This weekend, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series history will be made as the trucks will head north of the border to race at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada.
“It’s been a great opportunity,” track co-owner Ron Fellows commented on Wednesday. “The Canadian Tire Motorsports Park is probably the most important international raceway. It’s a track I grew up not only learning how to race on, but a big part of my life was spent there as a kid watching races, and to be part of the ownership with Carlo Fidani has been a privilege, and it’s been a great learning experience, as well.”
In December 2012, it was announced that Ron Fellows and partners Carlo Fidani and Alan Boughton bought the track formally known as Mosport from it’s previous owners. The track is an important piece of not only Canadian road course history, but North America road racing history. Past events at Mosport include the American LeMans Series as well as famed two-wheeled events. The Canadian Tire Series runs two races on the road course a year.
Fellow stated that comparing then to now, they have made a lot of progress in a short amount of time. That started right when Fellows took over ownership as he began to make changes to the speedway.
The first change they made was adding a new tunnel above turn nine to therefore improve the infrastructure of the track and allow people to be able to get around easier. They took out what Fellows called the “mouse tunnel” and put in a tunnel wide enough for two tractor trailers to fit through side-by-side.
To improve the experience for the fans, they’ve done grading to improve the sight lines, created some new areas for camping, and there’s a road that connects all the facilities together now so fans don’t have to go on to the public road to get from one end to the other.
They’ve also put in a new registration center and new event center, which features a media center, a spot for VIPs, timing and scoring and administration all under one roof.
“Every once in a while I guess you’ve got to stop and smell the coffee,” he says. “But yes, we’ve made a lot of improvements, but I think we’ll all rest a lot easier when we get to Sunday night and hopefully it’s a great weekend, we get great attendance, and I think that’s when we’ll relax. Yes, we’ve come a long way when you look at the facility, but we want to continue to grow and move forward.
“When you’re sort of in it on a day-to-day basis, I don’t go up to the track day-to-day but certainly on the phone and actively working relative to the track every day. You literally don’t see it because you’re constantly looking forward and trying to make things better, but at some point we’ll likely look back and say, yeah, that’s pretty cool. For sure we look at the new events center, it’s close to 30,000 square feet. It has transformed the place, as has the entranceway, as has the new tunnel, a lot of the grooming of the hills. My partner Carlo Fidani and his vision has just been a tremendous asset.”
Road course racing is something that has continued to grow in the NASCAR ranks, with road courses added over the years to both the Sprint Cup Series and the Nationwide Series. As a result, there are some series regulars that can run right up there with the “road course ringers”.
“If you look at how things have changed, in the first Cup race I did in I believe it was ’98 in the Caterpillar car for Buzz McCall, you could count on one hand pretty much who you were going to have to race against,” Fellows comments. “Now you look at certainly in the Cup grid, I’ve been in that two-dozen group, and in Cup it’s easily 26, 28 guys capable. There’s just a lot more emphasis put on the racing in general, whether it’s a road course, a short track, superspeedway, or mile-and-a-half. It just doesn’t seem to matter. If you’re good, you’re going to be good at everything.”
Also added to that is the fact that some drivers are trying to get a jump start on the competition whether through racing in another series, or by doing some online racing.
Fellows says that the track itself should be put on a good race as there’s a lot of opportunities to pass with the corners being long and sweeping. He points out that the long Andretti straight up the hill into turn eight and turn three are two of the most opportune corners.
“The Canadian Tire Motorsports Park, like most Grand Prix courses, long, fast corners, more elevation than Watkins Glen, probably just a little bit faster at cornering, but very, very similar,” he says. “Two tracks that were built in a similar era, and that’s probably the closest comparison for sure would be Watkins Glen.”
Whether the event will grow in the future and whether we could see the Nationwide Series joining the trucks isn’t on the radar right now.
“It’s really not our call,” Fellows stated. “To be honest with you, absolutely, we want to continue to grow. We’re really fortunate to have this opportunity with NASCAR, working with the NASCAR folks has been fantastic, and they have been incredibly helpful to Myles Brandt and our staff. I can’t say enough good things about what it’s been like dealing with the NASCAR team.
“You know, we just want to do the best job possible this year, and who knows what the future can hold, and that’s really our focus right now.”
