Pair of victories for Octane MINI at Mosport
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5th Gear
Joined: Mar 2005
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Pair of victories for Octane MINI at Mosport
Over the winter, the Ontario Touring Car Championship, an amateur series, morphed into a semi-professional championship with National aspirations. Castrol was signed as title sponsor and Toyo Tires came on-board as a presenting sponsor. The Canadian Touring Car Championship was born.
Defending T2 2006 Championship winner Alain Lauzière driving the very bright and easily recognisable Orange #47 Octane Motorsport MINI Cooper S is back to defend his title in the newly re-named Touring Car Class.Touring is one of 3 classes, the others being GT and Super Touring for larger displacement engines.
The week-end did not start in a positive fashion, the car being plagued with intermittent power steering issues. “We traced the issue to a faulty pump connector” acknowledged crew-chief Louis-Philippe Allard. “The connector was fixed and the Simone Performance Imports-sponsored MINI Cooper S performed flawlessly for the rest of the week-end”.
Lauzière started the year the same way last year ended, capturing the pole position in class, 1.6 seconds ahead of his closest competitor. “We are fast, but traditionally, the first week-end is where the speed is for us as our car performs better in the cold spring weather”, mentioned driver Lauzière. “And a lot of our competitors were shaking down newly-built cars” added crew-chief Allard.
The Cooper S showed it’s level of preparation in the race, battling some of the upper-class competitor to capture the win during the first heat race, a 20 minute sprint. “The amazing part is our package’s consistency” added chief timer Naomi Abe. “We had a string of 7 laps in the middle portion of the race where our lap times were within half a second of each other.
The feature race of the week-end would run right after lunch on Sunday and would proved more eventful. 41 competitors took the start of a wild race. A few laps after the start, the MINI Original Acessories-sponsored Cooper S was unintentionally pushed off the track by a competitor in corner 1, “We had a big moment and took a wild ride in the grass. Fortunately, we were able to recover and only lost a few track positions” commented Lauzière. “We were lucky as the car suffered minimal damage to it’s bright Dupont finish and was sound mechanically.”
As class-competitors kept exchanging runner-up positions due to mechanical issues and various track incidents, Lauzière kept the charge on and managed to lap all of it’s class competitors to take the team’s second win of the week-end, the second place competitor driving a Mercedes with Supercharged engine.
Octane Motorsport’s next race will be the second round of the Castrol Canadian Touring Car Championship at Shannonville Motorsport Park, located near Belleville, Ontario on June 2 and 3.
Octane Motorsport would like to thank their sponsors and partners:
-MINI Original Parts
-M7 Tuning (M7tuning.com)
-Simone Performance Imports
-Castrol Canada (Wakefield)
-GranSport brake pads (Satisfied Brakes)
-Birchmount Collision
-Graphic Mart
-DuPont Automotive Finishes
-MINI Original Accessories
-Vibrant Performance
-MINI Financial Services
-Pneus Touchette
-Coopersport.ca
Octane Motorsport is a privately owned and funded racing team based in Montreal, Québec.
Defending T2 2006 Championship winner Alain Lauzière driving the very bright and easily recognisable Orange #47 Octane Motorsport MINI Cooper S is back to defend his title in the newly re-named Touring Car Class.Touring is one of 3 classes, the others being GT and Super Touring for larger displacement engines.
The week-end did not start in a positive fashion, the car being plagued with intermittent power steering issues. “We traced the issue to a faulty pump connector” acknowledged crew-chief Louis-Philippe Allard. “The connector was fixed and the Simone Performance Imports-sponsored MINI Cooper S performed flawlessly for the rest of the week-end”.
Lauzière started the year the same way last year ended, capturing the pole position in class, 1.6 seconds ahead of his closest competitor. “We are fast, but traditionally, the first week-end is where the speed is for us as our car performs better in the cold spring weather”, mentioned driver Lauzière. “And a lot of our competitors were shaking down newly-built cars” added crew-chief Allard.
The Cooper S showed it’s level of preparation in the race, battling some of the upper-class competitor to capture the win during the first heat race, a 20 minute sprint. “The amazing part is our package’s consistency” added chief timer Naomi Abe. “We had a string of 7 laps in the middle portion of the race where our lap times were within half a second of each other.
The feature race of the week-end would run right after lunch on Sunday and would proved more eventful. 41 competitors took the start of a wild race. A few laps after the start, the MINI Original Acessories-sponsored Cooper S was unintentionally pushed off the track by a competitor in corner 1, “We had a big moment and took a wild ride in the grass. Fortunately, we were able to recover and only lost a few track positions” commented Lauzière. “We were lucky as the car suffered minimal damage to it’s bright Dupont finish and was sound mechanically.”
As class-competitors kept exchanging runner-up positions due to mechanical issues and various track incidents, Lauzière kept the charge on and managed to lap all of it’s class competitors to take the team’s second win of the week-end, the second place competitor driving a Mercedes with Supercharged engine.
Octane Motorsport’s next race will be the second round of the Castrol Canadian Touring Car Championship at Shannonville Motorsport Park, located near Belleville, Ontario on June 2 and 3.
Octane Motorsport would like to thank their sponsors and partners:
-MINI Original Parts
-M7 Tuning (M7tuning.com)
-Simone Performance Imports
-Castrol Canada (Wakefield)
-GranSport brake pads (Satisfied Brakes)
-Birchmount Collision
-Graphic Mart
-DuPont Automotive Finishes
-MINI Original Accessories
-Vibrant Performance
-MINI Financial Services
-Pneus Touchette
-Coopersport.ca
Octane Motorsport is a privately owned and funded racing team based in Montreal, Québec.
Last edited by J Propane; May 14, 2007 at 05:10 AM.
3rd Gear
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 250
Likes: 0
From: Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Nice Start to the season
Congratulations Alain,
Your preparations during the winter have paid off.
Wish I could have dedicated as much time to my Mini.
My intense work load has only allowed me to participate in one race this year.
Hope to make the next BMWCCA race near me in Texas in June.
Your car looks great.
Regards,
Steve
Your preparations during the winter have paid off.
Wish I could have dedicated as much time to my Mini.
My intense work load has only allowed me to participate in one race this year.
Hope to make the next BMWCCA race near me in Texas in June.
Your car looks great.
Regards,
Steve
6th Gear
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 3,957
Likes: 2
From: a canyon, south Bay Area
Alain, I thought you ran this past weekend, but just remembered to check now (because of the trailing arm thread)... Congrats once again! It probably gets old hearing this so much... but then maybe it doesn't. 
Wow, you get to drive the GrandAm MINI? What awesome news! Very happy for you.
Wow, you get to drive the GrandAm MINI? What awesome news! Very happy for you.
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BTW: this is our ONE road Porsche. We have 2 Race cars: A 944 n/a I drive, and a 951, that my pops races. Hope to see you guys out there!
Last edited by El_Griton; May 15, 2007 at 11:09 PM.
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