I just got back from two days on the track at Mont Tremblant with Skip Barber in the R/T 2000 cars. Man what a beautiful track. We stopped in a day early to check out the track as my local PCA club was there for a 3 day DE event. We watched the owner of the track who was doing laps in his F430 after he flew in, in his helicopter.
For those of you who have been lucky enough to drive this track, how do you like turn 1? I spun out there on my first full speed lap and it really did a number on my confidence. The only good thing was that I didn't hit the wall or damage the car, just ate a lot of dust, dirt, and grass. I was told that by the time you reach the end of the front straight, you can't brake or let off the throttle, just stay in it (in 4th gear). My fatal mistake was not looking ahead to the apex which is out of sight at this point, getting nervous and braking, then spinning. By mid day on the second day I had really got the hang of turn 1 and was accelerating all the way through it right down to turn 3 before braking and down shifting.
I also found turn 7 a little un-nerving at first which again you have to power on through in 4th gear.

We were pretty lucky in that it was a small class with 4 no shows and only 8 students. We got lots of track time. Our class had mixed experienced students with everything from a previous SCCA Champ taking a refresher course to a young teenage girl from Columbia hoping to go pro in South America.

Mont Tremblant is a beautiful track, the surface was smooth, no concrete patches. I might like this track better than Watkins Glen and believe it or not there are no signs for the track other than the spectator entrance which is about 6 miles away from the racers entrance. It took us an hour of driving around the area and then running into a Skip Barber mechanic who showed us the entrance down an unmarked dirt road. You'd never guess there was such a beautiful, well maintained track hidden back in the woods. I asked the track manager about buying a track shirt and he said "they don't have them, they don't market the track".

Glad u liked it. As a Canadian I'm ashamed to say I have yet to go there (living here in Cali).

A buddy of mine is doing his first race series with Skip BArber this w/e. I called him today and turns out he got the pole in his first race ever!

I hear it's an amzing tack - he was commenting also on how hard thurns 1-3 are, flat out etc. He also spun there but managed to avoid the walls.

He got a 1:55.7 in the r/t 2000 yesterday when it was dry. first time in a r/t 2000 and at mt tremblant. I think that's pretty good - any idea what a nicely modded cayman would do there?

Unfortunately the Skip Barber crew were not keeping lap times so I don't know how fast I was lapping. I was by no means the fastest in my group and didn't really start to pick up my times until the middle of the second day. From what I understand the faster guys will take turn 1 in 5th gear and I was a little ways from that. Hopefully next year I'll find out how fast an un-modded CS will lap Mont Tremblant.

Hey Jay, what did I tell you? I knew you'd love it.

Now you've got to get yourself to Calabogie. It's about an hour west of Ottawa, and an absolute blast. Also hopefully you'll make it down to VIR one of these days - just let me know when you can come.

__________________

Nice work Jayman!

Spinning in 1 or 2 is the absolute worst place you can spin at Tremblant. let me guess, you lifted. But wait, you spun in turn 1? That's just before the blend line right before you go up the hill...is that really where you spun? That would be tough to do unless you were tight on the inside.
Anyway....glad you are ok and no damage.
In terms of lap times, I run a 1:57 there in my CS with RA1's and Pagid pads. A 996GT3 will do a 1:51 if well driven. The F430 challenge cars you saw will run a 1:47 (with an ok driver) to a 1:42 with a real hot shoe. They run on slicks and have almost 500hp though...they might not have been runnin that fast that day though.
Turn seven is tricky as well since it's an off camber right hander that you tend to want to turn early into and ease off the gas. In fact it's a later apex than you would think and you need to get hard on the gas to keep the *** in check.
It's a wonderful track despite the dirt pit road! In fact, they JUST paved the paddock this year for the champ cars!

__________________

'06 Cayman S -JIC Cross, Quaife, CCW C14 wheels,MPSC's, Milltek cat back, GT3 seats Schroth harnesses, TC design bar, Pagid yellows, GT3 cup brake ducts,de-snorked, vanilla air freshener

Chris, yeah I spun approaching turn 1, across the grass onto the pit exit lane. As you know the track takes a dip after the end of the straight and is sweeping to the right. You can't really see it until your there. It was my first full lap, accelerating all the way down the front straight and rather than looking ahead for the turn 1 apex cones, I was looking at the turn in cone, got nervous, lifted and spun. As is always the rule, I learned to look ahead to the apex, where I wanted to go rather than where I was at and I was ok after that.
I had so much dust and dirt in my car and worse yet inside my helmet after the spin that I had a very hard time seeing to complete the lap and get back to the pits.

As I said earlier, Mont Tremblant is a beautiful track, the elevation changes, the variety of corners, the scenery of the mountains when you go through turn 10, and just the excellent condition of everything. I would love to do VIR next, maybe next year, but Mont Tremblant is one track you don't want to pass up if you get the chance.

They don't call that turn El Diablo for nuttin!

Actually, it's the bottom of the hill that technically gets that name, but it's rep comes from folks goofing up 1-2 leading into that section that gets the fur flying.

Congrats on the 'save'...no checks to write, always a good thing!

Have a club race there in two weeks (BMWCCA), and I've watched them go throu 1-2-3 two-three wide the past three years, thinking to myself, "those guys are nuts!", so now I'll be one of those nuts. Pray for DRY!

For the rest of you, get your butts to LCMT (Le Circuit Mt Tremblant), NOW. It's the "back bowls of Vail" of race tracks.

__________________
2007 Cayman, midnight/tan
2007 Touareg V8, working man's Cayenne, tow vehicle
2007 Mazda3 hatch, ski car and wifey-mobile
1993 BMW 325is Spec E36 race car