TROIS-RIVIÉRES, QC – As usual at this time of year, the NASCAR Pinty’s series presented three races in Western Canada over the last five days, on the oval tracks of Edmonton International Raceway (July 22) then at Sutherland Automotive Speedway in Saskatoon, for a doubleheader held on Wednesday (July 26) evening. This tour in the West allowed Louis-Philippe Dumoulin to clinch two podiums, the driver of the car #47 WeatherTech Canada | Bellemare Group | Omnifab finishing twice third, in addition to having to settle for an eighteenth place.
In Edmonton, Dumoulin drove a spectacular race. Throughout the first segment, which was 167 laps long, he fought between 2nd and 6th position, eventually completing this segment in fourth place. Once the race restarted for 133 of the remaining 300 laps, Louis-Philippe Dumoulin has continued his fight at the front. Although no caution came to slow down this second segment, the positions varied from one lap to another. At the end, Marc-Antoine Camirand, Treyten Lapcevich and Louis-Philippe Dumoulin, the first Top 3, had relegated all the other drivers to a lap or more. It is also the first podium of the 2023 season for Louis-Philippe, three-time NASCAR Pinty’s Series champion.
“During the free practice session, I noticed that our car has a little oversteered, which was excellent news and proof that we had worked very well in our settings because for too long, our oval car had too many understeer. To see that this problem had finally been fully corrected was a big step forward and excellent news for the next races,” comments Louis-Philippe Dumoulin.
Qualified 6th, he mentions about the event: “300 very positive laps, except when Lapcevich hit me to clinch the second place at the end of the race. He apologized for his manoeuvre but it’s a shame he did that because we had a very hotly contested but respectful battle until then. At the finish line, I was disappointed because 2nd place was promised to us, but looking back, the Edmonton event remains magnificent”.
Four days later, the drivers of the NASCAR Pinty’s series had to compete at another small oval, the Sutherland Automotive Speedway, located about ten kilometers north of Saskatoon. A site where the driver of car #47 WeatherTech Canada | Bellemare Group | Omnifab had already won twice, in 2014 and 2019. This time, the doubleheader gave mixed fortunes, with a mechanical failure following a contact with the wall during the first race but a magnificent comeback which ended with a second podium this season during the second event.
“The car was still very good at the start of the first race and I was aiming for a Top 5. Unfortunately, I got pushed against the wall when I was on the outside line. It wasn’t a big contact but it was enough to break a piece which forced me to go back to the pits. Our techs repaired it but since there were no retirements or even full-course yellow for the rest of the race, it was impossible to hope to finish better than 18th,” confides Louis-Philippe Dumoulin.
The second race, caution free, sees Dumoulin carrying out a festival of overtaking at the start of the event, going from 8th to 4th place in a few laps. “I was motivated to finish this western tour with a good result and the car #47 WeatherTech Canada | Bellemare Group | Omnifab was again very competitive” explains Dumoulin, who concludes: “from the moment I climbed into 4th, I was patient. Then, I took advantage of the traffic of backmarkers to climb to 3rd place. It was a tricky race, with this incessant traffic and the absence of any full-course yellow, but I am very happy with this result. It really wraps up our tour in the West in a great way.”
With these two podiums in three races, Louis-Philippe Dumoulin remains in the Top 5 in the championship standings. There are 6 events left in the 2023 NASCAR Pinty’s Series season.
