For the first time in two seasons, the Canadian Formula 1200 Championship made the trip to Shannonville Motorsports Park. The VARAC Peter Jackson Trophy Race was a single-day event, with early drivers meeting on Saturday morning and only one single practice session to get racers acclimatized to the track.
Daniel arrived at the track shortly after 7:00 am, and found the Vallis Motor Sport team ready to race, having set up the tent and trailer the night before. Before heading out on track, Demaras made sure to get a refresher from his experienced mentor, Paul Subject.
The track was still very green in the morning session, with all the rubber having been washed away with the previous night’s rain.
The race would be run on Shannonville’s 2.47 km long ‘PRO Track’ configuration which eliminated many of the hard-braking zones and slow speed corners that provide passing opportunities. This was a bit of a disappointment to the racers.
The No. 12 Can-Jam Motorsports F1200 car has been struggling with engine issues this season, and everyone just wanted a clean race. Unlike Mosport’s grand prix circuit, Shannonville isn’t as power hungry, so a small power deficiency might go unnoticed.
But during qualifying, Demaras could only muster a 1:21.207 lap, which was 0.479 seconds off pole position. Demaras was not very impressed with his lap-times but he was still 7/10ths quicker than he went in morning practice.
Bill Vallis has tried so many fixes on the powerplant of the No. 12, and everyone is starting to get a little frustrated. But there’s no time to complain about carburetors now! Daniel would line up the outside, second row of the Formula 1200 race cars. Lots of room to move forward over the long 25-minute race.
Over the lunch hour, the team tried some last minute adjustments in anticipation of the 31°C weather and hot and slippery track surface.
To be continued in Part 2 tomorrow…
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