Grand Prix Weekend

There are always a few events surrounding Grand Prix weekend in Montreal, although there were fewer than usual this year, given that Peel street was under construction (as was a large part of Ste-Catherine). Still, there were some cool cars on display, both at F1 related events and on the street. Here are some that I managed to photograph.

The boys enjoying a mall couch

Nissan GTR, one of a group of cool Japanese cars

R32 GT-R

Lovely FD RX7

Supra (behind an R33 Skyline) and Mclaren

Williams F1 car in Cours Mont Royal

Looking good

Red Bull armoured vehicle?

Mclaren display on Ste-Catherine

Classic Mclaren colour

... and a wrapped one

Alpine on display

... and yet another Williams

Unexpected spot: Rimac Nevera

Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato

The aftermath

People have written to me so see how I've been doing after the big crash and I appreciate it. I haven't had any issues apart from the sore ribs. Choo volunteered to help me pick up the Civic and it was in worse condition than we had anticipated. The left rear lower control arm had sheered off, which meant the car would not roll, even after we changed the broken and damaged wheels. Under the hood, we were greeted with another nasty surprise: the battery had slid off its tray and landed on the header, dumping enough acid to eat right through the steel! I was going to need a new header if I wanted to reuse this engine package. There was no way to try to start the engine to see if it was OK. At least the engine and transmission seemed to have not hit anything. Because the car wouldn't roll, we had to use the BMW and a tow strap to drag the car onto the trailer, with Choo's Touareg parked at a 45-degree angle to the trailer so the BMW could pull in a straight line. It was not easy, as parts of the car kept catching on parts of the trailer. I was glad when the car was finally on the trailer. 

I drove behind the trailer as we brought it to Choo's place to he could dismantle the car and see what was salvageable. Choo worked on the car like a demon, completely stripping anything usable from the car. He even managed to salvage the roll bar, which is nice, considering how much it cost in the first place. Luckily, the most expensive components on the car (engine, transmission, ECU, coilovers) seem to be OK.

It was weird driving behind my own car...

Meantime, I was already looking for a replacement chassis. Some of the cars I found looked amazing, but were several thousand dollars. I needed this to be a low-budget build, as there is only a fixed amount of money I can spend in any given racing season. I received a message from Jérémi Martel that one of his clients at the Honda dealership was abandoning a project to build a track car from a Civic coupe just like mine. The seller sent me photos and apart from having some mismatched doors and no front fenders, the car looked like a solid base for a new project. The seller was only asking for 1000 $, and went Choo and I went to see the car, we got the price down to 800 $. There is a ton of work to transfer everything from one chassis to another, but there is no time constraint, since I don't plan to run any events in 2024. Also, there are some nice parts on the new car, that I can likely sell to recoup the cost of all this work.

It doesn't look like much yet, but this is my next track car!

As Alex said, at least if I can't drive, I can manage this project, with Choo's invaluable help, of course. I have already ordered a new header, radiator and motor mounts, and we'll be looking into what else is needed. To be continued...

I managed to go faster at ICAR, but then I crashed, hard.

Last photo of the Civic before the crash

My last Tuesday at ICAR started out really well. It was vey hot, almost 30 degrees, but the Civic felt good. I was in the 1:14's in my first session, and in the next session, I bettered my lap record at ICAR, hitting 1:14.17, despite the heat. As I chatted with other drivers, I heard them say that they found the track was not gripping well and that their times were suffering. Despite this, I felt I had a real shot of getting down into the 1:13's that very evening. 

I had invited my friend Stéphane to drop by so he could check out the car. He recently bought a similar Civic with a B-series engine and was curious as to what was involved in a K-swap. He arrived just as I was heading out for my third session. After two laps, the session was red-flagged. We restarted after a few minutes and on my second lap out, disaster struck. As I was most of the way through the 90-degree right-hander onto the front straight, I felt something let go on the car and I almost immediately slammed sideways into the barriers along the beginning of the straight. I had time to realize I was going to crash, hard, and it did indeed feel like a major impact. I had the wind knocked out of me, but I was immediately pretty sure that I had not been seriously injured in any way. I felt my safety equipment had done its job. The ambulance came out and I got out of the car. I told them my ribs were hurting, as it had been a side impact and I had been pressed into the side of my seat during the crash. The car looked bad, and I could see what had caused the accident: the front left wheel had broken. The center of the wheel was still bolted to the hub, and the rest of the wheel was gone. The disc was all scraped from hitting the ground. 

The ambulance technicians looked me over and saw that my vital signs were good. I asked one of the ICAR employees to find my phone in the Civic, as it had come out of its cradle during the impact. The trim piece around the radio even came off. 

I had my phone and my wallet (I always keep it in the car when I'm on track, just in case) and the track ambulance techs called the city ambulance to take me to the hospital. Stéphane called to find out what had happened and I told him. He brought me my backpack with a change of clothes. He also agreed to take all of my tools and gear home. The car would be towed to somewhere out of the way on site. I called Alex as I waited for the second ambulance and she did a great job of remaining calm while I explained to her that I'd been in a crash and that I was being taken to the hospital. By this time, I had managed to find the data from my GPS app that showed my speed at the time of impact: 112 km/h. No wonder the hit had felt so hard.

The city ambulance arrived, and while switching from one to the other, I took a moment to change out of my race suit and into shorts and a fresh T-shirt. The drive to the hospital was about 15 minutes. At the hospital, when they heard it was a car crash, they put an uncomfortable foam collar around my neck, which I had to keep wearing for the rest of my visit. Alex came and joined me at the hospital and by the time she arrived, I had seen the ER doctor and had my X-rays. The doctor came in soon after and told me I had no visible fracture and that I could go home. He prescribed an anti-inflammatory and told me to take Tylenol for the pain. I was quite sore on my left side, but I was able to walk around without any issue. As Alex drove us home, I could see that the M3 engine was misfiring, but the code reader would not say on which cylinder. It was an intermittent misfire, so not a total failure of one of the coils. I was not really in any shape to change a coil on the side of the road, even though I had a spare and the tools in the trunk (I keep a kit to do exactly this job in the trunk now). We eventually got home and I began un uncomfortable night's sleep. The next day, I asked Steph if he had any photos of the damage, and he did:

Things were looking bad for the car, but I was in OK shape and just glad to be in one piece. The track season is over early but I still have a great summer ahead. To be continued.