CASC-OR: BARC 2006 Canada Day Grand Prix of Ontario Wrap-Up

Special to Inside Track

BOWMANVILLE, ON – Race Ontario’s latest event, hosted by the British Automobile Racing Club (BARC), was a huge success! Over 90 competitors and 1,000 fans came out for the Canada Day Long Weekend Event.

ONTARIO TOURING GT CHAMPIONSHIP
The 2006 Championship is nothing short of spectacular to follow this season. Scott Nicol leads the T1 class in his Honda Civic and took second to Christian Sorensen's #254 BMW in the 85-minute race. Sorensen was incredibly fast all weekend long.

Alain Lauziere, in the Octane Motorsports MINI Cooper S JCW, led the T2 class with 342 points heading into the event and along with co-driver Pierre Mandeville took second place this weekend. Ian Madden took the victory in this highly-charged race. Rookies Pat Harrison and Vic Simone debuted the SPI/PH Racing Nissan and finished a respectable fourth in class.

The closely fought GT class saw Sasha Anis take the top of the podium this weekend; he was sixth in class coming into the event so this will bump him up the standings. Several DNF’s during the race mean that this battle is far from over.

ISSECO F1200 CHAMPIONSHIP
The F1200’s did not disappoint the multitude of fans either. Michael Raekelboom and Frank Steinhausen were within 12 points of one another coming in. Steinhausen took victory in the first race, second ahead of Raekelboom who ended up third in the second race. But Steinhausen was a DNS in the third race, which Raekelboom won, despite being a DNS in the first. This is turning into quite the exciting season!

Guy Bellingham was second, first and third, which means he too is right in the fight!

ONTARIO CHALLENGE CUP

GTB driver Alan Jones won the first and third races and finished runner-up in the second this weekend. In GTA, Ron O’Brien had two seconds and a DNS to Civic driver Scott Nicol’s third, first and DNS. In GTC, Marc Durant had an exciting weekend, moving steadily up the podium with each race to win his final race of the weekend.

An exciting match-up was in GTD with the white Honda Civic of Andrew Danyliw and Frank Blanchet in his Nissan Sentra. Blanchet took the first race with Danyliw second, but the Lotus took victory in the second but dropped to third in the final race behind Toth and Blanchet who won. Blanchet is having a fantastic season with several victories now to his name.

Malcolm Strachan made a strong appearance, taking all three class victories in GT-1. Nick Majors in the ‘Darth Viper’ car had two second-place podium finishes for a great weekend!

FORMULA LIBRE
It was a very close weekend for the Formula Libre class of racers. Jeremy Hill won all three races followed by Greg Beresford and Mario Urbano. The final race of the weekend was by far the most exciting and came down to a near photo finish. Beresford had been leading up until the end where somehow Hill managed to get past him at the finish line. He won by 0.008 seconds! You don’t get much closer than that…

SOLO SPRINT TIME TRIALS
The first pairing of Solo Sprint and Regional Racing took place this weekend as well. A series where you are after the ‘perfect lap’, it was well attended and highly enjoyed by all.

Cars such as a Rocost 7, which took the fastest lap of the weekend, compete against Civics, Mazda 6s, Camaros and even a Viper. They range from fully-prepped racecars to street car, daily drivers.

Ron Pasdernick’s winning lap was in the 1:30’s, closely followed by the BMW of Christian Sorensen and the Mustang of Riaan Van Vuuren. Pat Harrison won ‘Most Improved’, taking over five seconds off his lap times over the weekend.