SAMAX - Mid-Ohio qualifying

SAMAX/ Doncaster Racing will start Saturday's Rolex Sports Car Series race
at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course from ninth on the GT grid. Dave Lacey
qualified the No. 17 SAMAX/ Doncaster Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car that he shares
with Greg Wilkins, posting a fast lap of one minute 29.904 seconds on the
2.258-mile road course (90.416 mph). The qualifying session was the team's
first on the new track surface in dry conditions.

 

"The first few laps were just learning because we hadn't put any dry laps in
yet, so I was just getting used to the new asphalt. It's great! The track is
very smooth," Lacey said. "Once we got the line down, we started picking
away on the numbers and steadily moved the needle forward. It's too bad we
didn't have the knowledge on the first lap when the tires were good. But
we're not miles off the pace and I think we're pretty close on our setup."

 

Goldfinger

 

Greg Wilkins will cram an international trip between races next week. He
will return to his home in Toronto on June 25, fly to London, England, for a
board meeting on June 28, then back overnight to compete in the June 29
Rolex Series race in Daytona Beach, Fla. The trip will include an
interesting highlight – a visit to a gold vault. Wilkins is chief executive
officer of Barrick Gold Corporation, the biggest gold-mining company in the
world.

 

"We're members of the World Gold Council and I'm on the board," he
explained. "The council created a gold certificate, which is backed by gold,
so just to be sure that that gold is in fact being put away, members of the
council board are going to inspect all of the physical gold stacked in nice
neat bars, just like the James Bond movie, Goldfinger."

 

Wilkins will also do double duty when he arrives in Daytona, driving the No.
17 Porsche and keeping an eye on his son Marc, who will drive his first race
in a Daytona Prototype.

 

racing wishes

 

Dave Lacey is hard at work organizing the 14th annual Children's Wish Race
Day at Mosport International Raceway in Bowmanville, Ont. As Ontario
chairman of The Children's Wish Foundation of Canada, he initiated the
program to grant wishes to children who are seriously ill. The day also
raises funds for the foundation, which is the biggest of its kind in Canada,
with 15,000 wishes granted during the past 20 years.

 

"The idea is to get friends of racing to bring their race cars or their
high-performance street cars out to the track. The day has two objectives:
we give rides to Children's Wish families and we also charge the public for
rides to raise funds. It's a great fun day that incorporates both racing and
not-for-profit," Lacey said. "It's a good day for the kids and their
families – a day away from chemotherapy or hospitals or needles."

 

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Sylvia Proudfoot
HYPERLINK "mailto:sylvia@spurcom.ca"sylvia@spurcom.ca
403 287 3945