[Fot] Mosport musings

[yellow04]

The VARAC Vintage Grand Prix at Mosport continues to be the thrill of my 
racing calendar. The Canadians are really great hosts, spectacular 
competitors, and it's all about good, hard, clean racing. The off-track 
activities are pretty special as well, VARAC's president does double 
duty as the event chair. I think this was his fourth year doing it, so 
all the off-track stuff runs like clockwork. And the track... Just ask 
anybody who ever ran Mosport!

VARAC has always gridded races based on your finishing position of the 
last race, not by best lap of the weekend. You are challenged to run 
hard every lap, and if you are a DNS/DNF, you start in the back for the 
next race. Plus, VARAC changed their format on run groups a year or two 
ago, now we are essentially Bracket Racing! You state within a 5 second 
window what class you want to be in, and they group all the Historic 
cars accordingly. (The Classic (newer, heavier) cars do the same thing, 
but in their own run groups) For every lap you break out of your minimum 
time, you get penalized one lap, so your starting position gets pushed 
back. Our own Mike Moore had a spectacular weekend but kept running 
1:44's busting his bracket, so his starts were further and further back, 
but the smile on his face made it clear his was having a ball.

The Triumph/MG Challenge race was another win for Triumph! When the 
finishing order has Triumphs in the top 4 spots, it's tough to fudge the 
math to give the honors to the Octagon Guys. Plus, after our 4th place 
car crossed the finish line the starter waited 57 seconds for the first 
MG to make it around! We kicked butt.

We had only 6 Triumphs there, plenty of room for more next year!

Henry