THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN is a truly wonderful book. A tale about an aspiring race car driver, Denny Swift, and how the lessons he's learned on track help him through a time of remarkable adversity, as told by his dog Enzo. The book's been well-received by critics, is well-positioned on the New York Times' Bestseller List, and is currently Starbuck's Book of the Month selection. The book's author, Garth Stein, was one Good Morning America earlier this week talking about it.

The publisher, Harper Collins Canada, is using our #75 Acura as part of the promotion of the book.

I enjoyed reading the book six months back when I received the pre-release copy of the manuscript. I enjoyed reading it even more this weekend, holding an actual copy of the book I'd received just a week prior (and signed by Garth), with the drama of our Mosport event fresh in my mind.

If ever there was a weekend of adversity, Mosport's Father's Day 2008 was it.

We started the weekend with our three Acura TSXs ready to go, and with last year's RSX-S standing in for our Civic Si. Yes, the Civic that had been destroyed in its maiden event at Lime Rock. Happily, we knew the RSX was strong at Mosport (and Mid-Ohio and Watkins Glen) at the hands of hot-shoe Travis Walker, who finished third in his first-ever KONI event in 2005 at Mosport.

What we weren't expecting was to lose another car, the second in two events. But that's exactly what happened when the #75 TSX found itself crumpled against the wall in corner one during a practice session.



A tough weekend for that to happen on, with Mosport being our home race. We had invited a lot of people, including an entourage from Harper Collins, to the track with the promise of putting on a good show. At least there was an interesting sculpture (the wreck) for them to see when touring the paddock!

It was clear that while Kevin York, who was driving the #75 when it hit the wall, was thankfully uninjured, he was in too much pain to drive that weekend. With he and co-driver Christian Miller sitting second in the points, it made sense to have Christian take my seat in the RSX-S. Which means I sat out my home race, losing any hope of defending my victory from the year before, and effectively ending my championship run.



The race itself had its own set of challenges, including an utterly chaotic group of pits stops during a mid-race yellow flag period. Even though we pitted at the right time, and many others didn't, there weren't any penalties given out because a track official, outside of Grand Am's control, held a sign saying "Pits Closed" when in fact they should have been open. This meant that our cars all lost valuable track position and had to battle back up through the field.

No matter! Great drives by Trevor Hopwood in the #74 TSX and Travis Walker in the #76 RSX saw those two cars finish nose-to-tail in fifth and sixth positions. These fine finishes see these cars and drivers solidifying their top positions in the Team and Drivers Championships (third and fourth, I think), while Kenny Wilden and Jeremy Willard scored their first top-20 of the season, finishing 18th after a very strong run that was marred by contact during Willard's stint that broke a rim. Chris and Travis' run in the RSX proves that there's still some kick left in the old girl!

So just like Denny Swift in THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN, we'll continue to fight as we move to Mid-Ohio. We'll once again have four cars, having drafted a BMW 330i from our friends at Fountain Motorsport, for Kevin and newcomer Marko Radisic to run, alongside our usual Acuras.

Being ST-only, it promises to be a great race!

Labels: gablog