About Me

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Toronto, Ontario, Canada
My passion is also my business, as I am with the Toronto based Hav-A-Kar Auto Group. I sell or lease any make of car, van or truck available in Canada. My interest in all things "car" has helped me with my many clients in Ontario over the past 25+ years. Please give me the opportunity to assist you.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

July 22: The gift


The gift. My wife and I don't buy our niece and nephew gifts as such, we buy them experiences. Teen Adam (on the left in this pic) and I have gone to a few drag races, monster trucks and this year we chose the Toronto Honda Indy. I used to go every year, but over time lost interest in these cars, preferring to stick to F1, NASCAR and the NHRA. So, not having attended for over ten years, this was going to be an experience for me as well. How did it turn out?


Well, this pic says it all. We went on Saturday to take in the first race of a weekend double header. If you've read any of the papers, you'll know that the Indy cars did a few pace laps under extremely wet conditions, until it was decided to postpone the race until Sunday. Were we disappointed? I can't speak for Adam, but for me, I had been looking forward to races in a couple of other series, which I saw, so it was a good day.


Here we go! This is Robbie Gordon's Stadium Truck Series race. Robbie is a very versatile racer, having run off road trucks, NASCAR stockers, Indy cars and won in them all. Obviously a sharp businessman, he saw an opportunity to run his stadium truck series at some of the bigger tracks on the Indy Car weekends. Fun to watch these things get big air, as they negotiate the ramps on the front stretch. An observation......there were only seven trucks running, so after they passed the front stretch, you sat there watching nothing for another minute until they appeared once again. Probably better suited to a larger field or a shorter track. Anyway, I was looking forward to seeing them run and thoroughly enjoyed their race (a damp track sure didn't hurt).


Although I enjoy a variety of racing, my preference is always for cars that bear some sort or relationship to what we see on the street. Yeah, I know, NASCAR's are far removed, but at least they look like a car, opposed to a bug with wheels and tires. So the other series, I was anticipating was the Pirelli World Challenge........


Somewhat real cars, like this Bentley Continental GT..........


or these Porsches caught in the garage area.........


The variety of exotic iron was exciting........apart from Bentley and Porsche, there were cars from Aston Martin, McLaren, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Mercedes, Dodge, Audi, Corvette and Cadillac. Cars that I recognize and don't often see. Interesting chatting with crew members after the race, when they had some time to spare. I met a McLaren crew member, who had been flown in from England for the weekend, just to help with the race car setups.

Since I am partial to American iron........



.........I liked watching them work on the Cadillacs and actually got to say a few words to Andy Pilgrim, one of the top GM drivers, who had also driven Corvettes to numerous victories at LeMans and elsewhere.

The other class in the World Challenge had more cars from Porsche, but also had Camaros, an Aston, Mustangs and a very fast, race winning Kia Optima (not too excited about that one). 

I believe this was the first time Adam had been exposed to a big time race with all the trimmings  -  the numerous and fancy race car haulers, the displays, the special features, the food and the blatant displays of cubic money. Sure it's better on TV (and dryer), but nothing beats having the real race experience at least once.

So was it a good gift? I think so and I enjoy spending time with Adam and showing him things that excite me (not a bad use of a damp Saturday).

And finally, what better way to leave this blog, than with a pic of yours truly with good, ol' American iron?


Until next time.......



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