Canada was an adventure this weekend, to say the least. Here goes...

On Saturday and Sunday, I meet with wing and Fongu from the Ottawa Forum, and they showed me around downtown Ottawa and exposed me to some authentic Canada food. guys.

I arrived in Arnprior on Sunday night and prepared for Calabogie.

The first impressions of the track when I arrived on Monday morning were very positive. Everything is so new with lots of paved areas, including the entire paddock. 75% or so of the cars were trailered, and everything from Formula cars to a GMC Jimmy showed up. The Spec Miata's and STi's were, as usual, the largest contingencies. The track was intimidating at first, I could not imagine running my first ever event here. There was every time of turn imaginable: blind off-camber, decreasing radius/triple apex, early apex, flat to on-camber sweeper. A few of the heavy braking zones occured right after transistions and into blind corners and another occurred right at a crest. Oh yeah, the track is 3 miles with 20+ turns, so think Shenandoah but one gear higher and a bit more technical, that's what it is like. By the middle of my second session, I "learned" the course and was able to have fun building speed. My instructor felt car sick , so he left the car mid-session and solo'd be for the rest of the weekend (although did not give me a license "based on principle" ). I had one overrev, but nothing major. I'll have a look at everything when I get back. Which brings me to Tuesday...

They ran time trials on Tuesday, so the whole field is split into 2 groups, and we each got two 45 minute practice sessions in the morning before the afternoon time trial! I only ran in one of them...



Turn 1, 80mph, lift throttle oversteer, concrete wall. Broken right rear knuckle, bent LCA (help John?), shattered rotor, damaged wheel, minor scuffs on front fender and passenger mirror, rear quarter panel smashed, bumper heavily scuffed, rear tail light shattered but functional. All in all, the damage is not nearly as bad as it sounded from inside the car. I am OK, so I won't have to be fixed or replaced . Did I mention the nicest people in the world live up here? A gentlemen from Boston that trailered his street 350Z up, offered his rig to me to return my car to Philly. He'll be down in Philly next week for business to pick it up



I am still up in Calabogie and will be leaving later this morning. I'll be home around dinner. More pics then.

 

Damn you got lucky. With the damage and the damage control (read $$) by having someone let you borrow his tow vehicle.

 

Whoa, bummer. She'll be back up in no time though.

 

Ouch!! Glad you are ok though, it sounds like it could have been worse. At least you are still being positive about the whole thing!! She will be up and running soon enough. Have a safe trip home.

 

Glad to hear your ok. Damn that dude is cool to let a stranger borrow his rig. Make an appointment at JFO's Garage as soon as possible. Order the parts you need, I'll come down with my trailer and haul you to John's and we'll have you fixed up in no time. BTW, you bring the beer and the food and we'll do the rest.

 

Tom, glad you're OK. Sorry I missed you're call yesterday at lunch. Had a strange feeling why you'd be phoning during the track day and not returning the voicemail I left. I was thinking maybe you might of needed spare S2000 parts.... Found out later from James about your incident.

Guess I forgot to warn you about "Porsche Corner". Some of the local instructors were theorizing what the future name of turn 1 was going to be. That is the one corner that would make you pay if pushed too hard.

You must of been pushing to get a 2:33. That's a might bit faster than I've ever done, but then again I'm a wuss on the high speed sweeper stuff. Obviously you're not

So did the 4.77 gearing help with the back half of the track?

 

Ouch Tom! That sucks, glad to hear you're OK.

 

PM'd you Tom. :-)

 

Ouch!

Heck of a nice guy to trailer your car for you a couple of hundred miles. You better give him some of that skanky beer you make as a thankyou.

You have a rear knuckle but now you probably should get bearings too. How about the driveshaft? Somebody might sell a complete assembly on ebay and maybe you can get it cheap. I have 2 lower control arms so I can spare 1. How about your toe link? Sometimes you can find cheap rear lights on ebay--but not if you are bidding against someone ricing up a civic. Rear panel sounds like body shop work and that could get pricey. I have a wheel but it might not be 100%. I think I have another rear rotor. If you are replacing the front and rear bumpers bring them up, if I can use them on the race car we can swap some parts.

How about insurance if you are up in Canada at a track day? Hey since it happened out of country and no police record how about staging an accident on the street?

 

Let me know if you need some help with the repairs.
Kev