Alain Lauzière, driver for the Octane Motorsport team, came from the back of the pack to win the Touring class Castrol Canadian Touring Car Championship event disputed at Shannonville Motorsport Park in Ontario, on Sunday May 31st. It was a spectacular race for the MINI Cooper S which had to start the race in last position.

“Our Saturday started on a positive note as we were able to qualify the MINI Original Parts Cooper S in first position” mentioned Lauzière. “Unfortunately, a piece of debris from the track damaged the hydraulic cylinder from our clutch system and consequently, we were unable to complete the Saturday Castrol race” confirmed Lauzière. The MINI Cooper S had to start the Sunday race in 37th position.

« We had to fight hard during this race” mentioned Lauzière. After being involved in a first-lap incident, the John Cooper Works MINI suffered from cosmetic damage to the front bumper that would not prevent it from continuing its charge to the front. After thirty minutes into a forty minute-duration race, the #47 MINI Cooper would manage to grab the second position in class.”At this moment I asked my team members what was the gap to the leader. They informed me that we were 11.8 seconds behind the Civic of Anthony Rapone” explaining Lauzière.”We were able to line-up a few perfect laps without traffic. As we had just closed-in on him, the rain started to fall. Our race MINI Cooper still utilises the factory ABS system, which provided us with a fantastic advantage in the most treacherous conditions. It was a fantastic battle where the both of us spent a lot of time side-by-side” mentioned the winning Touring class driver, crossing the finishing line in first position.

The Octane team will be back on-track on June 13-14 at the Mosport track in Ontario. The team’s participation is facilitated by the support of MINI Original Parts, Simone Performance Imports, Castrol Canada (Wakefield)Birchmount Collision, MINI Original Accessories and Cruisecanada.com.

Pictures by Ron Walsh





[/FONT]

 

In-car cam videos have been posted at:

Saturday race: http://www.vimeo.com/4924953

Sunday race: http://www.vimeo.com/4938241

 

 

congratulations and thanks for sharing the vids. now i remember why i'm spending stupid $$ to turn a perfectly good car into a race car!