Friday Mosport Notebook

July 23, 2011
Podium after race one at Mosport

A very tight F2000 Series championship chase is starting to emerge. While Remy Audette leads Kyle Connery by more than 50 points, with drops figured in, that number gets into the single digits after Connery’s fourth win of the season in round nine at Mosport.

Habs or Bruins?

Matt McDonough (left) and Remy Audette (right)

To say there is a bit of a rivalry between New Hampshire-based GTP Motorsports and Quebec-based Audette Racing when it comes to the NHL is a bit of an understatement. In the Mosport paddock, Audette Racing presented Matt McDonough and GTP with a “Habs” (Montreal Canadians) foam finger, which the GTP crew quickly modified and gave back to Audette Racing.

The new finger sported a different message (more of a one finger salute), some Boston Bruins signage, and some colorful quickly translated English into French.

Saturday>Connery

Connery hopes to gain more points back on Audette during Saturday at Mosport, where up to 55 points are up for grabs.

“We are going to use the last two tires (each team can use six sticker tires for qualifying and races) and put right-side sticker tires on tomorrow,” said Connery. “It’s a bit of a different strategy but the tires looked good after the race. We also changed brake pad compounds after Thursday practice which helped.”

Also notable is the team’s data system which hadn’t been working properly this season until Mid-Ohio, where the CC Autosport and James Lee Racing bunch switched to a GPS-based system. Connery admitted that he can now “analyze everything.”

Giancarlo Potolicchio

Giancarlo Potolicchio

Rookie Venezuelan Giancarlo Potolicchio made his first start since VIR for HP-Tech Motorsport at Mosport. The aspiring driver surrendered the #22 entry for Road Atlanta, Watkins Glen and Mid-Ohio to his father, Enzo, who also races a Grand-Am prototype.

Potolicchi, driving a RFR chassis, picked up CellMark Paper Hard Charger honors on the day, and confirmed he is back through the end of the season.

“I’m feeling more and more comfortable in the car,” he explained. “We’re not making any big changes, besides trimming it out a bit more, otherwise it’s perfect.”

More Radon Stuff

Radon chassis in the hands of McDonough

Talk of the weekend is: Radon, Radon and Radon. McDonough is now in the car for more testing and development duties on Saturday as it continues to pick up the pace. The 2006 Champion qualified sixth on Friday and could be near the front of the field for the conclusion of F2000’s annual trek to Canada, but the development team along with GTP plans to start from the back.

“We completely changed the setup today to try something different with weight transfer between qualifying and the race,” McDonough said. “We’re learning a lot and really just using this weekend at Mosport to accumulate testing miles.”

More: Bob Wright brought out the first caution in race one at Mosport, losing a camber bolt at the exit of the high-speed turn two, and somehow didn’t hit anything.

Gustavo Rizzo is fine after a big impact in the #23 Alegra Motorsports Van Diemen in turn four. Rizzo will not race on Saturday due to car damage.

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