2010-05-27 

Dean Fantin, Driver, Amico Racing

Before I went onto the track for the first practice of Friday morning Doug and I had our usual conversation about strategy for that session.

I spent the first few laps shaking the car down and pulled into the pits anxiously awaiting word from Doug telling me everything looked good and it was time to put in some fast laps. I reached my best lap times around Mosport very quickly and then knocked a second off of it, the team was happy to see the result. We spent the next three sessions making adjustments and continued to shave time all the while getting laps times for the top teams and we were sitting almost on top at the end of Friday. The team  and I didn’t get ahead of ourselves because we knew that it wouldn’t be long until the others picked up the pace, but at the end of the day, we knew we had done our homework and it had really paid off on the stop watch!

Going into Saturday’s practice I felt very relaxed and was itching to get back into the car and dissect the track like a skilled surgeon. At the end of the session we dropped even more time and although our opponents got quicker, we still sat third fastest. I was incredibly happy as was the team.

We qualified fourth and I had my strategy for the race planned out with Doug. As I left pre-grid and entered the track I went over all the possible scenarios that could happen going into the first two corners. I began to get nocuous as I sat there strapped in and feeling the heat deep in my chest. I have been waiting for this moment the whole off season and there has been so much preparation, my nerves were going crazy! As soon as the cars started their engines again I completely lost the nervous feeling and got focused, we completed our warm up laps and came back on the front straight and I miss timed the drop of the green flag. The front three cars began to pull ahead so I immediately became defensive trying to protect my fourth position. I battled for fourth going into the third corner and I felt a quick drop in power for a split second and immediately after, the car began to over heat throwing warning lights on the dash. I turned on the fan and went through the dash menu while keeping Mathew Audett behind me. So needless to say I had my hands full! Entering moss’s corner I knew I needed to build a bit of a margin between Matt and I so I could have some breathing room. Between 5a and 5b I slowed down more than usual causing Audett to be thrown off his normal rhythm. This allowed me to get a better exit on the corner and increase the margin. About a quarter ways down the straight however Audett pulled right past me and I new then something wasn’t right with the engine so I immediately went through the dash menu again to make sure everything looked ok. Everything checked out so I went through the problem with Doug over the radio. As I chased the Acura I pulled him through the first corner and was closing in leading into turn two but Audett got on the brakes and I let up on the throttle and locked up the tires at the top of the crest trying to avoid him. The car stepped out and I was headed off track. I was very concerned that I might hit the wall since I was traveling at such a high speed. I managed to keep the car off the tire wall and so I got hard back on the throttle and made my way back to the track. I don’t think I have ever driven this fast off track before and I felt like I was running in the Dakar rally the way that I was bouncing around and wrestling the steering wheel to keep the rear end behind me. I came back on in eighth and spent the next few laps reeling the Lombardi Honda’s in. I was very frustrated at what just happened but I knew we were much faster than the next four positions so I just talked myself through it a bit to make sure every lap I drove was done to perfection. I figure worst case we would get back to fourth at the end of the race. After about three more laps Doug decided to call it and bring the car in to see why I had lost power so we wouldn’t cause any more damage if there was any done. I was really frustrated, I knew we had a strong car and that we should have had our first podium. All the long hours and hard work started going through my head, on top of it we weren’t sure of the reason for the power lost so the team was also worried that our engine might have failed. Doug looked at all the data and found that it was due to loss in fuel pressure. The team was happy to know that the engine was fine so we changed the filter and everything looked good.

Going into Sunday Doug and I were very determined to podium. We knew that I had my work cut out for me since I had to start at the back of the field with Alex Healy, another fast competitor. I was pretty anxious and my adrenaline was pumping knowing that I would have to be very pushy and aggressive to make it through the slower traffic swiftly. There was a morning practice before the race and we wanted to go out just to work out any bugs in the engine that there might be from Saturday. Everything felt fine and the car was quick once again. The track felt a bit greasier than Saturday and everyone’s times were off. On the fourth lap coming up to turn four, one of the fastest corners and most unforgiving, we blew the right rear tire. It happened right as I was getting hard back on the throttle settling the car at the top of the crest and the car had a quick rear end twitch. I reacted like a normal loose situation but as I made the fine adjustment the car regained traction but veered to the right and it repeated this quite a few times bringing me to the very edge of the track at around 160 km/h. After the second twitch I knew I was in trouble since there is such a decline at that corner approaching into moss corner leaving you with minimal breaking margin.  I had to make a decision instantly as to where I’m going to put the car for the least amount of damage. Because of the heavy loading of the suspension I wasn’t able to let off the throttle or use the brakes in mid corner because the car would quickly swing around on me and head for the wall on the right. I decided to stay on the track and get hard on the brakes at which point the car twitched one last time sending me to the left facing the wall. I grabbed the brakes to what I thought was the limit without locking them up and loosing the friction threshold of the track and tire. The car went off track and the front end grabbed hard swinging the rear and around so I slid through the gravel parallel with the wall and bounced into it. The car didn’t hit as hard as it could have so I think I made the correct decision. There was still a decent amount of damage but nothing to critical. I just sat in the car for a bit just shaking my head from what had just happened. I didn’t even want to get out of the car to see what the damage was at the time. I knew our podium chances were over and I got a sick feeling in my stomach from thinking of how hard we have worked to get to this point and how bad I wanted to place top three. I can’t describe the feeling when something like this happens. Doug didn’t say much on the radio so I knew he was equally disappointed and when I saw him in the paddock I knew he felt as I did. We didn’t need to say it.

So in a sense I’m happy knowing how fast we were, how maneuverable the car was and we had no issues with the engine but I’m incredibly upset with the events that took place. As the car is in the body shop for a few days Doug and I will take a bit of time for ourselves and turn the frustration into determination to return to the track even stronger!!!!

 

Douglas Lovegrove, Crew Chief/Engineer, Amico Racing

I’m sitting in a bar in Tucson Arizona waiting for a flight home; I’ve been down here for two days for my other job. This is the first chance I’ve had since leaving Mosport Sunday to sit down and write about what happened this weekend. It’s not an easy thing to write about even though I’ve been thinking about every last detail of the weekend for the last two days. I really don’t have words for it yet, I’ll just layout what happened and you can draw you own opinions and conclusions.

Friday we had four practice sessions, our goals were; aero testing, fuel usage calculations and work on building more rear grip in the car. Nathan and John worked diligently on testing the air flow characteristics of the back of the car and the wing in various positions. The airflow seemed to agree with the John’s CFD analysis so we nailed that one. Fuel usage is easy but never the less must be done with a new motor so we know just how much is needed to finish a race. Building rear grip proved a bit of a challenge but we got it to hook up well enough to knock a second off of the test times from two weeks ago. So I could say we had a plan and everything went according to plan. What left us all a bit perplexed at the end of the day was, we only recorded one time from our competitors faster than us all day. We knew we had a good car but no one was ready to say we were second fastest of the supper touring cars.
Saturday morning we promptly set the third fastest time off all the super touring cars in practice. Now that’s a good feeling, the difference was we had the official time sheet from the series confirming what we thought Friday. “Man, this should be an easy podium”.  How we went from making statements like that to loading the car up Sunday having not scored any points is what’s been eating me for the last two days. Even qualifying went good, we were 4th and if we had set our time from practice we would have had 3rd. The race started pretty clean up front, Dean lost a position somehow in the first two laps but it’s a long race so I wasn’t worried about it. By the third lap Dean radioed in that the motor was running hot and losing power, “there goes that engine” I thought.

I pulled the car in and just to be safe called our race over. That’s really a tough call to make and something that I know was tough on Dean and the team. I wish it hadn’t gone down like that but it just wasn’t worth the risk of blowing up a motor. Back in the paddock I was able to look at the data and it was obvious we had lost fuel pressure right at the start of the race. The fuel filter was clogged solid and although it was and easy fix we have to look deeper into why it happened and make sure it doesn’t ever again.

Sunday; all seemed well, we went out for practice and the car was good. Dean only got in a couple of laps and for reasons I don’t understand yet we ended up in the outside wall between 4 and 5. I have to say at that moment when Dean came on the radio and said “I’m in the wall” thoughts of the six months of preparation and the pride I had felt this weekend seeing how fast my creation was turned into anger. I had no one to direct my anger at so it’s just been with me for the last few days.

Man, racing can be hard in so many ways.

Amico Racing is participating in the Castrol Canadian Touring Car Championship for their second year in 2010, last year they finished 9th in the Championship. Amico Racing is supported by the Labours Union, KML Building Solutions, Aon Insurance and many more. Check them out at http://www.amicoracing.com/