Mosport : most popular?

The circuit was the second purpose-built road race course in Canada after Westwood Motorsport Park in Coquitlam, British Columbia succeeding Edenvale (Stayner, Ontario), Port Albert, Ontario's Green Acres (ex-British Commonwealth Air Training Plan), and Nanticoke, Ontario's Harewood Acres (ex-British Commonwealth Air Training Plan Number One Bombing and Gunnery School), all airport circuits, as Ontario racing venues. It was designed and built in the late 1950s, and held its first major race on June 25, 1961, the Player's 200, a sports car race bringing drivers from the world over to rural Ontario. Stirling Moss won the two-heat event in a Lotus 19. Second was Joakim Bonnier with Olivier Gendebien third. The proposed hairpin was expanded into two discrete corners, to be of greater challenge to the drivers and more interesting for the spectators, at his suggestion, and is named Moss Corner in his honour. This is a source of lingering confusion as many people call the track Mossport. Mosport has had a succession of owners since the original public company created to build the track. Two of those prior owners, Norm Namerow (who owned the track through his publishing company, CanTrack, until his death) and Harvey Hudes, have both been inducted into the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame for their contribution to the sport in Canada. Until 1975, Grand Prix were held on this track, but this very last year saw the death of the great Mark Donohue. The track, while very challenging, appeared not to be suited for formula cars, but it would be used for GT and Sportscars as well. Under the leadership of founder John Bishop, the International Motor Sport Association was walking ahead on increasingly foot-friendly pathways as the 1970s rolled in. Bill France Sr., who'd helped finance IMSA's creation, had given way to other investors and in the immediate aftermath of the originally conceived Can-Am and Trans-Am series, pro-level road racing was proving viable. The catalyst was the IMSA GT Championship, the sanctioning body's lead show, which before 1975 had largely been a romp for various Porsches and Corvettes among smaller-bore cars. For reasons of varying scope, however, 1975 would be remembered as a critical year in IMSA's annals. First, the high-end competition had broadened with a slew of drivers slotted into works BMW 3.0 CSL coupes, somewhat counterbalancing the Porsche 911 Carrera RSR-heavy grids. Using similar logic, Bishop okayed a new class called the All American GT, which started a race toward tube-frame, wide-body silhouette American cars with huge, NASCAR-derived V-8s, first with Chevrolet Camaro looks but soon embracing the new Chevrolet Monza fastback. The AAGT cars all had decals on their sides that showed a cigarette-dragging Joe Camel in a race car, an image that eventually became a rallying point for anti-tobacco activists. More importantly than all of this, IMSA came to Canada. Not only that, it was part of a blockbuster June weekend at Mosport Park that wrapped up three sanctioning bodies, all of them with histories of mutual acrimony. The Sports Car Club of America had effectively swiped unlimited sports car racing from the U.S. Auto Club by creating the Can-Am. In 1975, the SCCA had dropped the Can-Am and made Formula 5000 its lead pro series, co-sanctioned at Mosport with USAC. Bishop, moreover, had exited as SCCA's executive director under circumstances that were less than blissful. The Labatt's Blue 5000 Weekend was an epic happening in Canadian racing. The IMSA GTs ran in two 20-lap heats, swept for Porsche by Peter Gregg and Al Holbert. Brian Redman broke early after leading the 40-lap main as a quickie BMW sub, while Hurley Haywood took the win in another Porsche after Carl Shafer's crazy AAGT Camaro cooked its rubber. The F5000 race is still considered one of the greatest in Canada's history, as Mario Andretti eye-blinked Redman at the chequers. The Formula Atlantic support field included a couple of very young guys named Bobby Rahal and Gilles Villeneuve. "In 1975, and for the following five, six, seven years, we were running 50,000 people constantly at Mosport," said Don Markle, of Mississauga, Ontario, who took these images during his long career capturing racing in Canada. "The day of the race, what would normally be an hour and a half getting home turned into four hours. You couldn't get anywhere. These things, and the crowds of people that were behind those fences, were just the way it was supposed to be."

The Mosport track remains one of the most challenging.