SOME RAMBLINGS BEFORE ST. PETE’S

I've just returned from a nice week away in Costa Rica with my family. It's our traditional March Break, where we escape the last few blasts of the Toronto winter, having tired of the snow and ice sports that are always so much fun in December and January. For the past decade or so we've journeyed south to the Caribbean, trying a different island each year. But we thought it'd be fun to go a little further afield and settled on the Pacific coast of Central America, in the little village of Quepos.

A week off, spending some time bodysurfing, zip-lining, sailing, hiking, scuba diving and just hanging out was a great way to get ready for the next few months, which promise to be very busy for the Compass360 Racing team.

This week C360R will be taking part in our first World Challenge event, the Grand-Prix of St. Petersburg, Florida. It promises to be exciting for our crew and drivers, as we'll be fielding two brand-new Honda Civics for Lawson Aschenbach (car #71) and Tom Ehlen (#72), featuring a striking white/black/silver livery. We've got great support from Honda's HPD group, who built the cars, and we're looking forward to doing battle with the other Touring Car class competitors, including a slew of other Hondas. A lot of Honda brass will be there, of course, as St. Pete's is an Indycar weekend, and I think it'll be fun to enjoy the energetic feeling that temporary street-course races always provide.
The Compass360 Racing shop in Toronto, Canada, is now home to six Honda Civic Si's. The four orange cars run in Grand-Am and the two white ones compete in World Challenge. The count will grow by one when we receive our first 2012 model from Honda some time in late April or early May.

Two weeks later, our bright orange four-car Civic squad will contest the third round of Grand-Am's Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama. We've started the year well, with Andrew Novich and Don Theetge (driving #77) finishing fourth at Daytona, and Keith Carroll and Ryan Eversley (#75) taking fifth at Homestead, after running second for the last hour of the two-and-a-half hour race. We're hoping on going one better and getting back on the podium  at Barber.

There's been a lot of discussion about some of the forced-induction cars, and there's no doubt that Grand-Am is still working out their new performance-balancing system. To my eye, the VW's and MazdaSpeed3's still look like they've got more power than they should, and the Minis and Boxsters are no slouch on the straights either; the VW's in particular at Daytona and Homestead did appear to be quicker than the "box" Grand-Am wants our Street Tuner class to sit within.

Our team has been racing full-time in Grand-Am since 2004 (by my count it's been 55 consecutive race weekends), and I've been pretty pleased with the sanctioning body's ability to get this kind of thing right. It does take a few races, and it may even take a couple more this year, but I've every confidence we'll find ourselves with a level playing field before too long. Will the VW's be too far ahead by then to catch? Time will only tell, but I wouldn't bet on it!

In the meanwhile, we'll keep doing what we do: giving our drivers quick, reliable cars, sharing data and tweaking set-ups; our crew will execute perfect pit stops, and we'll do our part to bring Honda a Manufacturer's Championship in both CTSCC and World Challenge.

It's great to be home (at least for a few days)!

-k-