworth/Barnicoat/Kirkwood topped the Pro class (12 entries). The Mercedes of Ward/Ellis/Dontje started first in the GTD class (22 entries).
It was interesting to see that there is very little difference in times between the PRO and GTD classes. In fact, there was only 0.064 seconds between the two class polesitters’ qualifying times. Quite a difference from years past.
Canada’s Multimatic had two Mustang GT3s in the Pro class.
The Pfaff PRO McLaren of Kirchhöfer/Jarvi/Hinchcliffe started 9th in class but was involved in an incident with another McLaren on the very first lap and pitted with a flat left tire. Unfortunately, the tire had wrapped around the suspension forcing the car to retire to the garage.
And, once again, sadly, we got stuck with the ‘B’ announcing team, all of whom were graduates of the Murray Walker School of Race Broadcasting!!
Forty minutes in, a full course caution came out for carbon fibre debris all over Corner 7. It was really, really great to hear the lengthy interview during the race with Canadian superstar Ron Fellows. And the best part you ask? We could UNDERSTAND him!! Loved his comment about his expanding family – ‘Fellows, party of eleven’!!
At about the hour and a half mark, the #88 LMP2 car had an off hitting the wall and damaging his car. The car kept going and the race stayed green.
Approaching the 2-hour mark, Michael Dinan got moved off-track attempting a pass and hit the tire barrier hard for a full course yellow. An hour later another yellow for the Richard Mille LMP2 car off-track. It was humorous to watch all the ‘lap down’ cars go past the pace car before the restart. They had their own little parade going there.
At about the four-hour mark, two cars had ‘offs’ bringing out another full course yellow. Another yellow followed soon after for debris on the track just off the racing surface. Just before the halfway mark, the polesitter in LMP2 buried itself into the tire wall for another caution.
With 4 ½ hours to go, Pipo Dirani – while leading the race in his GTP Caddy – collided with his right-rear into the left-front of the GTD Ferrari of Miguel Molina and the P car climbed up, violently, atop the tire barrier. A scary wreck. It was very interesting to see the completely flat bottom on the P car.
It took quite a while to get Dirani out of his car upside down on the tire wall. Needless to say, it was a lengthy clean up as they had to reset the tire barriers. At the eight-hour mark, some more debris on the track brought out another full course caution.
At almost the nine-hour mark, Katherine Legge, in her GTD Acura, got body slammed off the course by one of the Penske Porsche GTPs for another full course caution. She was okay.
With 2:15 to go, the sunset was incredible!! Cool camera work. What an incredible sunset over the field!
With an hour and twenty minutes to go, another yellow for debris on the track. GREAT overhead shots of the circuit. Really cool. With about forty-five minutes remaining, there was another full course yellow, this time for a car stopped on the edge of the track. Ten minutes later, there was another debris caution. Listening to the ‘announce team’ fumble through the last half hour was painful!
At the flag, the Acura of Louis Deletraz won GTP, the Oreca of Connor Zilisch won LMP2, the Lexus of Jack Hawksworth won PRO and the Mercedes of Philip Ellis won GTD.
The points hadn’t been posted at press time.
Their next race is Long Beach, Saturday, April 20.
NHRA: Their next race is Pomona, Sunday at 7 P.M. on Fox Sports Racing.
NASCAR Canada Series: Their first race is at Mosport (CTMP), Sunday May 19.
APC Late Model Series: Their first race is at Sunset Speedway, Saturday, May 18.
Ontario Sportsman Series: Their first race is at Delaware, Friday, May 17.
Delaware Speedway: Their first race is Friday, May 10.
Ohsweken Speedway: Their first race is Friday, May 17.
Flamboro Speedway: Their first race is Saturday, May 4.
Southern Ontario Motor Speedway (Buxton): Their first race is Saturday, May 25.
Full Throttle Motor Speedway: Their first race is Saturday, May 4.
Grand Bend Speedway: Their first race is Saturday, June 1.
Grand Bend Motorplex: Their first race is the weekend of May 19.
St. Thomas Dragway: Their first race is the weekend of May 19.
Toronto Motorsports Park: Their first race is the weekend of April 20.
Dragstrip Memories Show: Takes place Sunday, April 14, 9 – 4 at the Hamilton Airport.
Shannonville Drags: Their first race is the weekend of May 5.
Any comments can be sent to Dave Mathers via email at motionman@rogers.com or by Facebook Messenger.
