DMCC Round 2 2011: Mirabel, QC

Event Coverage Jeremy Glover

The second round of the DMCC series took place at the Circuit Icar that is just north of Montreal. Icar is a 1^st class racing facility that is built on the old Mirabel airport, which gives the venue a unique look and feel. The track is completely concrete that is actually really good at not eating tires too much but one drawback is that the track is so huge that some sort of transport is needed to get around or else you spend your weekend walking from place to place.

It is the second time that the series has come to this track but this year they ran a different layout and the main event took place at night. The course looked like it was going to be really fast and exciting but sadly Mother Nature had a different plan. Rain was in the forecast for the whole day so it was looking like it was going to be a real wet event.

Right before the first practice session was about the begin it started to rain..and rain and rain. Since the track is built on an old airport run way it does have decent drainage but there was so much water that it could not keep up and huge puddles started to appear on track. With all the water most of the first practice runs involved spin outs or just sketchy runs since all the drivers not only had to learn a new track but do it in the rain on a track that when wet is like driving on ice. Even with the rain Marc Landreville was still going balls out as usual. He had some of the craziest entries of the day, initiating further then any other driver. About halfway through practice it actually stopped raining and started to dry up. Things were looking good and we were finally seeing some tire smoke. But that is when we had our first incident of the event, Matts Baribeau coming in a bit too hot lost traction on some parts of the concrete that was still wet and it sent him into the guard rail. The hit was hard enough to break out his back window. He was ok but the car was too damage to be able to compete the rest of the event. Once the wreck was cleaned up of course it started to rain again but this time it was coming down a lot, so much so that most of the drivers decided to head back to the pits. It was cool to see Bob Patinka stay out and do lap after lap so at least the few spectators that were out in the rain had something to watch.

With the downpour over it was time for qualifications. The rain had stopped but the track was still very wet and that gave a lot of drivers difficulties causing a few drivers to not qualify and even Marc -Andre Fountains sick Skyline into the wall.. Top qualifying spot went to Marc Landreville, he also posted the fastest entry speed of 115.

As luck would have it when everybody was ready for the top 16 battles to start the rain also started up again! With the rain and the darkness it proved to be a hard core combo but nobody was going anywhere..the grand stands were still packed! All the battles were pretty exciting because of the wet track conditions it was really anybodies game. During his top 16 battle Carl Nadeau was going up against last rounds winner Jeff Laflamme. On Carls chase run he came in a bit too hot and despite his sticky BFG tires Carls BMW spun into the wall pretty hard. Top 4 battles were just as exciting with contact between Brad Carton and Marc Landreville. There was equale contact on both runs and after a one more time Brad was given the win. The battle for 1^st was between Miro and Jeff Laflamme. It was really tight between the two but Miro took home the first place podium spot with Jeff in second and Brad in 3^rd.

Despite the conditions this event was great with tons of action and I cant wait for the next event at Icar….I just hope the sun will come out too.

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