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75 MINUTES OF SPA

Dateline May 8, 2012 - Spa, Belgium

Report by Jeff Daniels
Photos by Daniel Parsons

The Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps is  located in Belgium.  It lies in the country's
 Walloon region and the Province of Liège. It is situated in a valley in the Ardennes mountain chain, some 35 km (22 mi) southeast of Liège, and 45 km (28 mi) southwest of Aachen.  Primary races held on the circuit include the Belgium Grand Prix for Formula One, the Spa 24 Hours and the 1000km Spa endurance races for sports cars.  It is considered to be one of the most challenging race courses in the world mainly due to its fast, hilly and twisty layout.



The history of the circuit dates back to 1920 when a triangle-shaped course using closed public roads between the Belgium towns of Spa, Malmedy and Stavelot.  The circuit was designed by Jules de Their and Henri Langlois Van Ophem,  The first race scheduled on this new circuit was scheduled in August of the following year.  However, the race was cancelled due to the fact that there was only one entrant!  In 1922, the first race happened as planned and two years later, the first running of the 24 Hours Francorchamps sports car race was held.  The first visit to the circuit for Grand Prix racing took place in 1925.  Up until 2000, it was possible to travel the entire circuit when it was being used as public roads.



Throughout its entire history, the Spa Circuit has been a speed course with drivers able to manage much higher speeds than other race courses.  The Belgians took great pride in the fact that Spa was a high speed course.  In order to improve higher average speeds, the former slow uphill U-turn at the bottom of the Eau Rouge creek valley, called the Ancienne Douane, was shortened with a faster sweep straight u...

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S6GTS11 - Mugello Circuit
Dateline May 2, 2012 - Mugello, Italy

Report by Jeff Daniels
Photos by Daniel Parsons

Mugello Circuit (Autodromo Internazional del Mugello) is located in the Mugello region of Italy near Florence.  The circuit has 14turns and includes a long straight with the start/finish line located about mid-way on that straight.  The circuit is 5.245 km (3.259 mi) in length and is almost equally divided between curves (48.5%) and straight (51.5%).  The longest straight is 1141 meters long.  The width of the track varies between 9.6 and 14 meters.  The circuit is 292 meters above sea level and has a total variance in altitude of 41.19 meters.  Grand Prix motorcycle racing hosts an annual Moto GP race at this circuit.  The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters also holds an annual event here.  Ferrari owns the track  and uses the circuit for testing its Formula One cars throughout the year.



The region has a long history of road racing that dates back to 1914 when the first race was held on a 66 km road circuit utilizing existing public roads .  The outbreak of World War I interrupted the racing.  The height of success of the road course was realized after the war when the best drivers in the world challenged one another on the dusty 66km course which went from Scarperia uphill to Firenzuola, through the Futa pass and then downhill to San Piero and Scarperia.  Some of the legendary drivers who raced on this circuit include Campari, Brilli Peri, Enzo Ferrari, Ascari, Borzacchini and perhaps most importantly, Emilio Materassi, the local road racing idol of the region.

The prestige of this race dimmed after 1929 with the increasing popularity of the "Mille Miglia".  Racing resumed at Mugello in 1955 on a reduced 19 km course, but never attained the same level of popularity as it had following World War 1.  This led sport friendly managers...

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Backfired: hoisted by its own petard

Autódromo Internacional de Algarve
Dateline: April 23, 2012 – Portimão, Portugal
Report by Luiz De Boni
Photos by Daniel Parsons

On April 19, still in shock due to the latest events behind the scenes at VOR, when one of this season´s new driver was caught using his cleverness for the evil, Helcio and I took a AA Boing 777 night flight from São Paulo to the International Airport at the city of Faro, the administrative center for the sothernmost region of mainland Portugal, the Algarve.

After a very pleasant flight we got to Faro on friday morning, where a local VOR staff member was waiting to take us on a short 70 km ride to the city of Portimão, where the international autodrome is located. Built in the hills that surround the city and  finished in October 2008, it is a race and test circuit officially recognised for the highest categories both for cars and motorcycles. Superbike and Le Mans Series races as well as F1 tests are in its yearly schedule. In 2009 the circuit was awarded as “Motorsport Facility of the Year” by the “Professional Motorsport World Expo Awards 2009”.

With a total cost of €195 million (approximately US $250 million), the project was designed by portuguese architect Ricardo Pina and includes a karting track, technology park, five-star hotel, sports complex and apartments. The circuit itself has sixty four possible layouts, and matches the old school “roller coaster ride” tracks like Nürburgring and Spa-Francorchamps, because of its constantly undulating nature. VOR choosed to race in the fourteen turns layout with a length of 4.69 km (2.91 mi). There are big downhill slopes, a long straight and some very challenging turns, like the two right-handed T1 and T2 after the main straight and the left-handed hairpin T5. The track is wide and has many good spots for overtaking. 

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Destruction at Mosport

Dateline April 18, 2012 - Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada

Report by Jeff Daniels
Photos by Daniel Parsons

In the late 1950s, there were discussions going on in the Bowmanville area about the possibility of creating a raceway out of what had previously been a working farm.  Ground was broken for the raceway in 1960.  The development of Mosport did not come easily.  Construction suffered through fiscal restraints, zoning logistics, heavy rains causing washouts, and price tag that was double what developers planned to spend    ($ 500,000 instead of $ 250,000).  At the beginning there were seven directors, each one was in charge for one phase of the project.  They were Alan Bunting (track design , site layout and general coordination); George Hill (public relations);  Dick Byatt (trade relations and advertising); Harold Hunter (financial planning and fund raising); George Grant (structural architect); and Chuck Stockey (utilities and access roads.)
 


Alan Bunting's design featured fast sweeping bends that rose and fell over the contours of the site.  In order to accommodate the design, much earth was gouged from parts of the hills.  In the summer of 1960, Stirling Moss came to Toronto, where he saw the plans for the track and the work that had been completed up to that time.  Moss was generally enthusiastic about the layout of the track, he did recommend that the single-radius carousel hairpin at the south end be changed to a 90º right followed by another right leading onto the back straight.  Moss was convinced that this combination would be a much greater test of driving skill and provide a more interesting race for the spectators..  The two turns, 5a and 5b have become known as "Moss Corner".

In spite of all the setbacks, the necessary facilities were completed  to conduct the first race were all completed by th...