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TUDOR Championship Adds to Canadian Tire Motorsport Park’s Proud Heritage
mlovecchio
Race car fans need only to look at a list of the past winners at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park to appreciate the heritage of Canada’s classic road racing facility.
Scott Sharp and Scott Pruett are both among that elite group, joining motorsports legends including Jackie Stewart, Stirling Moss, Dan Gurney, A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti. The list includes 16 Formula One world champions and 10 winners of the Indianapolis 500.
The circuit started out as Mosport Park and opened up with the Player’s 200, which brought sports car drivers from around the world to race in rural Ontario. Moss won the race in a Lotus 19, and made a suggestion to change a proposed hairpin to two distinct turns to make it more challenging, and the resulting Moss Corner was named in his honor.There have many changes to the circuit since then, but one thing hasn’t changed – the basic racing line. The same turns that challenged competitors in the original Can-Am and Trans-Am of the 1960s, Formula One in the 1970s and the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón in the 2000s will test TUDOR United SportsCar Championship competitors this weekend.A six-time winner at CTMP, Sharp won three consecutive Trans-Am races from 1991 through 1993. In recent years, he won overall in 2009 in an Acura; took P2 class honors in an Acura in 2008; and gave Extreme Speed Motorsports its first GT class victory in 2012, joining Johannes van Overbeek in a Ferrari F458 Italia.Pruett won four Trans-Am races over three decades at CTMP. He drove Mercury to victory in 1986 and 1987 (in a Merkur XR4TI), won in a Camaro in 1994 and triumphed in a Jaguar in 2003. Pruett’s “five for five” Mosport resume also includes a victory in a Saleen in a 1987 24-Hour SCCA endurance event.Three-time winner Denny Hulme, Gurney and Bruce McLaren were among the winners in the original SCCA Can-Am Challenge that debuted when Mark Donohue won the inaugural race in 1966. The circuit was also the unofficial home of the second-generation Can-Am, with Patrick Tambay, Alan Jones, Jacky Ickx, Al Unser Jr. and Jacques Villeneuve (brother of Formula One driver Gilles Villeneuve) winning prior to Paul Tracy taking the final race in 1986.Stewart was a two-time winner when Formula One competed in the Canadian Grand Prix eight times from 1967 through 1977. He was joined in victory by Jack Brabham, Ickx, Peter Revson, Emerson Fittipaldi and James Hunt before Jody Scheckter won the final race in a car owned by Canadian Walter Wolf.The World Sportscar Championship raced twice at CTMP, won by Ickx/Mass and Hans Stuck/Derek Bell, while Gurney, Bobby Unser, Foyt and Danny Ongais won the four USAC Indy Car races held between 1967 and 1978 – before the open-wheeled cars regularly raced on road circuits in the United States.Formula 5000 – a series combining drivers SCCA road racing with USAC Indy Cars – raced between 1968-1976, with winners including Donohue, Andretti, David Hobbs and Jones. The circuit hosted 15 Formula Atlantic races, with victors including Elliott Forbes-Robinson, Bobby Rahal, Calvin Fish and David Empringham.Joining Sharp and Pruett on the list of Trans-Am winners are Boris Said, Peter Gregg, Bob Wollek, Greg Pickett, Bob Tullius, Paul Miller, Wally Dallenbach and CTMP promoter Ron Fellows – who scored his 100th career victory earlier this year.IMSA first raced at CTMP in 1975, with Hurley Haywood winning a 100-mile race in a Porsche Carrera. Other winners included Miller, Brian Redman, Bill Adam, Tullius, Jeremy Dale, Pete Halsmer, James Weaver and Butch Leitzinger, while Fellows won in a Ferrari 333SP in 1997.The ALMS raced at CTMP every year in its existence from 1999 through 2013. Rinaldo Capello set the track’s all-time record of 1:04.094 (138.116 mph) in 2008 in an Audi R10 TDI. Johnny O’Connell was the leading ALMS winner with seven victories, followed by Jan Magnussen and Lucas Luhr with five each.This weekend, a solid roster of TUDOR Championship Prototype, GT Le Mans and GT Daytona drivers will be looking to add to the impressive list of winners at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.Races:
Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix presented by Hawk Performance
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http://www.imsa.com/articles/tudor-championship-adds-canadian-tire-motorsport-park%E2%80%99s-proud-heritage
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