Fast Track

Subtitle:Fidani Leads Gold Cup Standings As Rookie

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (June 17, 2015) – Orey Fidani entered the 2015 Ultra 94 Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by Michelin season with a goal of learning as much as he could during his rookie year.

At this rate, he may be well educated later this summer about the finer points of winning a championship.

Fidani, 28, from Etobicoke, Ontario, leads the Gold Cup class after four of 10 rounds this season in the No. 13 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche. He has one victory and three runner-up finishes in the class in just his second season of sports car racing.

“It’s moving really quick,” Fidani said of his progress. “I need a little more time to get it down even further. But so far, so good.”

Fidani has shown consistency and a knack for avoiding trouble that belies his inexperience. He leads series veteran Martin Harvey, 74-68, in the Gold Cup standings.

The winding, unorthodox journey to racing for the powerful Pfaff Motorsports team started for Fidani as a boy. He became fascinated with cars – especially custom low-rider vehicles – around age 10, reading car magazines and devouring everything he could find about car culture.

Fidani then started working on and building low-riders in his teens. That passion then spread to other vehicles. He opened an auto shop and built a Honda Civic drag car that he raced at Toronto Motorsports Park in Cayuga, Ontario, while continuing to build and tune other performance cars.

Then Fidani’s father became part of the new ownership group of Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in 2011 with Canadian road racing legend Ron Fellows. That opened a new avenue for Fidani’s automotive zeal, and he began lapping cars around the iconic circuit for fun in summer 2013.

Fidani enjoyed turning laps around CTMP so much that he decided to pursue sports car racing. He attended the Ron Fellows Performance Driving School at the Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch near Las Vegas, receiving intense personal instruction from many instructors, including Fellows. Fidani earned his racing license at the school.

The next step came in summer 2014 when Fidani competed in the Canadian Automobile Sport Clubs (CASC) Ontario regional series in a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car fielded by Pfaff Motorsports. He won the GT1 Sprints and overall championships in his first year behind the wheel.

“I won the GT1 Sprints series and wanted to step it up rather than go back there,” Fidani said. “You’re not really learning any more. You’ve got to go to the next level, with the big boys.”

That opportunity came by staying with Pfaff. The team fielded one car in 2014 in the Ultra 94 Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by Michelin for series Platinum Cup standout Chris Green and wanted to expand to two Porsches in 2015. Fidani already was part of the operation, so he was an ideal fit.

Current Platinum Cup points leader Green and the Pfaff team, led by team manager Steve Bortolotti, have helped Fidani accelerate his learning process this season. Fidani’s experience with building and tuning performance cars also pushes him to improve more quickly, too.

“It helps a lot, especially when you’re communicating with your team,” Fidani said. “If there’s anything wrong with the car, what you feel. It just gives you a greater knowledge when it comes to setting up the car and communicating with the techs.”

That process has been marked by big spurts of progress and small steps backward, as with any new, learning driver. Fidani admitted after the soaking Round 4 in Toronto – his first race ever in wet conditions – that he still has plenty to learn about racing in the rain and in other areas.

“I would like to be able to fast-track everything, but you can’t,” Fidani said. “It gets frustrating at times, but I’ll make it happen sooner or later.”

It looks more like sooner, based on Fidani’s early results this season.

Rounds 5 and 6 are scheduled for July 4-5 at Calabogie Motorsports Park in Calabogie, Ontario. For live updates on all the action, follow @IMSALive on Twitter. For live timing, visit scoring.imsa.com.