Woods Racing

That’s pretty much what they are. Race cars are one giant puzzle, gotta get all the pieces lined up right.
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It was a bit of a tough weekend at the Woods Racing / Canada Synthetics Camp. For a lot of our cars, it was pretty much the first time on the track this year. Fastco Motorsports were in Mosport, 7x Racing in Cornwall and GITN in St. Eustache.
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First outs are tough. Just when you think you are ready, the race gods hammer down to make sure you’re paying attention.
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Out in Mosport, Martin and his crew got into practice when 74 & 75 both blew transmissions ending their chance at a CTCC win this Victoria Day Weekend. Their weekend ended before it started. It’s a tough day when that happens, Martin is one of the best crew chiefs out there and has worked hard getting the cars ready for a 1st out and the season. Tranny problems plagued them last year so let’s hope they can get it sorted out before the ICAR event in 2 weeks. Nick Wittmer will be taking Glenn’s spot in the 74. He was last years Super Class Champion and the 2009 Super Touring Champ and the FASQ Canadian Road Racer of the Year so it’s bound to be exciting for the Fastco crew.
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Onto Dave Seguin and the 7x team. It was a bitter sweet dirt weekend for those boys. Saturday night they hit up Brockville and finished 3rd. Pretty good for the first time out this year. For the Cornwall race, I mentally dismissed any chance of rain and headed out to watch them tear up the dirt oval there. And that they did, up until the last lap actually. The whole race he played around between 1st and 3rd place even as the track got slippier with the rain. The RWD Nissan is fast, but coming out of turn 2, Dave got that Woods Racing / Canada Synthetics mini-stock about 8 inches to high up the track, lost traction and the pack flew by.
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But what came from that is the decision to go to another suspension setup which will eliminate this in the future. If the track was dry it wouldn’t have been a problem, but Mother Nature decided she wanted to step in, and that, is what we call racing.
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The car looks good though, it’s gonna be a good season for us for sure. Dave and the crew has spent countless hours on that car and as every year, I’m more and more impressed with the crew.
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This past weekend with the DMCC group was the Drift4Cash event at Autodrome St. Eustache. It’s a non points, pre-season race and we sure learned a lot. The CanadaSynthetics/Gold in the Net JZX90 spent the week here at Woods Racing as we finished up everything we could before loading it into the trailer. Mats even fabbed and painted a brand spankin new bumper for the front. The car got tech’d and all was well.

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Then we went out for practice.

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For real, this car is fast. Very fast. We nailed down the fastest speeds and the car looked amazing. The track was a bit bumpy so we played with air pressure and got the car where Mats wanted it. It was nearing the end of practice when Mats clipped a pylon, tearing off the front bumper and taking with it a couple power steering lines. Back into the pits, we got that all fixed up (aside from the bumper of course) and off he went again. All seemed well until the exhaust manifold decided it didn’t want to stay in one piece. I was already on my way to Cornwall when this happened so there was some quick planning that had to be done.

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A huge thanks goes out to Norm at NormalExperts. Mats and the boys took off the turbo, unbolted the manifold and passed it to Norm rugby style and off he went back to his shop to weld it for us. I can’t thank him enough, he’s helped me in so many ways, inside and outside DMCC and I got a case of beer with his name on it.

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Monday morning, race day, they got the manifold and turbo put back on and I showed up just in time for a pin hole in another power steering line. Got that set up and Mats headed out for practice again.

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We’ve been fighting with some throttle response issues and they seemed to really kick it up notch by the time qualifying came about. The car looked good in practice and Mats was fast and holding his lines well.

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When we went out for our first qualifying run, just as he initiated the car shut off. By the time I got from the spotter’s booth to the pit, Cole had the car re-started and all looked ok. Pretty sure that TPS sensor is getting the best of us. Out he went again for another qualifying shot but went in a lil hot after the transition and spun out. We figured that was it for us, we didn’t qualify and headed back to the pits. Mats got changed and we shut the car down as I looked things over. A DMCC staffer came by to let us know that someone is DNF’ing so there was a spot to fill. I started the car and Mats got dressed. He went out for a third time and nailed the line perfectly.

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We were in.

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We were first up with Jeff Laflamme who qualified 1st. Mats ran it awesome stayed on track and hit all the marks, Jeff however went off the track 3 out of the 4 times they raced and yet the victory still went to Jeff. We weren’t sure exactly what happened there but off we went to the 2nd bracket. On the other side of the tree, the TPS caught up to us and the car was hesitating pretty good so we gave that win away. Jeff ended up going on to win the competition.
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Ironically, for as many hours I’ve spent with the car, this was my first time seeing the car run. It was a learning experience for me and I now have a better idea what this is all about. I’ve been drag racing for years and this pretty much blows my common thinking out the window. I thank Mats and the crew for putting so much trust into me considering I had no drift experience, I’m mainly domestic and need to learn as I go.
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One thing for sure, once we get this right, there will be no stopping us. The car is fast, smokes well and angles hard. Just gotta work out those lil things. This is what we learn in practice and pre-season events. Next stop is Montmangy for Round 1. The Drift-Zilla will be ready, and rest assured, we will kick some ass.

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I want to thank everyone who came out to support us, it’s great to have the backing of so many people. I appreciate the fact that you took time out of your holiday weekend to come an say hi, cheer us on and remind us why we do this. It’s all for you, the fans. And a special big thanks to Erin who got her first taste of the crazy racing arena in which I call home, work and play. We were only 5 steps inside the track gate when Poirier slammed his LS powered ride into the wall not 3 feet from us. I’m sure that’s gonna be a vision she won’t soon forget!

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May 24th by Bannon