ENDURO ELITE 4: Saturday’s Struggles at Shannonville

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The fourth round of Enduro Elite brought the series back to Shannonville Motorsports Park near Belleville, Ontario, for a punishing double-header: seven hours of racing on Saturday, followed by another eight on Sunday.

Saturday morning’s brief practice session offered the teams one last chance to prepare before the endurance race began.

The No. 821 DriveTeq BMW ‘Gina’ in its art-car livery, and sister car ‘Marilyn’ the No. 822 BMW 128i that looks like it was hand-painted by Andy Warhol, started Saturday’s race nose to tail. The driver line-up once again consisted of brothers George and Anthony, lone American racer Erik, and Daniel Demaras, who would run the anchor leg.

Each Enduro Elite round reshuffles the grid. Some teams chase the entire championship, while others compete regionally when the series rolls closer to home, avoiding the expense of long-distance travel and accommodation.

At Shannonville, the fresh arrivals included RC Racing’s blue Subaru BRZ and Onomatic Racing’s Mazda Miata.

The No. 821 ‘Gina’ settled into a steady GT3 rhythm, while the quicker No. 822 ‘Marilyn’ attacked GT1 carrying much heavier expectations.

But by the end of the opening stint, Shannonville’s abrasive surface had chewed through the Hankook RS4 tires. Marilyn had no answer for the pace-setting No. 78 Porsche 911, which had led from the green flag.

But a ‘bad day’ at the race track is a relative term.

Case in point, Team TPR (Trash Panda Racing) was running well in the later stages of the race, and came in for a routine pit stop. But when a splash of high-octane gasoline came in contact with the burning hot tailpipe, flames quickly engulfed the pit box, surrounding the crew and threatening to spiral out of control.

All crew members are required to wear firesuits and helmets —with the visor down— whenever they are ‘over the wall’ during a pit stop. But nobody was really prepared for this moment. As the fueler saw the flames, he instinctively dropped the jug, spilling more gasoline onto the ground and creating a literal lake of fire.

Thank goodness for the quick thinking of fellow competitors like DriveTeq’s star mechanic Luca, who grabbed an extinguisher and jumped into action.

Next to DriveTeq’s spot on pit lane, racing rivals inspected the Miata’s melted bumper.

Meanwhile, Daniel had to forget all about the scary scene he just witnessed, and get psyched up to climb into the DriveTeq BMW for his 1-hour, 45-minute stint. With his family there at the track to support him, Daniel jumped in.

Shannonville can become several different racetracks without moving an inch. Daniel has driven them all, from the 1.8 km Nelson Circuit to the 4.0 km Long Track. Before the BMWs, he had already found success there in karts by taking pole at Nationals, his first Bear Hunt, on the karting track that largely follows the Fabi Circuit

Despite his best efforts, and some impressive passing, Daniel couldn’t work a miracle. While the eventual race-winning Porsche 911 had an average speed of 112.327 km/h around the track, the BMW could only manage a 109.386 km/h average speed. The tires had really given up, and every corner became a guessing game as to whether the No. 822 would understeer or oversteer.

At the checkered flag, the DriveTeq No. 821 ‘Gina’ secured P2 in GT3 and the team celebrated its return to the podium.

But for the drivers of the No. 822 ‘Marilyn,’ a podium finish was not enough. The previous round at Mosport had delivered an overall GT1 victory for the same drivers in the same car. Although pleased to salvage P3, they knew the GT1 BMW didn’t perform properly, and even finished behind Chump Monkey Racing’s GT2 Honda!

The drivers had extracted everything they could from the BMW. Overnight, the crew would have to find a way to restore its speed. Sunday would bring eight more hours of racing, another weather challenge, and one more chance to prove what the team could really do.

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