It’s a short break between the fourth and fifth rounds of the 2012 American Le Mans Series season. Fifteen days ago, Duncan Ende and his teammate Henri Richard scored their first podium of the season when Ende took the checkered flag in third place in the Prototype Challenge class at Lime Rock Park. This weekend, they will look for another podium at the newly-renamed Canadian Tire Motorsports Park – the track formerly known as Mosport – near Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada.
Not much more than 40 years ago the piece of land that we know today as Mosport was a farm. At that time, standing on a hill, looking over the fields and groves of trees, who could have imagined that the best drivers and the fastest cars in the world would come to this pastoral place and race on what would be named as one the most challenging tracks in the world and provide the best excitement and entertainment that motor racing has to offer. | Click to Enlarge – 1920×1200
The race at Lime Rock wasn’t without incident, as Ende inherited the car laps down from the lead lap after Richard was put off track by a GT-class car – an incident that was helped by the extremely close quarters of the Lime Rock Park circuit. Mosport’s character is quite a bit different, with it’s long straightaways, sweeping elevation changes and fast corners.
“The two circuits are different, but similar in that we will be dealing with traffic from the very beginning,” said Ende. “The long back straightaway at Mosport helps a little bit in terms of traffic, but if you are stuck behind a slower car in the long corners you will lose a lot of time. It’s a very tricky place to deal with traffic and to time your passes. But it’s an amazing track! It’s really fast, the corners are blind, and it is generally just badass. It will be very fun in the our no. 25 Dempsey / Silicon Tech Racing PC car.”
Mosport was the site of one of Ende’s three victories in the 2011 ALMS season when he competed in the GT-C class. Ende led a large portion of the race on the way to victory with teammate Spencer Pumpelly – a result he would like to repeat this weekend.
“It feels really great to finally get back on the podium and I think the guys on the team will have a little bit of a spring in their step this weekend,” said Ende. “We want to keep this going. We’ve got some confidence and we are finding more speed every weekend. And I really enjoy driving at Mosport so I’m really looking forward to this weekend!”
The Mobil 1 presents the Grand Prix of Mosport will be streamed live in its entirety on ESPN3.com, beginning at 11:45 AM ET on Sunday, July 22. The race will also be broadcast on ESPN 2 on Sunday, July 22, beginning at 1:00 PM ET. Qualifying will be shown live on ESPN3.com at 3:15 PM ET on Saturday, July 21.
A native of Tampa, FL Robert is the presiding editor and co-owner of both Down Shift Magazine and DS Holdings, LLC. A proud alumnus of the University of South Florida’s class of 2005 Robert is active in the Tampa Bay community and when not residing at his home in Tampa, FL enjoys traveling throughout the United States and abroad covering the motorsports and cultural phenomenon that shape our modern automotive enthusiast community.
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