Five Questions With ... Remo Ruscitti

mlovecchio

Subtitle:Driver Of The No. 04 Autometrics Motorsports Porsche Cayman

Winning at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park certainly proved to be habit forming for Remo Ruscitti.

Moments after scoring his first Street Tuner (ST) victory in Saturday’s Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge race, the 20-year-old drove to victory in his first race in the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites powered by Mazda series in warm and sunny conditions. Conditions were much different on a rainy Sunday morning, but Ruscitti was up to the challenge, winning again for 8Star Motorsports.Ruscitti and co-driver driver Adam Isman have competed in all seven races this season in the Continental Tire Challenge for Autometrics Motorsports. Mentored and coached by Michael Valiante, he won three karting championships before turning his attention to sports cars.

After coming very close at winning at both Kansas and Watkins Glen, how does it feel to finally break through and win in the Continental Tire Challenge?“I feel more relieved than excited, although it probably hasn’t sunk in yet. It’s awesome to finally win, it’s been a long time coming, and it’s good to get it here at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. I’ve been working real hard to get to this point. I had a great battle with Andrew (Carbonell) and Eric (Foss). They kept me on my toes. It was real good racing, and I’m sure it was fun to watch, too.”How do you feel getting Autometrics Motorsports its first Continental Tire Challenge victory?“I’m very excited to win for the team, because they have been working very hard, but they’ve had issues with other cars. It’s good to get their first win for them. We knew they had good pace, so we decided to do Daytona with them in a Porsche Boxster. Daytona went really well, and we decided to continue. It’s been good ever since – I can’t think of a bad thing to say about the team. We didn’t even know that the Porsche Cayman was going to be allowed when we ran the Boxster at Daytona. A lot of people said the Cayman was the best car so we switched to it, and I guess we got a little lucky with it.”What role has Michael Valiante played in your career, and what’s it like to race against him?“Michael has been a real big mentor, both for myself and Adam (Isman). He’s been pretty much everything – driver-coach, manager – you can call him anything for us, he’s done a lot through his go-karting team based in Washington. He’s an amazing person to be partnered with and helping us, and I really believe it was because of his help that we won. It’s awesome to get to race against him, and to win with him actually in the same race.”Next up is Indianapolis – what are your thoughts racing at the Brickyard for the first time?“Indianapolis is another place Adam and I have never been to. We’re excited to go there, obviously, because of all of its history. It’s a place both of us want to drive at. I’ve always wanted to do open-wheel stuff someday, but I’m pretty happy in IMSA right now. What do you do away from the race tracks?“During the week, I like to drive go-karts, trying to keep myself sharp. I work for my dad, too – he makes me do a lot of hard work when I’m not busy.”