The fifth and final round of the 2025 Canadian Sport Compact Series was held at Toronto Motorsports Park (ironically, 100 km away from Toronto) in the town of Cayuga. The event was held on Sunday, September 14 2025 and it was just a lovely late-summer day at the track.
For the uninitiated, CSCS is Canada’s biggest racing series and car show in one. The events feature Time Attack competition for fastest laps, Max-Attack wheel-to-wheel racing, Drifting demonstrations, import tuner-car Drag Racing plus the largest Show & Shine event in the country.
With more than 500 entries, the field is quite diverse. Many describe it as F&F in real life; the tuner-cars, music, underglow and air-ride. Arriving at CSCS feels like Race Wars from the first Fast & Furious movie.
While CSCS started primarily as an import drag racing event, it now includes events like a 2-Step competition for the loudest exhaust with biggest flames. There’s also a good old-fashioned Stereo Soundclash for the car with the booming system.
Classic cars on display at CSCS aren’t the usual ’67 Mustang or ’57 Chevy. Classics in this corner of the Canadian car scene are more like a first-gen Toyota MR2 or an Acura Integra from before the turn of the century. There is no expectation that cars should remain ‘original’ at all. It’s common to see modern wheels, tires, brakes and even coilover suspension systems just installed on 25 year old cars.
For the team at Demaras Racing, the CSCS event was a chance to do some good. Last year, the ‘Gearheads Giving Back’ fundraising raffle for SickKids Hospital was a success, but the prize of a drive in an open-wheel race car may not have appealed to everyone. This year, by teaming up with GTA Exotics, the grand prize being raffled off at ‘Gearheads Giving Back, Too!’ was a chance to drive a Ferrari on a race track. The universal appeal of the red car improved fundraising results.
The CSCS ‘show & shine’ was another opportunity for Chris Demaras to display his synthwave-inspired Subaru SVX, this time with a big CSCS windshield banner. The car took home some hardware at the Subie Showdown in August, and even last year at CSCS before the visual modifications
Magenta, pink, purple, French blue and teal may not be everyone’s favourite colour palette, but the car has a strong 90s vibe that the crowd really responded to, even if most of them had never seen an SVX in their young lives.
It’s too bad the show & shine ended before sunset, because when the underglow turns on, this car takes on a whole other dimension.
The big draw at CSCS are the racing events. Time Attack is the most popular series, with a huge number of competitors spread out amongst several categories. While the cars are race-ready, and the drivers wearing helmets and fire suits, its not a race for position. Rather, it’s more like qualifying with everyone trying to set the quickest lap time.
The most spectacular part of the show is the drifting, hands down. The demonstration runs don’t ast all that long, and sets of tires are expensive! But the crowd that gathers to show its appreciation makes it all worthwhile for the drivers.
If there is a ‘Fonzie’ of the drifting scene, it would have to Roel Mallari in his bright yellow Drift Taxi, a 2009 Subaru Forster pushing out 900 HP to the rear wheels. The Drift Taxi has four racing seats with harnesses, allowing ‘Rolo’ to take three passengers out for thrill rides during each run..
Kevin and Duane who run the CSCS Racing series deserve a lot of credit for putting together such incredible events. To think, this is their side-gig! This is the same family that runs Can-Jam Motorsports.
For the most part, cars driving at these speeds, or drifting or 2-stepping would get tickets out in the real world At CSCS they get trophies instead of tickets. For anyone that thinks they’re the baddest guy in the parking lot, the CSCS slogan really hits home. ‘Prove It At The Track’
👍 Love it! Good review.
It was a lovely day. Simply lovely.