JOURNALIST OF THE
YEAR AWARD presented by Jaguar Canada
Entry Number 3: Mont Tremblant Lives
(Originally appeared in The Toronto Star Wheels section)
Carte
Blanche
by
Jim Kenzie
July
27, 2002
Mont
Tremblant is back
Around
1960, plus or minus five years, a spate of North American race track-building
resulted in such outstanding road racing circuits as Westwood in Vancouver,
Riverside in California, Road America in Wisconsin, Mid-Ohio in (aw, you
guessed) central Ohio, Watkins Glen in up-state New York, our own Mosport, and
Le Circuit de Mont Tremblant, near St-Jovite, about an hour and a half north of
Montreal.
In
addition to being brilliant to drive and race on, these circuits shared a couple
of not-so-good features - they all got old, primarily with respect to safety
standards which continued to get tougher during the ‘60s and ‘70s.
And
with few exceptions, they were too far away from major metropolitan areas to
draw the crowds needed to make big-time races financially feasible.
There
just aren’t enough hard-core race fans; you need the spectacle-followers, the
mostly-corporate crowd, for whom a major league race is an event, rather than
merely a car race.
Once
these people have taken the subway to the Molson Indy in downtown Toronto or the
Grand Prix in Montreal, it’s hard to get them to drive an hour or two to
Mosport or Mont Tremblant.
(Those
urban exceptions, like Westwood and Riverside? The land became too valuable to
race on; condos were the inevitable result.)
Remarkably,
some of these old circuits are once again prospering. Mosport was bought a few
years ago by Don Panoz; millions of dollars of improvements later, it seems to
have found a way to thrive.
In
2000, a group of international investors purchased Le Circuit in Mont Tremblant,
with the intention of turning it into a private go-fast playground.
They
soon realized that the local community, not to mention Quebec’s motorsport
community, had too much invested in the facility to allow this to happen.
The
plan changed, and the track was shut down for over a year to make renovations to
bring the track up to standards set by the FIA - Federation Internationale de
l’Automobile, the world governing body of motorsport.
Allan
Wilson, a South African race course consultant, was hired to design and manage
the changes.
Safety
was the big issue - Mont Tremblant was always a fabulous track, but there were
lots of places you could fatally kill yourself.
(Ed. Note - that's a wee joke...)
Run-off
areas, gravel and sand traps, and ARMCO barriers were planned in places where
cars were most likely to become part of the Canadian shield - or the local
aquaculture.
But
the nature of the track had to be preserved, else what was the point? All the
corners remain as they were.
Then
there’s the infamous “hump”
on the back straight, where Jackie Oliver’s Shadow Can-Am car (among others)
once did a complete back flip. (Like Babe Ruth’s “call-the-shot’‘ home
run, about 17 million people claim to have seen that flip. But I actually was
there. No, really...).
The
hump still goes up-then-down; long-time Tremblant fans who have driven the new
course say it feels like it’s been chopped by maybe a metre; in fact, about
three metres were cut out.
The
entire track surface was completely removed, dug out to a depth of about a metre,
with new gravel and road bed, topped by all-new paving - the first in the
circuit’s history.
A
new pit lane with room for 46 cars was built, and the in- and out-lanes no
longer connect with the track on the racing line. Again; safety.
The
new control tower is built on the original foundations, but is now fifty percent
larger; it and the new media room are air conditioned.
And
there is hot and cold running water in the washrooms.
Hurray
to both, say I.
Michael
Ney, formerly with Porsche and Nissan Canada’s Infiniti division, is president
of Le Circuit. He says Charlie Whiting, the safety and sanctioning head of the
FIA, told him that the renovated circuit is now better than some of the tracks
the Formula One circus runs on.
Technically,
it isn’t wide enough - Le Circuit is now 11 metres wide, 12 metres on the pit
straight; F1 requires 15, although if you watched the French Grand Prix from
Magny Cours last Sunday...
Le
Circuit’s management knows that levering the Formula One Grand Prix out of
Montreal will never get off the trailer.
But
events like the Grand Am (September 12 - 14), plus corporate activities like
press introductions for high-performance cars, car club meetings, plus two -
count ‘em, two - racing schools (the resurrected Jim Russell program, now with
a fleet of new Van Diemen Formula Ford race cars, and Skip Barber), should
provide enough busy days for the track to be a viable commercial proposition.
A
huge advantage Le Circuit has over most race tracks is an abundance of near-by
hotel accommodation in all price ranges, thanks to the neighbourhood ski and
summer vacation resorts. These have multiplied in recent years since Intrawest,
owner of B.C.’s Whistler, took over the ski hill and built a new village just
east of the track.
The
first big racing event on the new track was held two weekends ago. “Le Sommet
des Legendes’‘ paid homage to the two defining series in Tremblant’s
history - Formula One (the Canadian Grand Prix was held here in 1968 and 1970)
and Can-Am.
Indeed,
the first-ever Can-Am race was held at Le Circuit in 1966.
Can-Am
cars were, in my opinion, the greatest race cars ever. These 800 horsepower
winged monsters went spectacularly fast, and provided racing thrills that have
never been equalled.
Le
Sommet des Legendes brought many of these same cars to the circuit, along with
even older open- and closed-wheel cars.
Needless
to say, the Can-Am race was my favourite. Even fifteen of these beasts - half of
what we used to get for a good Can-Am meeting - were enough to give a whole new
meaning to the name “Mont-Tremblant’‘.
The
medium-term plan for Le Circuit is to join forces with the Goodwood Festival of
Speed in England and the Monterey Historic Races on California to create a
sort-of World Series of high-end vintage racing. Let us pray...
If
you remember Mont Tremblant from your racing youth, or if you’ve never even
heard of it but just love great race tracks, make a point of getting up there.
You
won’t regret it.
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