Houghton Still Championship Material
Last weekend saw me travel to Shannonville Motorsport Park, East of Toronto. Now run by John Bondar and his partner Steve Gidman, the 'Birthplace of Champions since 1974' was hosting a round of the CTCC presented by Pirelli and the CASC-OR series. I was pulling double duty, acting as media for MotorWerks Magazine and datalogging James Houghton's K-Tuned Acura TSX. Houghton has long been a standout in Time Attack events having won Championships all over North America. 2020 would see him race wheel to wheel with the TSX he acquired at the tail end of 2019. The first event of the new year proved he was still championship material when he won three of four races at the Circuit of The Americas in Austin, TX.
"Still championship material"
Then Covid appeared!
When racing resumed in Canada James looked to the Canadian Automobile Sport Clubs for a venue to race at. The Ontario Region holds events at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park and Shannonville Motorsport Park. He had some good showings during the CTMP events when running in GT2 or GT3 but felt that SMP would be a good venue to step it up and run with the big guys in GT1. Previous testing along with a power increase and chassis upgrades confirmed his choice of class especially with rain being forecast on Sunday.
The family run team aided by yours truly had a busy half hour before being called to the dummy grid! First we bolted on wets after I watched a couple of races from corner one! Then James checked the track and he believed the track would dry enough to benefit a FWD car on slicks, so away we went again and changed the tires back. The K-Tuned TSX was the only car on the dummy grid on slicks, I could see some of the Pro crews from CTCC teams having a bit of a snigger about that fact. But by the end of the race it was Houghton who had the last laugh. "It shocked me how quickly I caught up in the last five laps" he said. "Whether it was their tires going away I don't know, but I was challenging for the lead with two laps to go."
The crowd in the grandstand were going wild during those last two laps. It was two totally different cars challenging for the win. A TA2 Trans-Am Camaro with around 490 hp and Houghton's four cylinder K-Series with just under 300 whp. It turned out the tire call was spot on and the combination of the lighter TSX and slicks came out on top and Houghton could celebrate his first CASC-OR win.