Next Circuit: Watkin's Glen

Three weeks to Watkin's Glen in upstate New York; Teams prepare furiously and the track is expected to be quick and exciting!



One turn rated difficulty 2, the rest are difficulty 1 and a lot of fast corners and flat out straights are expected!

The National Capital Racing League is working on some regulatory changes to avoid some of the straightaway contact we saw during the race in Shanghai. These rules are expected to be in place for Watkin's Glen.

Shanghai in Sun and Rain

With a starting field of 8 drivers representing 8 disparate teams, Shanghai promised to be an exciting race. Weather that started out volatile, moved into pouring rain a third of the way through the first lap, and stayed that way until the middle of the second lap, and then sunny weather came back to stay only contributed to add to the excitement!

The race saw the early elimination of the newly recovered Guadalupe MacDougal of Team Poderoso Sporin from collision damage, shortly to be followed by Victory Eelap of Tombstone Racing due to body damage. Racer X of Smitholine Motor Oil went out in the third lap due to a critcial braking failure coming out of the second last corner.

Of the remaining field, Alice Gibbons of Initorque Motor Works took the checkered flag, followed closely by Darth Moto of Team Sidious. Behind the Sith came Racer 3B from Dozois' Auto-Vitesse, Simon Garfunkel of Sixty-Nine Racing, and Luka Filipov of Serbian Speedworks.

One Lap On Montreal

Circuit Giles Villeneuve (bio of the man himself)

Montreal is a very technically complex track. It is very difficult to hit all of the corners perfectly and one often finds one wishes for the half-gear that isn't available. The best you can do is pick the gear that puts you with the best chance of ending where you want to be most of the time. This is normal doctrine in some ways, but the complexity of Montreal insures that some of the time you will miss it and pay in one fashion or another.

Montreal is known for being hard on tires and requiring frequent downshifts. It can also be hard on the cars as everyone jockeys for a small range of optimal positions to try to setup the next move. This track is far less forgiving than some and overly fragile cars or overly bad luck can end with a DNF. Pacing is critical - rushes for the front at the beginning may carry the day, but they are more likely to result in cars damaging taking one another out in tight dueling in corners.

You start along the front straight (lower left side of the track image right - travel is clockwise) racing for the sharp left-right 100 degree bend known as Senna and Virages Senna (after Ayrton Senna) which you will hit in 3rd or 4th gear from the start, possibly 5th or 6th in subsequent laps if your aim is true.

You'll likely come out of Virages Senna no faster than 3rd, hitting 4th along the straight into the combined Turn 3 and 4. Similarly 4th, or maybe 5th, will lead you to the combined Turn 5 and 6. But all of these are nasty technical corners, and if you come up short, you'll be down gears and if you come up long, your tires will be screaming and you'll probably end up down gears.

Then it is a hard push up into 5th gear, maybe 6th, then hard into combined Turn 7 and 8. Once through, accelerate up into 5th leading into the hairpin L'Epingle (rightmost side of the board). This will have you gearing down because you hit it and it is so sharp or because you missed it and are scrambling to control the damage!

Out of L'Epingle, it will be a steady run up to 5th gear along Droit Du Casino. If you hit the final Chicane before the front straight and the Pits just right, it'll be back on your way to Senna in 6th gear, breezing across the finish line and completing your lap of Circuit Giles Villenueve.

A Lap of Montreal With Nick Heidfeld (YouTube)

Watkins Glen and Montreal: Two-Fer!

Sunday promises to be an exciting race day with The US Grand Prix (Kingston chapter) run at Watkins Glen and the Canadian Grand Prix (Kingston chapter) run at Circuit Jiles Villeneuve in lovely Montreal in that strange land we call 'the other side of the River'!

Teams are lining up and the race grid promises to be a full one. Team Sidious has plans to take over the world to make a good showing and increase their influence with race fans! Verdigris Eco Racing has plans to get green-lit and to roll to an environmentally sound finish in the winners circle! Team ∏ Racing has done the math and they have proven their victory is a mathematical certainty! Rumours suggest Team Bugbear may try to crush through to a podium while Sherwood Racing may, or may not, appear (typical of forest dwelling bandits).

The double bill will make for a long day of racing, undoubtedly leading to the traditional consumption of beer. It's a good thing several of the teams are sponsored (unofficially) by breweries!

So warm up your engines, heat up your tires, and get ready to race to the checkered flag!

First Race (Ottawa): Historic Watkins Glen

F1 Ottawa will be running the US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen this coming Friday. Competition is expected to be fierce! Team Poderoso Sporin is warming up their Tamales for the after-race victory party, Initorque Motors seems to have chilled the beer, and Tombstone Racing already has plans for a trip to Amsterdam to celebrate victory! Team Sidious is lurking in the shadows, apparently reluctant to be seen in the light of day, but they are expected to pull a 'come from behind' manoeuvre to attempt to victory and to have their REVENGE! Other teams are expected to be present as well, so the grid should be full and the racing should be exciting!

The track is known to be rainy about 1 day in 3 overall with a fair number of those including a mix of sun and rain. Sun in the most likely outcome, but Mother nature is unpredictable!

To get the feeling of what it will be like, see this Porsche 914 run a very fast lap through traffic at the Glen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6K78YKA9UE

Watkin's Glen Track Walk-Through


Starting on the front straight in the bottom left corner of the track map....

From pit straight into a fast 90 right-hander, up into 4th along a short straight (left side) to another fast 55 degree right-hander. This is followed by a short straight, likely in 3rd or 4th gear, into a mild 45 degree left hander that let's you keep the speed up. Another short straight in 4th leads into another right-hand turn, a fast 40 degree bend that opens into the back straight (top).

Along the back straight in 5th gear into a double downshift through the chicane and into a fast sweeping right-hander corner into 4th gear (top right) then down onto a short straight still in 4th. A fast acute left (about 120 degrees) still in 4th, then along another short straight to the wide hairpin (bottom right) in 4th or (if you are lucky) 5th gear. Down the straight (bottom left) in 5th gear.

At the end of that straight, a 105 degree right-hander leads into a short straight in 4th gear into another 105 degree turn, this time a left hander. From there, onto a short straight, through a 70 degree left-hand turn and down towards the final corner, a 90 degree bend in 5th gear if you are truly daring! Then, up to 6th gear down the front straight and past the finish line and the pits!

And thus, you have completed a lap of the Watkin's Glen road course, the longer version which will be used in the US Grand Prix of 2009.