It is a full weekend of racing ahead this weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (CTMP) with the Mobil 1 Grand Prix presented by Hawk Performance. This event marks the first appearance of the TUDOR United Sports Car Championship (TUSCC) at CTMP and the return of the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge (CTSCC) which last raced at the circuit in 2008. In addition to, this weekend's racing will include three more IMSA-sanctioned series – Porsche GT3 Cup USA presented by Yokohama, Cooper Tires Prototype Lites presented by Mazda and the first Canadian appearance of the Lamborghini Super Trofeo series. This will definitely be a jam-packed weekend for the fans.
Plenty of fans will be used to the P2 and GTLM cars running in TUSCC as these cars ran here previously as part of ALMS but this will be the first time seeing the Daytona Prototype and GT Daytona (GTD) classes Prototype Challenge will NOT be running this weekend) . There are a total of 40 entries for this race – the largest field ever for a Prototype/GT mix at CTMP (the largest ALMS field was 33 cars in 2003 dropping off to an average of about 22 entries from 2004 through 2013) so this will be some race to watch!
By contrast, advance entries for the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge are lower than usual with a total of 47 cars (a typical race will have 60 entries). This is the deepest field with Canadian entries with most of these drivers having quite a bit of experience around this circuit.
Speaking of testing - two of the Ford-powered DP teams – Ganassi and Michael Shank Racing (MSR) were at CTMP recently. Scott Pruett (in the #01 Ganassi Ford) is certainly no stranger to this track and it will be fun to watch him take to this very fast circuit. Another TUSCC team – AIM Autosport (leaders in GTD team and driver championships) plus CTSCC teams Compass 360 Racing and MultiMatic Motorsports have plenty of experience at CTMP as it is their home track. There are plenty of drivers in both TUSCC and CTSCC with lots of laps under their belt here as well. It will be interesting to see if that plays out as an advantage on the fast and challenging course.
NOTES:
In Cooper Lites, North Vancouver's Mikhail Goikhberg comes to CTMP as the championship leader with five wins in six races (his worst finish being a P2 in race one at Kansas)
John Farano (Toronto, ON) once again does double-duty competing in CTSCC (Tower Events #41 Nissan 370Z with David Empringham) and in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Series. Farano is second in the Super Trofeo championship with four podiums over six races including a win at Watkins Glen jusy two weeks ago
Remo Ruscitti has a new partner in the #04 Autometrics Motorsports BBA Accounting/ DE Labs Porsche Cayman with Cory Friedman (Charleston, SC) replacing usual co-driver Adam Isman (Vancouver)
Max Riddle, who usually co-drives the #07 TRG-AMR Aston Martin is not on the current driver list.
Compass 360 Racing will field and additional car this weekend with Toronto, Ontario's Tom and Gary Kwok driving the #73 M&S Produce/ HPD Honda Civic
Action gets underway on Thursday (10th) with practice sessions for CTSCC, Lites, Porsche GT3 and Super Trofeo. TUDOR Series actions starts on Friday (11th) A complete weekend on-track schedule follows below.
Timing & Scoring links
TUDOR: http://scoring.imsa.com/
Continental: http://scoring.imsa.com/sportscar-challenge/
GT3 Cup: http://scoring.imsa.com/gt3-challenge-usa/
Lites: http://scoring.imsa.com/prototype-lites/
Following is a list of Canadian entries (highlighted in yellow) for each series. It is going to be a great weekend and we hope to see you at the track.
TUDOR Entries Prototype (P) – 12 GT Le Mans (GTLM) - 10GT Daytona (GTD) – 18 Total Entries - 40
P
90 Spirit of Daytona visitflorida.com and GoPro Corvette DP Chevrolet
Richard Westbrook / London, England
Michael Valiante / Burnaby, BC, Canada
GTLM
93 Dodge Viper SRT GTS-R Viper V10 Michelin IMSA
Jonathan Bomarito / Monterey, CA SRT Motorsports
Kuno Wittmer / Montreal, Quebec, Canada
GTD
555 AIM Autosport REVO/Robert Graham/Royal Purple/Motegi Ferrari 458 Italia Ferrari
Bill Sweedler / Wesport, CT
Townsend Bell / San Francisco, CA
Continental Tire Entries GS = 21 ST = 26 Total = 47
GS
8 Mantella Autosport Powered by Spyder/ Gulf Lubricants Aston Martin
Anthony Mantella, Toronto, ON, Canada
Mark Wilkins, Palgrave, ON, Canada
15 Multimatic Motorsports Multimatic Motorsports/ Ford Racing Mustang Boss 302R
Jade Buford, Brentwood, TN
Scott Maxwell, Toronto, ON, Canada
41 Tower Motorsports Tower Events Nissan 370Z
John Farano, Toronto, ON, Canada
Dave Empringham, Toronto, ON, Canada
76 Compass360 Racing Touge Tuning/ Ligon Industries Subaru WRX STI
Ray Mason, Columbus, OH
Ryan Winchester, Mason City, IA
00 CKS Autosport Carego/ Golden Gate Maragine Camaro Z/28.R
Ashley McCalmont, Ancaster, ON, Canada
Bob Michaelian, Seal Beach, CA
08 Rebel Rock/MBPR Racing K&N/ The Sports Lab/ Vitargo/ The Garage/Jackson Transportation Systems/ All Ontario Recycling Porsche 997
Martin Barkey, Huntsville, ON, Canada
Kyle Marcelli, Barrie, ON, Canada
158 Multimatic Motorsports Multimatic Motorsports/ Ford Racing Mustang Boss 302R
ST
73 Compass360 Racing M&S Produce/ HPD Honda Civic
Tom Kwok, Toronto, ON
Gary Kwok, Toonto, ON
74 Compass360 Racing Bionic Enviorments/ LoudBasstard/ Be The Match/ Expo Systems Honda Civic
James Vance, Stouffville, ON, Canada
Jon Miller, San Francisco, CA
75 Compass360 Racing Cure NF with Jack/ CTF/ HPD Honda Civic
Kyle Gimple, Minden, NV
Ryan Eversley, Lithonia, GA
93 Honda Racing HPD/ Honda of America Mfg. Honda Civic
Chad Gilsinger, Marysville, OH HART
Michael Valiante, Burnaby, BC, Canada
04 Autometrics Motorsports BBA Accounting/ DE Labs Porsche Cayman
Remo Ruscitti, Burnaby, BC, Canada
Cory Friedman, Charleston, SC
Cooper Lites L1 = 20 L2 = 2 TOTAL = 22
10 Mikhail Goikhberg, North Vancouver, Canada JDC Motorsports JDC Motorsports Elan DP-02
31 Michal Chlumecky, Windsor, Canada (M) Eurosport Racing Contractglaziers.com Elan DP-02
GT3 Cup Platinum = 20 Gold = 10 TOTAL = 30 (M) = Masters Class
31 Jesse Lazare, Montreal, Canada Door Doctor/Moorespeed garage
Thursday July 10
Practice 1 - Prototype Lites 9:00 AM - 9:45 AM ET
Practice 1 - Porsche GT3 Cup USA 10:00 AM - 10:45 AM ET
Practice 1 - Lamborghini 11:00 AM - 11:40 AM ET
Practice 1 - Continental Tire Challenge 1:40 PM - 2:25 PM ET
Practice 2 - Porsche GT3 Cup USA 3:25 PM - 4:05 PM ET
Practice 2 - Lamborghini 4:20 PM - 5:00 PM ET
Friday July 11
Practice 2 - Continental Tire Challenge 8:00 AM - 8:45 AM ET
Practice 2 - Prototype Lites 9:45 AM - 10:20 AM ET
Qualifying - Porsche GT3 Cup USA 10:35 AM - 10:55 AM ET
Qualifying - Lamborghini 11:10 AM - 11:40 AM ET
Practice 1 - TUDOR Championship 11:55 AM - 12:55 PM ET
Qualifying - Continental Tire Challenge (ST) 2:40 PM - 2:55 PM ET
Qualifying - Continental Tire Challenge (GS) 3:10 PM - 3:25 PM ET
Qualifying - Prototype Lites 3:40 PM - 4:00 PM ET
Practice 2 - TUDOR Championship 4:15 PM - 5:15 PM ET
Race 2 - Porsche GT3 Cup USA 5:40 PM ET (45 minutes)
Saturday July 12
Race 1 - Lamborghini 8:55 AM ET (50 minutes)
Race 2 - Porsche GT3 Cup USA 10:10 AM ET (45 minutes)
Practice 3 - TUDOR Championship 11:10 AM - 12:10 PM ET
Race - Continental Tire Challenge 1:15 PM ET (150 minutes)
Qualifying - TUDOR Championship (GTD) 5:20 PM - 5:35 PM ET
Qualifying - TUDOR Championship (GTLM) 5:40 PM - 5:55 PM ET
Qualifying - TUDOR Championship (P) 6:05 PM - 6:20 PM ET
Race 1 - Prototype Lites 6:45 PM ET (30 minutes)
Sunday July 13
Race 2 - Prototype Lites 9:50 AM ET ( 45 minutes)
Race 2 - Lamborghini 10:55 AM ET (50 minutes)
Race - TUDOR Championship 2:05 PM ET (2 hours 45 minutes)