This weekend we are at the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park (Mosport) for rounds 1&2 of the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada. It seems to be a great field of teams and drivers this weekend, all from the Canada area. We are the only American team this weekend mixing it up with the Canadians but are very welcome and always enjoy racing here. It is a busy weekend sharing the track with the Canadian NASCAR Series and the Canadian Touring Cars, but we have 3 sessions for promoter testing, a few practice sessions then qualifying and race all in a matter of 3 days. Michael Levitas will be piloting his 2008 number 36 TPC Racing / Teamspeed.com Porsche GT3 Cup in the Gold Class and Leho Poldmae will be driving his 2003 TPC Racing / the Greene Turtle Sports Bar and Grille Porsche GT3 Cup in the Silver Class. It will be great racing with great teams and drivers, so we are excited to be up here.

Today was just a tech and setup day, so we did get some time up on our setup pads seeing where we are starting before hitting the track in the morning.

Tomorrow starts our first day of on track activity. We have 3 promoter test sessions where we will be shaking down the cars and figuring out what we have to improve on. TPC Racing is very fortunate to be working with Courtney and the guys from AutoWerks, a local race shop from Canada, who are helping us with working on the cars and with setup. We have pro driver Randy Pobst along for the season as a driver coach, helping the guys with improving their lines and telling them where they can be faster. Randy will be in the cars tomorrow putting down some data laps which will help us go further with setup going into official practice which starts Friday.

I will be keeping this thread updated with a few pics when I get back to the hotel at nights, but follow TPC Racing on Facebook and Twitter @tpcracing where some updates will be posted during the day.

 

Love it.

Especially love the Teamspeed decal.

Thanks for sharing! And best of luck, always!

 

We had a great weekend in Canada. In qualifying, we were not getting timing from IMSA as their antenna pointing to the teams in pit lane was faced the wrong direction. Mike and Leho went out and ran about 3 laps each. We timed a few of the quick cars in class to get an idea of where we stand and I could hear IMSA on my radio call the top 3 in each class. The officials called out that we were p3 and Mike decided that since we did not have live timing, he'd let the others stay on track and use up tires so that he could have more in the race.

Race 1 started later that day and before the race, new front pads were put on the 36 car. When the green dropped, Mike had a nice start in Gold, but when he went to brake for 1, he did not have bite in the front yet so he went off to avoid hitting a wall. This put us back to P4. He drove hard and was setting some of the quickest times in class which then put him up to P2. About 5 laps later, Mike got caught up with another car which caused both of them to spin and put 36 back to P5. At that point, it was too late in the race and we finished 5th.

Leho Poldmae ran a great race in Silver in his TPC Racing / Greene Turtle Sports Bar and Grille 996 GT3 Cup. Being his first race coming out of DE's, his goal was to get quick and learn the track. He did just that and ran a clean race with consistent times finishing the race P3 in class.

After the race, we took apart the 36 car after noticing that it needed new axles and made some big changes to the car as well. The 19 car needed toe links replaced, so we did that, put new rotors on the car and aligned it. The next morning, we rushed to get 36 off of the platforms so we could get 19 on to string it out after installing the new links.

After stringing out the 19 car, it was time to get the cars on the grid and have the drivers get ready. Mike was starting P2 in Gold based off of his quick time in Race 1 and Leho was starting P3 in Silver.

The green flag dropped for Race 2 on Sunday morning, and Mike took off in Gold. Right at the drop of the flag, he had a great start and took the lead. He drove a very consistent race and also put down a few quick laps in the middle of the race. The goal was to stay consistent and not use up the tires because we knew that we had a strong car. It worked, and Mike turned laps about a second faster than P2 for a few laps which brought our lead up to 5 seconds. P3 turned the fastest time of the race, but he wore out the tires and fell back. Mike was running about the same times as P2, but with the nice lead we got toward the middle of the race, he still had a healthy gap of 6 seconds. Mike held the lead and took the checker, winning the race.

In Silver, Leho turned his fastest time of the weekend, running the same time as the leader. He accomplished his goal and was very satisfied. He got another P3 and was very happy. Now that he knows the track, Leho is excited to go back out to The Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in July.

A huge thank you goes out to our sponsors Porsche of Silver Spring, Teamspeed, IBIZ Car Care Products, the guys that helped us all weekend from EU AutoWerks and our fantastic driving coach, Randy Pobst.







Mike and Randy discussing setup


Thanks to the guys from EU AutoWerks!

 

Rock on. That's great, Harris!

Thanks for the update. Good stuff, congrats to everyone!

 

Congrats Guys!!!!!!!!!