Corey Fergus's PWC diary: The two most exciting races of my career...so far

Hi everyone. I'm Corey Fergus, racing the #00 Porsche Cayman for Motorsports Promotions in the Pirelli World Challenge TC class. I'm also a Porsche Brand Specialist at Byers Imports in Columbus, Ohio – which is pretty cool because I actually get to sell the car I race!

Touring Car rounds 4, 5, and 6 were held at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park May 15-17 and were action packed. It was a fantastic weekend for me and the team. Going into the weekend we were fourth in the championship hunt and leaving we now lead the championship!

The first race didn't go quite as planned. I qualified second on the grid. We missed the setup a little and I made a crucial mistake on a downshift costing me three positions. I ended up finishing fourth.

The following two races were the two most exciting races of my career so far.

For Round 5, I started fourth. It was a standing start and I nailed it. I was into second place through Turn 1. Me and Ernie Francis, Jr. gapped the rest of the field and stayed glued together nose to tail for many laps. Then a full-course caution came out and bunched everyone back up together. That's the last thing you want to see when you're in front of the rest of the field with a healthy gap. Actually, this caution ended up helping me because when we went back to green I made a move for the lead into Turn 1 on Ernie and made it stick. For the next 10 laps or so we had a heck of a three way battle for the lead.

Lapped traffic played a huge role in the race and helped Adam Poland get by us with five minutes to go. I passed him back for the lead two laps later. Going into the last lap Adam was hot on my tail. I got bogged down by a slower car coming onto the back straight and Adam got a run to pull along side. We went side by side through the last three corners! It was a drag race to the finish line and I snagged the win by 0.081 seconds, the closest margin of victory at CTMP in TC history.

I got the fastest lap in Round 5, which earned me my first pole in World Challenge for Round 6. I again had a great standing start and led the field by as many as 4.2 seconds until my tires started to fade. We ran under green much longer this race and the Cayman is over 400 pounds heavier than the Mazda MX-5 (both Adam and Ernie drive one) with the same tires. They had hardly any fade in performance and were gaining on me each lap. My lead evaporated to half a second 15 laps into the race. Then a full-course caution came out.

At first I was bummed because I had been leading the whole race and didn't want my fellow competitors to bunch up behind me. Then I realized this was an excellent opportunity to cool my tires off and get some speed back. When we went green again I ran my fastest lap of the race. On the last lap it was a four car battle for the lead. Coming onto the back straight Adam made a mistake behind me, allowing Ernie and Cody Ellsworth to gang up on him and they all three diced through the last three corners. I watched all of this in my mirrors and "cruised" to a one second margin of victory. It was much better watching the action in my mirrors than being in the middle of it like the day before!

What an exciting finish to the weekend. With my second win I put myself into the championship lead by 12 points. I now just need to be consistent and get into a rhythm.

We have some more testing planned before our next race at Road America June 26-28, my favorite track. I have two track records and a National Championship there. I can't wait to defend the championship lead.