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DALY: Mazdas At Mosport
I was also looking forward to the race because of how good my car had been at Trois-Rivieres. I knew my car was good enough to win and it was really my race to lose…
Conor Daly  |  Posted September 25, 2009   Braselton, GA
Daly (L) was close once again -- the Star Mazda rookie has made quite an impression so far in 2009. (Daly)
Mosport International Raceway was the site of the second of two races in Canada for the Star Mazda Championship. I was really looking forward to this race because I had a lot of experience on this track. I did the Canadian Formula Ford Championship last year which mainly ran at Mosport. I was also looking forward to the race because of how good my car had been at Trois-Rivieres. I knew my car was good enough to win and it was really my race to lose…

The weekend started off with practice on Thursday and immediately I was quickest. The car worked really well from the outset I was very excited. Having a good car at Mosport is incredibly crucial. The track is extremely challenging and a fast lap can end in tears very quickly. The corners are all very fast with high g-force loads which means having a good stable car at high speeds is very necessary. In the first two practice sessions alone there were three big crashes. Adam Christodoulou, who is second in the championship, not only crashed in the first session but in the second as well! I was very surprised because I know he is a very talented driver but Mosport catches even the most talented drivers out! Another competitor flipped his car in the exit of turn one! This is all just in practice…

Friday was a much smoother day. It did seem as though everyone got the crashing out of their system on Thursday. I was fastest again Friday morning and couldn’t wait to race. For the second session on Friday we decided to do a race simulation. I went out with a race load of fuel and just did laps. After about 20 minutes on track we got a good reading of how the car was reacting. The car just started to go a little loose towards the end of the run which I didn’t mind because loose is fast. I felt extremely prepared for qualifying the next morning however the weather was going to be questionable.

In the middle of the night I heard the rain coming down hard and knew there was a long day to come. However, I was wrong. When I woke up the rain had stopped but everything was still soaked. We weren’t first out on track so there was a possibility of the track drying. But as the time came to roll up to the grid the track was still wet and we went up with wet tires and a wet setup. Our session was delayed because of some dense fog. Even though I didn’t mind the wet and the last time I raced in the wet I won (2008 Walter Hayes Trophy at Silverstone) I still wanted to go out on sticker tires and throw down a flier. As we rolled out on track, it was still pretty wet. A lot more so than I thought, but I was ready to attack and go for the pole! Every lap the track was getting drier. Everyone was going quicker and quicker including me. As the end of the session approached I needed to cool off my tires and make one last attempt at the pole.

I started my final lap and it was a good one. Unfortunately, as soon as I got around the 2nd to last corner there was a red flag and I couldn’t finish my lap. This also meant the session was over which left me with 2nd position on the grid and a lot of dissatisfaction. I really wanted the pole and I knew I had the car to do it; at least in the dry. My teammate Richard Kent was able to grab the pole so it was an all Andersen Racing front row. After qualifying at 9:30am, we had to wait all day until 5:30pm to race. As the day went on though, it got sunnier and the track was now fully dry.

I rolled up to my grid position with my mind set on winning the race. I knew I could do it because my team gave me an incredible race car. I got a good start and was close to pulling along side my teammate in turn one but I was on the outside and the last time both of us went into turn one of a track side by side it didn’t end too well. I settled into 2nd place and started to pull a gap on the guys behind. Richard made a small mistake exiting turn 5 onto the long back straight which gave me a run. After doing several races at Mosport last year, I knew it was possible to pass on the outside of the fast turn 8; but Richard didn’t know that! I got a good draft, and made my move to the outside.

I drove in flat out, fully committed and I completed the pass. I immediately pulled a gap and held it as I tried to work through lapped traffic. Richard and I had pulled a massive gap on the rest of the field and were lapping cars at a very fast rate. Unfortunately, the traffic really did not get out of my way. I caught a car in turn 5 that was going very slow and I immediately lost the lead I had because it was very hard to pass where we were on the track. As I was going past the car on the back straight, Richard got a big draft off of the traffic and then me and the pulled to the inside of me going into turn 8.

I thought I could do the exact same thing as before. I went in flat out, and he went in flat out. Unfortunately since I was on the outside, I ran out of road first and found myself in the grass. I sailed through the grass trying to keep control of the car. I thought I had it under control until I got close to re-entering the track and hit the curb in turn nine which launched me into the air. Unfortunately the landing was pretty violent and I spun. I kept the car running and because Richard and I had such a big lead I only fell back to third. But I was quite a way behind Adam Christodoulou in 2nd position. I focused on doing perfect laps and I caught Adam fairly quickly. The car had changed a bit when I got close behind Adam and it took me a few laps to time the pass right. I eventually got by him and focused on trying to cut into Richard’s lead. There wasn’t enough time to catch him but I think I managed to cut his 11 second lead into 7 seconds in just the last eight or nine minutes of the race.

At the end of the race I felt that I had lost the race. It was truly the worst 2nd place in history because the win just slipped through my fingers. I look back on it now and I definitely could have done things differently and unfortunately I learned another hard lesson. On a positive note, our Andersen Racing cars are extremely fast and we have huge momentum going into the next race at Road Atlanta. I can’t wait to get to this track because I have never been there but I have heard so much about it! It’s one of the few tracks in America that I have yet to race on so I’m really looking forward to it!

~Conor

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, SPEED, FOX, or NewsCorp.

Conor Daly, a second generation race driver, is the son of former F1, IndyCar and Sportscar driver Derek Daly. Conor's lineage of speed also extends to his mother, Beth, a winner at the Jet Ski World Finals. He became the youngest driver in the country to win a Pro kart race when he won the Pro Invitational race at the TaG World Championships, and later won the Stars of Karting TaG East championship.

In 2008, Conor won the Skip Barber National Championship and the Canadian Formula Ford 1600 Rookie of the year title after winning a total of ten races in both series. Along the way he set three new lap records in Canada, and scored ten pole positions in three different classes.

In November 2008, Conor represented the Team USA scholarship when he won the prestigious Walter Hayes Formula Ford Trophy at Silverstone, England. He was the youngest driver to ever win the event and the first American.

Just 16 years old, Conor lives in Noblesville, Indiana with his parents and attends high school while competing in the 2009 Star Mazda open-wheel championship. Learn more about Conor at ConorDaly.net

Conor's columns are produced with SPEEDtv.com contributor Declan Brennan.
The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED
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