2012 NCATS Season

[battalionfan888]

I figured instead of a race by race thread might as well just have a full season discussion for the NCATS, I know some people here dig it so lets have a discussion about it.

First race is tomorrow here is the season schedule.

1. May 20th - Mosport Road Course - 2.45 Mile road course
2. June 3rd - Circuit ICAR - 2.11 Mile road course
3. June 16th - Mosport Oval - 0.5 Mile Oval
4. June 23rd - Delaware Speedway - 0.5 Mile Oval
5. July 14th - Motoplex Speedway - 0.5 Mile Oval
6. July 22nd - Edmonton Airport - 2.25 Mile Road Course
7. July 25th - Auto Clearing Motor Speedway - 0.333 Mile Oval
8. Aug 5th - Circuit de Trois-Riveres - 1.53 Mile Road Course
9. Aug 18 - Circuit de Gilles Villeneuve - 2.70 Mile Road Course
10. Sept 8th - Barrie Speedway - 0.333 Mile Oval
11. Sept 15th - Riverside Speedway - 0.333 Mile Oval
12. Sept 22nd - Kawartha Speedway - 0.375 Mile Oval


Some driver changes and swaps going into this season.
First of all 2 time series champion Andrew Ranger is back to run a full season and go for his 3rd NCATS Championship. He will be driving the same #27 Dodge that he has run in select events the past few seasons.
Former CASCAR Champ and winner of the first ever NCATS race Don Thompson Jr has called it quits and will not be running this year, he will instead be the crew cheif for JR Fitzpatrick.
Kerry Micks and Mark Dilley will only be running partial schedules but they will combine forces and run the same car as they gun for the owners championship. Micks will drive the car for the 5 road course races while Dilley will drive the car for the 7 oval races.

[battalionfan888]

RACE #1
VORTEX BRAKE PADS 200
CANADIAN TIRE MOTORSPORTS PARK (AKA Mosport Intl)
2.45 Mile Road Course
51 Laps - 200km

PAST WINNERS:
2011: DJ Kennington, 2010: JR Fitzpatrick, 2009: Andrew Ranger, 2008: JR Fitzpatrick, 2007: Andrew Ranger

This is one of the few 2 day events on the schedule and qualifying has already wrapped up, here is tomorrows starting lineup.

Row 1
1. #22 Scott Steckly 105.484MPH
2. #84 JR Fitzpatrick 105.270MPH
Row 2
3. #27 Andrew Ranger 105.253MPH
4. #17 DJ Kennington 103.865MPH
Row 3
5. #60 Ron Beauchamp Jr 103.612MPH
6. #3 Jason Hathaway 103.432MPH
Row 4
7. #02 Kerry Micks 103.411MPH
8. #42 Peter Klutt 103.311MPH
Row 5
9. #23 Jeff Lapcevich 103.275MPH
10. #47 Louis-Philippe Dumoulin 103.275MPH
Row 6
11. #66 Robin Buck 103.196MPH
12. #99 Steve Cote 102.314MPH
Row 7
13. #21 Jason White 101.479MPH
14. #44 Jarrad Whissell 101.413MPH
Row 8
15. #5 Noel Dowler 100.706MPH
16. #90 Martin Roy 100.175MPH
Row 9
17. #56 Howie Scannell Jr. 100.017MPH
18. #15 Steven Mathews 99.660MPH
Row 10
19. #07 Isabelle Tremblay 98.699MPH
20. #81 Larry Jackson 97.749MPH
Row 11
21. #29 Ray Courtemanche Jr. 96.880MPH
22. #10 Derek White 96.737MPH
Row 12
23. #94 Dave Coursol 94.993MPH
24. #97 Hugo Vannini No Time
Row 13
25. #67 David Thorndyke No Time
26. #50 Joey McColm No Time
Row 14
27. #11 Michael Scholz No Time
28. #55 Dexter Stacey No Time

[Eighty-One]

Are there any speedways up there they could possibly run on? I love that their series is a complete 180 from the cup series.

[battalionfan888]

Are there any speedways up there they could possibly run on? I love that their series is a complete 180 from the cup series.

There really isnt any ovals up here bigger than a half mile, there is Cayuga which is 5/8 but its pretty much sitting empty right now.
They have been trying to build a 1 mile D shaped oval in Fort Erie, Ontario (just outside of Buffalo) but it keeps hitting road blocks.

[beanboy89]

How about Sanair Superspeedway? CART raced there a few times in the mid 80s.

[Tyb222]

The lack of tracks larger then a Mile make this one of the most action packed exciting series IMO, Cup should take a few notes.

[battalionfan888]

JR Fitzpatrick wins the season opener at Mosport in what sounded like a good battle with DJ Kennington who came home 2nd.
It's JR's first NCATS win in 20 races.

I forgot to post a link but it appears there is now live audio broadcasts of these races on the Home Tracks site, I will post a link for the next race.

Top 10 Finishers today.

1. Fitzpatrick
2. Kennington
3. Steckly
4. Ranger
5. Dumoulin
6. Hathaway
7. Micks
8. Lapcevich
9. Buck
10. Klutt

Next race is at the ICAR Airport Road Course just outside of Montreal in 2 weeks.

[cjt3viper]

Good for JR, I bet he takes it all this year. I tried listening to the live audio but it wouldn't work for more than a minute on my end.

[STEVE]

Joey McColm lost his steering (after a brake line broke earlier and he hit the wall) and the car wouldn't turn going into turn 2. He's OK.

(Trading Paints logo on the c-pillar if you look closely)

[battalionfan888]

Joey McColm lost his steering (after a brake line broke earlier and he hit the wall) and the car wouldn't turn going into turn 2. He's OK.

(Trading Paints logo on the c-pillar if you look closely)

Yes Joey confirmed to me himself on twitter that he is ok, he took a real hard shot today.

[Tyb222]

Wow that looks like a hard it, every year it seems like a car or two goes hard into those tires.

I am excited for the radio broadcasts in the future.

[darthideut]

Any videos from the race?

[cjt3viper]

Does anyone know if they did any work to turn 2 with all the updates? I heard they neutered that giant hill at the end of the backstretch to prevent cars from getting so light. I'd hate for them to have killed one of the best turns in world.

[powersteamracing]

As excited as I am to see another season of NCATS, I'm disappointed that there seems to be little growth in strong young teams. Followed up with Diley and Micks sharing a ride. That's 2 fairly strong cars cut down to one.

Ohwell, looks like the title comes down to Fitzpatrick, Kennington, and Ranger.

[Tyb222]

As excited as I am to see another season of NCATS, I'm disappointed that there seems to be little growth in strong young teams. Followed up with Diley and Micks sharing a ride. That's 2 fairly strong cars cut down to one.

Ohwell, looks like the title comes down to Fitzpatrick, Kennington, and Ranger.

A first I felt the same, but Jeff Lapcevich could be a contender along with Derek White, Peter Shepherd, Noel Dowler and Steven Matthews should be at all or the majority of the events this year, its just the events out west that have smaller crowds.

[battalionfan888]

Race #2 today is at the ICAR Airport Circuit just outside Montreal.

While the NCATS will run in the rain on the road courses they will not qualify in the rain so todays race was lined up by points, so basically how they finished at Mosport 2 weeks ago.

The race is underway but on Lap 1 JR Fitzpatrick was spun by Scott Steckly and Steckly has been giving an aggresive driving penalty.
Field is back green at Lap 6 right now with DJ Kennington leading and Andrew Ranger in 2nd.

Rain my be a factor today but so far everything is clear.

[battalionfan888]

Lap 7 and Ranger has taken the lead (shocker) but JR Fitzpatrick is already back up to 3rd.

Meanwhile a big crash in turn 12 takes out several cars including Kerry Micks who was in the top 5 and the caution is out again.

[battalionfan888]

Lap 15, its been back green a few laps and Ranger has pulled away from 2nd place JR Fitzpatrick, Scott Steckly close behind in 3rd

[battalionfan888]

Andrew Rangers wins it for his series leading 15th career NCATS victory.
Fitzpatrick, Steckly, LP Dumolin, and Kennington the rest of the top 5.

6th-10th
Labbe (in his first career start), JF Dumolin, Lapcevich, Beauchamp Jr, Roy

[jeffdale24]

Which Lapcevich is still racing? Jeff?