MOSPORT, ON - Both Twofast Racing team drivers are happy with the way their weekend turned out for the 1st race of the Canadian Touring Car Championship held at the Mosport track in Bowmanville Ontario on May 12-13th.
With highs and lows throughout the weekend, the end result surprised more than one! Brownsburg native and the number 4 Mazda driver Christian Raymond had this to say when reached from his Saint-Jerome house: “The weekend started out bad with a 5th gear synchro not working so not allowing me to shift in 5th gear. We didn’t have any with us and took about 4 hours to get one which wasn’t an option considering that on this extremely fast track I need my 5th gear in 3 different sections of the track in every lap. I qualified 13th and brought the car back in 12th place in the Saturday pre-final race. It was an ok race and we were mostly just waiting for the big Sunday race."
Sunday was surprising however. After getting his fastest lap time of the weekend in the morning warm-up, Chris had this to say: “I was very fast this morning and the team and I realized that the set-up we had was getting better as the weekend progressed and the track got stickier, which gave me a confidence boost for the race. After a poor start losing 3 positions, I got in my comfort zone and started stacking up very consistent lap times while saving my tires for the long run. I started getting back positions from 15th to 9th and a very nice last lap pass in corner 8 allowed me to cross the checkered in 8th position. There was a few nice fights for positions that I won't soon forget, including one with the Jetta GLX of Stéphane Carrier and the BMW 325I of Scott Hall."
As for Laval native Eric Leblanc, the qualifying run was excellent with a 3rd position. The Ste-Julie resident said: “The results we got with the Subaru WRX STI are far exceeding my expectations. The car is extremely competitive and it’s only its first race weekend."
The pre-final race was good for Leblanc, going from 3rd to 2nd in the opening laps of the race. Unfortunately, an intercooler hose got loose and made Eric come in to the pits a few laps before the end of the race. That meant that Eric was going to start the Sunday race from the back of the pack. With a good start and a few aggressive moves, Eric was quickly up to the 8th position until bad luck struck again.
“I had a sad fender bender with a lapped car who didn’t see me coming on is inside to pass and when he hit my car it broke the front suspension and that was the end of the race for me. But I’m still positive because the cars have potential, the reliability is there and the competition is starting to take us very seriously now.”
The next race of the Canadian Touring Car Championship will be in Shannonville, Ontario, on June 1-2-3. The team wants to thank their crew chief Stephane McNeil and mechanics Eric Filion, and all the crew, Louis-Eric, Marty, Alex, Fred and Sebastien for the great work over the weekend.
The Twofast racing team would also like to thank all of their partners: Rythme Urbain, Rack‘N’Roll, InMotion Promotion, Motul, Lettra dSign, Twofast Performance, Mazdaspeed, mazdatuning.com and Rire en Coeur!
A very special thanks to Jean-Marc Alcaraz for the incredible generosity for the hamburger spices offered to the entire team which reminds you that : “We owe you one buddy”. Visit us on line at http://www.twofast.ca/ or the series at http://www.touringcar.ca/ .
From Valérie Vachon – Twofast Racing
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