July 4th and 5th were slated to be the third event in the 2026 Enduro Elite championship. Arriving at the track before 8:00 AM on Saturday morning, the problem was obvious.
Canadian Tire Motorsport Park sits on 900+ acres of rolling hills and forested areas, and the original Mosport Grand Prix circuit is just under 4 km (2.5 miles) long, but on days like this, it seems to have its own weather system. When the trees grab hold of a fog bank, they do not let go without a fight. The morning practice scheduled for 9:00 AM was black flagged after only 10 minutes due to safety concerns.
After nearly an hour hanging around pit lane, re-tightening lug nuts for the Nth time and waiting for the grey soup to lift, the marshals could finally see from one flag stand to the next. Crucial. Shortly after 10:00 AM, the call came over the P.A. system. Drivers! Start your engines!
The start of a seven-hour endurance race is not like other races. There is no mad dash to get around a slower driver. There will be plenty of time for passing. With little to no running in the lone practice session, all the drivers were tentative as they carved through Turn 1, dropped down the hill into Turn 4, and charged toward the braking zone at the end of the Andretti Straight.
Then the rain came. It soaked the already unfamiliar track surface and turned Mosport from intimidating to treacherous. Racers who practically grew up at the track knew to take the “karting line” in those conditions, staying a car’s width wide of the optimal racing line.
Hugging the inside of the corner and clipping the apex is the goal when the track is dry. But in the rain, all that rubber and oil makes the inside of those same corners feel like wet ice on top of ice.
This would not be a sprint. This would be a race of attrition.
As cars blasted past the start-finish line, marking the completion of another lap, the order was always changing.
Sometimes the cars did not even look the same from one lap to the next, like the No. 78 Porsche 911 that must have made contact with a wall. Its driver’s side fender was completely ripped off, catching air under the bonnet and killing top speed.
But that is endurance racing. Survive the weather. Survive the traffic. Survive yourself.
Daniel Demaras ran anchor for the team. Between brothers Anthony and George, plus new guy Erik, Daniel was the most experienced driver in the No. 822 DriveTeq BMW 128i. He was assigned the final stint of the day: bring the car across the finish line.
Not wanting to waste any time in pit lane, Daniel did not use a refrigerated cool-shirt or drink system, leaving fewer hoses to connect and fewer things to slow the stop.
By the time Daniel entered the track, the cruel joke was that the rain had stopped. Demaras, one of the team’s strongest drivers in wet conditions, finally got his shot on a drying circuit. The team came over the radio with the situation.
The No. 822 was solidly in first place in GT2, and Daniel could simply drive to a number, stay under a specific lap time, and cruise to victory. Or he could break out, jump up to the GT1 category, and try to hunt down the leaders for the overall win. Daniel put his foot down and chased racing glory, trying to pass everyone on track ahead of him before the clock struck five.
The crew that runs the Enduro Elite series are serious people. Pit stops have to be a minimum of five minutes, because nobody wants a rushed stop where someone forgets to tighten a driver’s belts. There is also a maximum stint of two hours in an eight-hour race, proportionately less if the overall race time is impacted by weather.
By the time the cars cross the finish line, it still is not clear if all the rules have been followed, or if penalties will shake up the order.
At the end of his stint, Daniel was hitting 1 minute 45 second laps, the limit for GT1 cars at Mosport. He was directed to the podium, where the Top 3 in GT3 and GT2 were announced. In a bizarre moment, the series officials simply explained that they were unsure who had won the GT1 race and would release the information the next day. Surely the No. 822 DriveTeq BMW would be on the podium, but whether Nummi Racing would receive a penalty for an infraction would determine the outcome.
How odd to leave the track, not even sure who won the race.
Onboard footage from the Fourth of July race at CTMP has been uploaded to YouTube. Due to the length of the race, it’s been broken into three parts, which can be found on Demaras Racing’s channel.
