Another podium finish and 3rd place in the Championship
MIRABEL, QUEBEC – After a coming off a podium finish at his home track at Calabogie in June, Nathan Blok and the APEX V2R racing team headed across the river to Complex ICAR at Mirabel, Quebec for the 7, 8 and 9th rounds of the Super Production Challenge (SPC).
The
last time Blok raced at ICAR was 10 years ago when he was competing
in the Formula Tour 1600 where he won back to back championships.
Qualifying
for the 36
entrants took place Saturday morning
in
sunny conditions where Blok qualified 3rd
in
class.
The
first 30 minute race
of the weekend took place Saturday afternoon with the field lining up
for a
rolling start.
Although
starting
in 3rd
position, Nathan
had some trouble at the start of the race and fell back to 4th
position at the exit
of corner 2. Being squeezed by Nelson Chan on one side and Sylvain
Laporte
on the other side of him, he ended up behind them
both at
the exit of corner 2.
On
lap 2 going into corner 3, Nelson was
on
the inside and
Kai Dalziel
was
on Nathan’s left. Nelson overshot the corner and when K
ai made his
corner entry, Nathan had his nose on the inside and the two cars made
heavy contact. Kai continued on with body work damage, but Nathan’s
alignment was seriously damaged and he had partial brake failure.
To make matters
worse, his engine went into safety mode which severely reduced his
horsepower.
With
3 laps to go, despite his injured race car he passed Carlos
Tesler-Mabe,
however he
was
unable to make the pass stick. With
two laps to go Sylvain pitted due to a tire issue
and Nathan limped his car home to finish in 11th.
“A
bit of red mist with frustration of losing so many positions at the
start led me to make a move largely out of character, and cost me
valuable points, and I did the best I could to recover for the rest
of the race.”
Thanks
to the APEX V2R crew, Nathan’s car was repaired and they thought
ready to go for morning practice. However, practice made it very
evident that the car was still running in safety mode with gravely
reduced horsepower. With the second race of the weekend scheduled to
start in
less than an hour, the crew frantically
diagnosed
and solved the issue with only minutes to spare.
Again
starting in 3rd
for the standing start, Nathan
fell back to 5th
on the exit of corner 1,
but Sylvain, Nelson, Kai and Nathan were bumper to bumper and
continued to battle it out over the next few laps competing for 2nd
place. Kai passed both Sylvain and Nelson, then Sylvain returned the
favour by passing both Nelson and Kai. Nathan got into the action by
passing Nelson, and
the trio started to pull away from Nelson.
Nathan
and Sylvain were battling it our for 4th
place, which allowed Kai who was in 3rd
place to slowly pull away.
With
2 laps to go Sylvain’s again had tire issues and Nathan pulled past
to finish the race in 4th
place.
“I’m
glad some redemption came my way shortly after, and I put on a
respectable drive. Fortunately I got thrown a bone in the final laps
with Sylvain’s tire puncture, and got a better result than
expected.”
The
final race started mid afternoon with Sylvain on pole, Owen Clarke
2nd,
Nathan 3rd
and Nelson 4th.
Going
into corner 2 Nathan moved into 2nd
place smoking up Sylvain’s bumper. Two laps later Owen passed
both Nathan and Sylvain and then on the next lap Connor Bell did the
same.
Nathan
stayed on Sylvain’s bumper until about 1/2 way into the race when
going into corner 1 Sylvain missed his breaking point trying to
utilized a lap car and Nathan jumped on the opportunity and moved to
the inside of Sylvain’s car to take over 3rd
place.
Continually
pulling away for the rest of the race, Nathan brought his car home
for a hard fought 3rd
place podium finish.
“I
had a good fight all race again with Sylvain and again got the best
results I could have asked for. “
“Overall,
I had a very up and down weekend, but I think the team and I did the
best job we could to limit the damage in the championship, and
recover the most we could. We also got lucky with every driver from
2nd to 5th in the title race having some kind of problem, myself
included that made the points gap very tight. With gp3r coming up,
and the points race so close, things are almost guaranteed to get
exciting between the concrete walls in a few weeks. I would like
thank all my sponsors for their continued support.”
Despite having major problems on the race weekend, Nathan was still able to move up to 3rd place in the championship
Blok’s
next race weekend is August 5, 6 and 7
at the GP3R, Trois Rivieres,
QC.