Austin Makes A Triumphant Return To CTMP

Austin Makes A Triumphant Return To CTMP

After all of the stress leading up to the Indy Weekend and the late nights at the track, I was looking forward to having some downtime to reset.   Things were going fine until last Wednesday when Austin was offered a chance to race in the new Formula Prototype Challenge Series at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park for the first time since he won the Radical Championship in 2021.  As you can imagine once Austin found out about it, there was no turning back.  The good news is,  we had a bunch of extra fuel from the Indy left over, as well as a decent set of tires from Laguna Seca so it wasn’t going to cost us anything other than our time.   So let me set the scene,  Austin hasn’t been around CTMP in over 3 years,  he was on old tires,  we were not able to attend the practice day as we were both working and Austin would have to head straight into qualifying without any practice on Saturday morning.  Certainly not a recipe for racing success.   The FPC is a series open to all formula and prototype cars.  Austin would be racing against a Formula Atlantic Open wheel race car, as well as two 500 hp Revolution Prototype Cars and a whole mess of Radicals.   
Saturday
On Saturday we arrived at CTMP very early to get set up and get Austin’s car ready for qualification.   We weren’t sure what to expect from Austin to be honest.   About halfway through qualifying Austin pitted to reset his tire pressures as they were a bit high and as he excited the pit lane he radioed in saying he was “going to let the cougar lose”.  He was already sitting in the top 5 in times surprisingly.   The next few laps were pretty spectacular.  He set personal best after personal best just narrowly missing out on pole position and a radical lap record in the process.   Makes me wish we had some new tires to see what he would have been able to do with them. 
Here is Austin’s two best laps from Qualifying,  strap yourself in…
Onboard Video
In the race later that day,  Austin had a great start and tucked into 3rd in the opening laps chasing the two Revolution cars (which have over double the horsepower of Austin’s car).  Amazingly Austin was able to keep pace with them and he was trading fast laps with the leading pair.   No matter how hard the front two purchased they couldn’t shake Austin who stayed within a second of the lead.  With about 10 minutes to go one of the high powered Revolutions lost it going into turn 1 putting it backwards into the wall.  Austin was able to take emergency action and missed further carnage.   The race would end under caution and I feel the lead revolution felt a bit of relief knowing the race wasn’t going to go green with Austin sitting under his rear wing.   Austin would finish 2nd and drove a brilliant race!!!
Sunday
Sunday morning we were back at it, Austin would start 2nd and after the 3rd of so lap he radioed in that he was feeling a vibration from the front end.   We told him it was probably just the tires as there wasn’t much life left in them especially after how hard he pushed them yesterday.  At the halfway point he radioed again as his pace was dropping saying the vibration was worsening.   We thought it would be best to pit him and check over the car quickly.  Everything seemed ok and we sent him back out.  He was running laps about two seconds slower than the previous day but as 3rd place was having troubles of their own he was able to maintain the gap and finish second again.   
All in all a great weekend back at our home track.   I can’t explain how extraordinary Austin’s performance was on Saturday.  It was magical.   
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