Grand Prix of Mosport goes this weekend
Aug 22, 2008 - 05:30 PM
By Shawn Cayley
BOWMANVILLE -- Officials at Bowmanville's Mosport International Speedway are all revved up for their biggest weekend of the year.
The American Le Mans Series makes a stop in town for the Grand Prix of Mosport, which features Canada's biggest sports car race of the year and is the only Canadian stop for the series.
"It's going to be a great weekend," said Lee Bailie of Mosport's media relations department. "It's our biggest event of the year in terms of cars here, races, the number of days, spectators and customers. And of course the big attraction is the ALMS race on Sunday."
The events actually got underway yesterday at the track with the Support Series Test Day featuring cars from the SPEED World Challenge GT and Touring, the Star Mazda Championship, Formula 2000 Championship, IMSA Challenge and IMSA Lites.
The F2000 championship cars got underway today at 8 a.m. with practice, while the final event of the day will see the SPEED World Challenge Touring cars hit the track for practice.
On Saturday's Day 3 the green flag drops on the IMSA Lites series for their first of two races at 12:50 p.m. The ALMS cars get the track immediately after the 30 minute race for practice and qualifying sessions, while the Star Mazda cars convene on the track for their first race at 3:50 p.m.
The IMSA Challenge race, the F2000 Championship race and the SPEED World Challenge GT cars round out Day 3 by hitting the track for race one of two.
As busy as Saturday appears to be, Sunday's slate is the main attraction with each of the previously mentioned series' completing their events for the weekend and setting the stage for the 3:05 p.m. start of the ALMS Grand Prix race.
"This is the big one," said Bailie, who noted more than 70,000 people came through the gates during last year's event.
"I don't want to make any predictions, but I think if we get some cooperative weather we should be in and around the same number again," he added.
Among those expected to be on track this weekend is 2007 co-champion Timo Bernhard, Lucas Luhr and Marco Werner. The Series also features a growing number of former open-wheel stars including Franck Montagny and Raphael Matos of the Andretti-Green Racing Acura entry, Adrian Fernandez of the Lowe's Fernandez Acura team and former Indy 500 champion Gil de Ferran.
For a full schedule of events visit
www.mosport.com.
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