Vince's Stuff: Back at Mosport after 6 years

The Civic between sessions at Mosport

It's always tough to attend weekend events when you have a family and a country house and lots of stuff to do on weekends. It's particularly tough to go to events on a long weekend, because that's the best time to head out of town with the family. This explains why I only rarely get to attend the the ASE Lapping Club annual Thanksgiving track day at Mosport (Canadian Tire Motorsport Park). (See my post from 6 years ago here: Mosport 2016.) Luckily for me, things fell into place this year so that I could join my track friends at Mosport. In the past, the event was always held on the holiday Monday. This year, Carl booked the track for three days in a row beginning Saturday. Since the boys had off school on Monday and Tuesday, I was able to attend the Saturday portion of the event and still have time to head on a mini road trip with the family from Sunday to Tuesday. My plan was to leave Friday afternoon. To my surprise, my buddy Rob accepted my invitation to attend the event with his super-clean E36 M3. As far as I know, this was the only event he would attend this year. I was happy that we would drive the 450 kilometers there together. This would be my first time at Mosport with my current Civic (which I bought in 2017) and the furthest I had ever driven it to an event. I was not worried about this, as the car has been super reliable sinch Choo installed the new engine and I had been on track on the Tuesday before the trip, at ICAR, with no issues at all.

Rob and I arrived at our hotel at around dinner time and there were several exotic cars in the parking lot. We chatted with one of the drivers of these cars and he said they would be at the smaller of Mosport's two tracks the following day, so their clients (it was a dealer) could try McLaren's, Lambo's and Ferrari's on track. They even had a Lamborghini Urus tow vehicle. There was also an S2000 on a trailer at our hotel, which I assumed would be attending the ASELC event.

We headed to the track in the M3 so that Rob could register before the morning rush. When we arrived, it was getting dark and there were not that many people around, but we met up Carl (as well as Cyndie, Marc-André and Steve) and we decided to join them at a resto-bar not too far from our hotel. There was no opportunity for Rob to register early, but at least we ended up having a nice dinner with friends in a real restaurant. We got to bed pretty early so that we could be up early for the track day.

So what were my performance expectations? My last time at the track, I had managed a high 1:43 with the EP3, which was not too bad considering that it was not a hugely modified car. My lifetime best was a low 1:41, accomplished with my old Civic coupe, when it had a B16a under the hood. That was a pretty decent lap time for a car with 160 hp and very little torque, particularly when you took into account that I had driven many laps with a more powerful engine in the same car in previous visits to the track without ever hitting the 1:41's. So what was my goal? Clearly I should be faster than the EP3, but how much faster? I really wanted to hit the 1:39's and I thought this was a realistic goal. The weather would be cool and the engine would be making good power, so I thought I had a real shot.

As a helper of the organizer, I could run in eigther of the two run groups, "Advanced" or "Intermediate". When I saw the cars on hand and how fast they looked, I knew that in either group, I would not be one of the fastest cars on track. I asked Rob if he wanted to ride along with me in the Advanced group, since he would be running in Intermediate. Rob hopped in and we headed out. It must have been around 5 degrees outside and it felt to me like there was no grip to be had. My first laps were barely under two minutes! The car felt so powerful in the cold, even with a passenger. My last lap was a 1:47.67. I had been taking it relatively easy in the cold, but it was still hard to imagine how I could shave 8 full seconds off that time.

In my second session, I managed to get my lap time down to 1:42.70 and my top speed at the end of the back straight was 199 km/h. Of course, I now needed to hit 200! The car was different from my old coupe in that I was arriving at the corners at much higher speeds. I was tentative at corner 2, as I still wasn't sure if I should use the tighter entry or the wide entry. The advantage of going in relatively slowly was that I could get on the gas early once I knew I was going to hit the apex. However, when I got on the gas aggressively, the car went very wide on corner exit, leading me to head off over the rumble strips onto the dirty asphalt on more than one occasion. I don't know if this was a result of the lack of a limited-slip differential, but it was not confidence inspiring.

After that session, I heard some fellow drivers (SW20 MR2, M4 and 350Z) who were at this track for the first time discussing their lap times. All three of them had already hit the 1:37's! I chatted with Jérémi Martel, who had a Civic like mine with about 15 less horsepower and fancier suspension, and he had hit the 1:39's. I talked to Choo, whose Civic is similar to mine with about 15 more horsepower, and he had hit the 1:38's. Why was I so slow? I was losing time in corner 2, but probably also in corner 4, which I used to take flat out in the days of the 1.6, but now I found myself lifting or tapping the brakes before turning in, then rolling back onto the gas.

Clearly, I was driving this way because I didn't know what would happen if the rear of the car stepped out over 140 km/h and because the track was so cold. Still, others were turning in good laps despite the cold track... I asked Jérémi about tire pressures, since we were running the same tires, and I decided to raise my pressures by 3 psi. As I headed out for my third session, the steering felt more precise, but my lap times were slower (1:44.25). Also, there seemed to be a drop in power at a couple of points, that was probably fuel starvation (at least I hoped so). I was not too happy with my performance, so I decided to add fuel and drop the pressures, then do a couple of laps in the Intermediate group to make sure the car was OK. This turned out to be the right strategy, as the fuel cut problem was solved (I guess I just needed more fuel!) and I dropped down to a 1:42.87 on my third hot lap. I pitted right away when I knew the issues were solved.

Still, during the lunch brake, I was scratching my head... where was I going to find three more seconds? Choo could understand my frustration and generously offered to have me follow him to see if he could help me get my lap times down. This seemed like an excellent strategy, since I almost always run my best laps when trying to follow another car. We headed out in the first session after lunch, Choo following me for 2 laps before taking the lead. I was able to stick with him almost everywhere, except corner 2, where his entry speed was much higher. However, by the end of the braking zone for corner 3, I had usually made up most of the lost ground because my slow entry allowed me to get on the gas harder and earlier than him. On the back straight, I benefited from the aerodynamic tow and could even have passed him into corner 8 if I had wanted to (I did not want to, I wanted to follow him and do a 1:39!). After a couple of laps like this, I was still with him, but our lap times were still in the 1:42's. We caught up to two cars that were also running together, a Subaru STi and a Mustang. We both passed the STi on the back straight (surely he lifted to help us out) and when we caught the Mustang, only Choo made it through. I lost 4 seconds to Choo stuck behind the Mustang and by the time I passed it, Choo was too far ahead for me to follow. I was disappointed, because I didn't see how I was going to improve much more. Driving alone, I managed to get down into the 1:41's, which was somewhat encouraging. Luckily for me, before the session ended, I was caught and passed by another regular from our club, Dan in his E46 M3. Dan was clearly a couple of seconds faster than me per lap, but there were corners where we seemed to be travelling at the same speeds, so I tried to stay with him as long as possible. This bit of extra motivation allowed me to finally achieve my new lifetime personal best with a 1:40.77 just as the checker fell, but I felt that I had missed my chance to go under 1:40. When I looked at the data afterwards, I could see that my fastest lap was identical to the previous lap until corner 8... basically I shaved half a second off my previous lap just in corners 8, 9 and 10. My theoretical best lap, based on that session, was a 1:39.81. My new top speed was 202 km/h, the fastest I have ever been in any Civic on any track.

Despite Choo's offer to tow me around the track again in the next session, I was not able to improve on that lap time. In my sixth session, a Golf R blew something after a few laps and I drove through a huge cloud of smoke before they black flagged the whole session. We were told the cleanup would take an hour or more. I figured there was no chance to improve my lap time on a partially oily track and decided to head home earlier than planned. This would allow me to see the boys before their bedtime and get to bed early myself before the next day's road trip. I had a word with Jérémi to see if he had improved his own lap time from 1:39... he had... he did a 1:36 in a car not that different from my own!

When I saw some of the drivers towing their Porsche GT3's with huge luxury motorhomes, I did not feel envy, honestly. I am happy to drive a plain old Civic, because it's fun and it's an excellent all around track car. I am envious, however, of other drivers who are performing better than me. Is it OK that I'm slower than a 350Z? It stings a bit, but I can deal with it. But when I'm several seconds slower than my friends who are driving Civic's, I'm envious of how well they are doing compared to me.

Still, over all, I consider that this was a successful event for me and the car. Not many of the people who were passing me on track drove their cars to the track (the Cayman GT4's that kept passing me were an exception). Also, I am probably the person who has spent the least money on my car among those running similar lap times. The car ran wonderfully and nothing broke (Choo was not so lucky, Sajan blew his engine with a misshift on day 3 of the event). It was not even that tiring to drive the 450 km home after the event. I have a new personal best time at Mosport. I arrived home to my wonderful family by 8:15 pm. When I think about it, I guess I still have a lot to be thankful for!

Here is a video including my best lap: