MONTREAL NOTES

 

SOME SPIN AND WIN; SOME DON’T

NASCAR Sprint Cup regular Marcos Ambrose worked hard to put together the No. 77 Aflac Ford-Dallara Daytona Prototype ride, even to the point of scaring up some sponsorship money for the effort, then helplessly watched teammate Carl Edwards - likewise a seasoned NASCAR veteran - spin the Kevin Doran-owned Daytona Prototype into a tire barrier shortly after Edwards drove onto Circuit Gilles Villeneuve’s suddenly wet front straight as he concluded a pre-race warm up.

Such ended Ambrose and Edwards’ first Daytona Prototype outing – even before it’d officially begun. Many were thinking “top-5” for the two, who had displayed considerable ability in adapting to the car during Friday’s practice and qualifying.

It’s unusual to see an accomplished driver like Edwards thusly dump his mount but anyone who’s been around racing for a decent length of time have seen others do the same – whether at local bull rings with nary a soul in the stands or international stages while tens-of-millions worldwide watched on TV.

It’s even rarer to see a spin-and-win like Danny Sullivan’s at the 1985 Indy 500. More often it’s something akin to Roberto Guerrero from the inside pole crashing his Buick-powered Lola in 1992 or, worse, four cars crashing out after Kevin Cogan’s Cosworth-Penske sharply swerved from a front-row sandwich at the start of the1982 Indy 500.

Most often it’s a matter of physics, wherein a car’s front end can’t match the speed of a quickly accelerating rear end, which more-or-less drives around the impediment.

Cogan and Guerrero, each having displayed immense talent up to their respective shunts, never fully recovered then-derailed careers.

Late in the Montreal race, with rain again starting to fall, Sylvain Tremblay fought a suddenly stepping out rear end after mashing the gas at the wrong moment in his No. 70 Castrol Mazda RX-8. Finding an unforgiving concrete wall and crunching his radiator, only moments later Tremblay was parked.

Like previously stated, it happens to the best and, safe to say, is always unwanted.

 

DEMPSEY TAKES A FAST BREATHER

Breaking from filming of ensemble-comedy “Valentines Day” and sneaking into Montreal under the cover of darkness Friday night, Patrick Dempsey was thrilled to have finally returned to the racetrack “for a little fix.”

“I just had to come; couldn’t stand to be away from it any longer,” Dempsey, owner of the No. 40 Mazda RX-8 Rolex Series GT race car, said just before the Montreal race Saturday as he sat atop the team’s pitside war wagon.

“I’ve really missed not getting into the seat and I can only imagine what my driving is like now,” he said with a slight frown.

With the meat of the Rolex Series schedule not favorably cooperating with Dempsey’s filming schedule, Dempsey Racing-regular Joe Foster and Dempsey stand-in Charles Espenlaub (they really don’t look anything alike, save the dark hair) grabbed the Montreal 200 race lead at one point Saturday before a rain shower rendered  the treadless Pirelli race tires grip-free at the wrong time. Espenlaub briefly spun from the course and while no physical damage was done, it was enough to relegate the team to a fourth-place finish.

Though Dempsey hasn’t raced as much as desired, he nonetheless stole enough time from his schedule to recently make a run up the California coast and climb into a historic, Lee Dykstra-penned 1992 Mazda RX-792P at the Aug 14-16 2009 Monterey Historic Automobile Races (aka, Monterey Historics).

Bearing an especially unusual, cutting-edge (especially for its day) four-rotor engine, the 792P’s 2.6-liter Wankel was made primarily of titanium and ceramic and easily put out roughly 700 to 750 horsepower, according to Rolex Sports Car Series official Mark Raffauf.

Raffauf, who at the time of the Mazda prototype’s introduction was president of the International Motor Sports Association, recalled Mazda flying the car from Japan to Daytona International Speedway for a 24-hour test.

“It was an evolution of the Mazda 787 that won the year before at Le Mans but it was loud; real loud. According to telephone calls fielded by the Speedway (at the time) the car made such a tremendous noise that it was heard more than six miles away,” he said. “It was a real engineering feat, though. One of the coolest cars ever built.”

Dempsey had similar thoughts of the car, in which Mazda helped him get the ride at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

“I had a blast driving it,” he said with a wide grin. “It was the fastest I’ve ever driven. Purely a phenomenal experience.”

Dempsey says if all goes as planned, he’ll be back in the seat of his No. 40 Mazda at the Sept. 18-19 Rolex Series race at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah.

 

LOOK, IT’S BUDDY RICE!

In a late-night, hotel-lobby encounter following respective sponsor commitments, Romain Dumas encountered Buddy Rice as each independently reached the hotel in which they were staying.

Dumas, wearing a Porsche baseball cap, grabs his cap’s bill by either side, flattens it and starts yelling, “Look, look! It’s Buddy Rice! It’s Buddy Rice!”

Um, it’s probably best not to repeat what Rice said in response.

Later,

DC