By: Mike Sullivan/RaceCanada.ca
July 16 2016

I love Shannonville. I've spent a lot of time there and I've turned a lot of laps there, on both the original Nelson track and on the “new” full track. I always thought it made a great counter to Mosport, from the fast sweeping corners where rhythm and momentum ruled to the slow, tight corners that needed to be fought and wrestled with. If you could drive both Mosport and Shannonville well, you could probably drive any track in the world well.

That's way it's pretty disappointing to see Shannonville regularly getting smaller grids than at Mosport, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, and unfortunately this weekend was no different, despite the near perfect weather forecasts for the weekend.

The grids this weekend are small with 14 cars in Touring Car's 3 classes, 12 entries for the Toyo Tires F1600 race and only 5 for the Formula 1200 Championship. The GT class also running this weekend had only 5 cars in their field, and in race 1, 3 cars dropped out with mechanical problems leaving the final 2 cars to finish the race under the yellow, behind the pace car.

The good news is that the top drivers have made the trip for each series, and morning practice showed the battles at the front will be as good as ever.

Canadian Touring Car Championship

Morning practice saw Jerimy Daniel put his Porsche at the top of the time sheets only 3/10th ahead of the Honda of Karl Wittmer in the Super class. Bob Attrell put the Hyundai in front of the Grand class by 2/10th over the Mustang of Chris Sahakian, while Michel Sallenbach lead fellow Mini driver Nelson Chan by 3/10th in Touring.

Qualifying showed a shuffling of the order, with Eric Hochgeschurz setting the fast time of the session, and taking the pole in the Super class. Karl Wittmer put his Honda Civic on the front row while morning practice leader Jerimy Daniel was third.

Bob Attrell's Hyundai led the way in Grand class, followed by the Mustang of Chris Sahakian and Attrell's Hyundai team mate Damon Sharpe.

Touring class was led by the Mini of Michel Sallenbach, the Honda Civic of Jon Young and Sallenbach's Mini team mate Nelson Chan.

The first race of the day, round 7 for the Canadian Touring Car Championship, set the tone for the afternoon, with contact near the front of the field on the first lap. Cars scattered coming out of turn 2 with Wittmer coming around in the lead, which he would hold until he gave it up under pressure from pole sitter Hochgeschurz and later to the Honda Civic of Scott Nicol, eventually finishing 3rd overall and in Super Class.

Chris Sahakian brought his Mustang home 4th overall and 1st in the Grand Class while Michel Sallenbach swept the day in Touring by being fastest in practice, qualifying and taking the win.

Toyo Tires F1600 Championship

Morning practice saw the battle between Exclusive Autosport's Trenton Estep and Britain West Motorsport's Michael Adams heat up again. These two waged an epic battle in the last round at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park that included last lap, last corner contact, last lap passes and plenty of animosity. While Adams came out in front in each of the three races at CTMP, Estep showed the way in practice with a 1:09.798 on the Shannonville Pro circuit, against Adams 1:09.920. BGR driver Roman De Angelis rounded out the top 3 with a 1:10.578.

Graham Lobban set the pace in B class with a 1:11.144, followed by Stephen Adams with a 1:11.404.

Qualifying was in the same order as practice, with Estep putting his Spectrum on pole just ahead of the Mygale of Michael Adams.

Estep turned his pole into an early lead, getting the jump on Adams, who was following close. Like the Touring Car race before it, contact on the first lap played a huge role in the outcome. Coming into the final hairpin on the first lap, Michael Adams thought he had an opening on the inside of Estep and made a move. Estep was already turned well into the corner when Adams made contact with the rear of the Spectrum, damaging the right rear corner of Estep's car and putting him out of the race on the spot.

Adams was undamaged and assumed the lead of the race and went on to record the unofficial victory, with Brian Graham Racing drivers Roman De Angelis and Ben Hurst rounding out the top 3 in A class. A great drive from Graham Lobban saw him take the victory in B-class followed by the elder Adams, Stephen, drive through the field after sliding off the track on the first lap and dropping to the back.

The race is under protest, so official results likely won't be posted until tomorrow morning, but it would seem unlikely that Adams will keep his win. The only question is going to be how big of a penalty will he get and how far down the field will be drop.

Formula 1200

In F1200, Phil Wang started race 1 from the front row, and as it turned out it was a good place to be. Wang took the lead from pole sitter Matt Garwood and was able to open a small lead coming into the final 2 corners when contact occurred between 2nd place runner Matt Garwood and 3rd place runner Barrett Kingsborough.

Into the tricky braking zone before the left-hander, Kingsborough seemed to misjudge Garwood's braking and ran front tire into rear, pitching the front of Kingsborough's car into the air and landing hard. Kingsborough limped to the pits where he couldn't get the car re-started and was pushed into the paddock, out of the race.

In the ensuing fracas, Garwood dropped to 3rd with Guy Bellingham moving to 2nd, Garwood to 3rd and Jesse Ward hard on Garwood's gearbox in 4th.

Garwood made several attempts to get past Bellingham, finally getting crossed up enough to allow Ward into 3rd to put the pressure on Bellingham. The final corner took it's toll once again as Ward made a lunge down the inside of Bellingham in the final hairpin, in a similar place where Estep and Adams got together in the earlier F1600 race.

Ward bounced over the inside curb slid out into Bellingham causing both to spin. Garwood, in tight quarters to the spinning pair, dove to the outside of the track, getting around both cars and moving back into 2nd place. Ward got going first and was sitting in the final podium position, but it wouldn't last.

A lap later Ward was shown the black flag for the contact with Bellingham, and brought in for a stop and go penalty allowing Bellingham into 3rd.

All the while, Wang led comfortably at the front with no real pressure with all the chaos behind him.

Sunday looks to be another great day with no rain in the forecast and 2 races on tap for each series.

Watch for full race reports after the weekend.