SUPER PRODUCTION CHALLENGE

Series Runs Two Consecutive Tripleheader Weekends at SMP and CTMP

Story by Bryce Turner

The Super Production Challenge season continued with triple-header weekends at Shannonville Motorsport Park (June 3-4) and Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (CTMP / July 7-9).

Past champion Kurt Wittmer started on the Super Production (SP) and overall pole for the Shannonville opener. On the first lap, Owen Clarke took the lead; the Mountain, ON driver is competing in SP this year, after finishing runner-up in the Production class standings in 2022.

Clarke stayed up front until two laps to go, when Wittmer made the winning pass; the Vaudreuil, QC pilot grabbing his fourth straight victory to start the season. For Clarke, it was a mechanical issue that held him back at the finish.

“We found out that we had a fuel starvation issue, so I lost quite a bit of time as the car ran out of fuel,” said Clarke. “It started starving more and more each lap, so I wasn’t able to accelerate, but we were able to get that fixed up overnight.”

In the next SMP race, both Clarke and Wittmer had some ground to make up, with Wittmer starting sixth, before taking the lead on Lap 4. Clarke moved up from a fourth-place start to run second. This time, the roles were reversed, as Clarke took the lead with two laps to go en route to victory.

“It was definitely challenging having considerably less torque,” said Clarke. “But it was fun to battle with Kurt, it was very clean; unfortunately, we had slight contact, but there wasn’t really any damage. It was a good battle for sure.”

Clarke led flag-to-flag to win the third race at Shannonville. The two victories followed an opening weekend where he had two top fives, but no podiums, at CTMP. He says the straightline speed disadvantage of his Toyota GT86 is a challenge, but noted that it has a good chassis and advantage in the corners.

Ctmp

Next up on the schedule was a return to CTMP, as the only non-IMSA support series on Chevrolet Grand Prix weekend. Todd Chiappino entered the event looking to rebound from a tough time at Shannonville, where the team battled with cooling issues both days before a driveshaft failure took them out of the weekend finale.

Chiappino started second in the CTMP opener, where Charles-André Bilodeau led the opening laps. A caution slowed the field mid-race before Chiappino took the lead on Lap 13; the driver went on to grab the win, while Bilodeau fell back and finished 11th.

“Charles was giving me a really good run out there and I think, at the end of the day, he ran out of tire,” said Chiappino. “Me chasing him, he was obviously pushing, and I was able to get the pass into turn one…I just took control of the race from there.”

The Everett, ON driver is in his first Super Production Challenge season, with his experience including CASC and Lucky Dog Racing Canada. In the second race of the weekend, Chiappino started fourth and took the lead on lap four, holding the position for the remainder of the race. Bilodeau moved up to second and challenged Chiappino, before a late wreck ended his day.

“It’s taken me a few times to actually get used to the standing starts, how to get the best launch, and that race I had a really good start,” said Chiappino. “(Bilodeau) putting the pressure on me, I was actually running out of tire, he chased me for a good half of the race…battling with him has probably brought out some of the best driving I’ve ever done.”

Chiappino says that his Velocity Motorsports Club team is made up of volunteers from Honda Canada manufacturing associates and credits them for their work in making the car more reliable.

Olivier Bédard grabbed the SP and overall win in the CTMP finale. In the Production class, Sylvain Laporte won the Shannonville opener, before rookie Blake Kelley won the next two races. Alexis Jacques, Laporte and Scott Nicol each recorded class victories at CTMP. In the Compact class, rookie Cameron Nabert won five of six races, with Frédéric Bernier splitting his streak with a class win in the CTMP opener. IT