Motorsports?

**CanadianGTR** · 05-16-2005, 01:31 PM

Instead of digging up the old post in General and getting John to move it here.
I'll just start a new one.

What form of motorsports are you guys into, do you use your car?

Personally, I do NAVEX rallies (want to upgrade to performance soon), some lapping, I want to get into Solo1 but I don't know if I'll have the car ready this season or not. And I do some random drifting.

My friend and I might try our hands at F-1200 instead of Solo1, because our cars are in such a high class... we wont end up ranking for the first 2 seasons until we get some experience on the tracks.

**qualthar** · 05-16-2005, 02:15 PM

I haven't done any racing, but I'd like to get into some hot lap events, and things like that, on a more amateur scale.

I basically just want to take my car out and have some fun, test the limits and such.

**dnash** · 05-16-2005, 04:50 PM

What is F1200?

I love motorsports and would love to participate in them, but I am atleast 6hrs from Shannonville. It's quite a ways to go if the car broke down or something went wrong although I think I'll risk it once a get a car...

Luckily, I'm in driving distance of Sparta and Grand Bend, so at least I've got a decent spot to do some drag racing.

**CanadianGTR** · 05-16-2005, 04:56 PM

Originally Posted by dnash

What is F1200?

I love motorsports and would love to participate in them, but I am atleast 6hrs from Shannonville. It's quite a ways to go if the car broke down or something went wrong although I think I'll risk it once a get a car...

Luckily, I'm in driving distance of Sparta and Grand Bend, so at least I've got a decent spot to do some drag racing.

Dunville and TMP can't be too far from you then (road courses)

F1200 is formula 1200.
http://www.formula1200.com/

**Ezzie** · 05-16-2005, 04:59 PM

I started my long involvement with motorsports in around 1973. I bought a used 1971 240Z when I got out of university. One day, I was driving through Woodstock, ON and saw a bunch of cars racing around pylons in a local shopping mall parking lot. I went in to see what the fun was all about and entered my first Solo 2 event (they were called gymkanas then). I didn't do very well in the event, pulled a few too many donuts and hit a few pylons - but I was bitten by the bug. A couple of years later and many more Solos under my belt and I got into a accident with the 240Z. Some idiot plowed into me when I was stopped on the highway waiting for the car in front of me to make a left turn. The poor Z-car was pushed into (and under) the rear of the car in front with the bumper just stopping in front of the windshield. The rear was plowed in as well so needless to say, the car was a writeoff. That winter I managed to buy the car from the insurance company and sourced another 240Z in Windsor that had the front end written off. I decided I wanted a more serious "racecar" so I cut the two wrecks in half and welded the two good half cuts back together. Added a roll bar and headed off in the spring to get my CASC novice racing licence.

I had a blast in that old 240Z - essentially stock but on some old race rubber. I was hopelessly outgunned by a lot of other cars - but I was learning. The next winter I stripped it all down, had a proper roll cage put in, added fender flares and rebuilt the motor. I also repainted in bright Michelin tire yellow. I competed in various regional races for the next 2 years including the Mosport BF Goodrich "Sundowner", all 5 of the eastern Canada Molyslip Endurance series races, and a couple of editions of the CASC National championships at St. Jovite. I sold the car to a friend of mine that winter and started on some new projects.

The next couple of years I teamed up with a prominent Datsun 510 competitor in regional racing, Paul Lambke. We decided to move on to a little bigger and different scene and built a couple of cars to compete in the IMSA RS (BFG Radial Stock) series in the US. The first season we built a Mazda RX3 where we gained experience with the rotary engine marvel. Best showing was an 11th place overall at the Daytona 4 hr. endurance race out of a field of 56 starters - not bad for a couple of privateer country bumpkins from Ontario in a privately entered homebuilt car. Racing on the road circuit at Daytona has to be one of the fondest memories I have of my motorsport career so far. The following year, (I think in 1978) we built a 1978 Datsun 510 to IMSA specs and raced it in a number of RS events before selling it to Arnold Hoar from Moncton, NB. The next year my racing career started to dwindle and I only co-drove for a couple of other people a few times. My interest turned to Pro-Rally.

I had always done a bit of navigational rallying after the 240Z got hit. I then bought a 1975 Honda Civic as a daily driver and these things made great little gravel road runners (that is until they rusted out!!!). It got rear ended when it was only a year old and then I bought a 2 yr. old Datsun 510 (the one I still have as in my Avatar). With the experience of working on the rotaries, I then bought a few RX2's, RX-3's and RX-4's that had blown engines and learned how to build them. One of the RX-3's I added a roll cage to and used it to compete in Pro-rallies. Over a couple of years I managed a win at the Georgian Trials once and a second place finish in the Rally of the Tall Pines - back when you could do that in a RWD car!! Names of some of the people in stage rallying in those days were Randy Black, Taisto Heinonen, Tim Bendle, etc. This kind of monkey business kept me busy during the early 1980's - but I loved the longer "endurance" type events.

In 1986, myself and a couple of friends entered the Canamex Rally. This event was a supporting event from Expo 86 in Vancouver. We prepped a Chevy Blazer for endurance rallying and travelled 23,000 km. in 21 days. Started in Vancouver and followed the Rocky Mountains (and other backbone chains) all the way to Mexico City - across to the Baja, back through Anaheim, Denver, Calgary, Edmonton and to Haines, AK, then back through the BC interior. It was an amazing trip - with about 25 cars coming from all over the world to compete in it. I actually have an article I wrote based on this "road trip" and some of the crazy things we saw & did - PM me if you'd like a copy of it emailed to you. I then did a couple of the Alcan 5000 rallies (up & down the Alaska highway) and then went to Australia in 1988 to compete in the Wynn's Safari. This was a tough endurance event for bikes and 4-wheel drive vehicles through 17,000km. of the rugged outback. I had teamed up with a Suzuki Canada sponsored vehicle from Abbotsford, BC but failed to start due to a custom worker's strike in Australia. There was no guarantee we could get our car off the boat so we decided to leave it behind and just went and travelled with the event for 3 weeks. That was about the end of my motorsports career - stopped to go through a divorce and raise a family of 4 kids.

But I may be making a little comeback at my now advanced age of 52!! A couple of years ago I heard about the Targa Nefoundland. I had my old 1973 Datsun 510 still lurking in the back of the garage as a future restoration project. Since restored 510's are still not worth much, I decided to take it and go have some fun instead. After a lot of research into engine rebuilds, it looked like trying to build up a 32 year old motor was going to be a pretty expensive undertaking - and yield less power than a modern day EFI Turbo car. I sourced a JDM 180SX front clip and started the fab - but this time, with some entusiastic help from a couple of my now grown sons. Wow - a ready made fab. and pit crew!!! We are now ready and have entered the 510 in this year's event.

Not stopping there, I have a keen interest in the GT-R since I have always had a fondness for Nissan's lovely in-line 6's. Also, after having driven a WRX STi around for a while for Subaru Canada when they were introduced here, I would like to learn how to drive a powerful AWD car on a circuit like Mosport (my first love) at speed. Just sourced an R32 GT-R in Japan and hope to have it here in a couple of months. Initially we will be putting a cage in it and doing a few track days to get the feel of it. Who knows where this adventure may lead...... Stay tuned.