We've been awaiting this fantastic new track for years now. I'd almost given up hope on it - until this fall, when rumours rapidly spread about - finally - paving! Sure enough, Luc's 2-year track reservation was honoured, and we had a date of October 5 for a lapping session at Calabogie Motorsports Park!

There's more to this story, though. Last Thursday, at work, I received an e-mail from Luc: CMP was providing two VIP passes for an all-day track intro event the following Wednesday, and was I interested in one of the passes? um, like duh!

And so, this image gallery is from that most interesting event, on a beautiful warm fall day in Eastern Ontario. We all got to meet this wonderful track!

I left extra-early in the morning so as to arrive with lots of time for required registrations and inspections. I tried a possibly more scenic and twisty way to approach the track from Ottawa, via Clayton and Tatlock, but ran into a 5km section of dirt road - so, nix that option (why is it that they pave a route for 90% of its length, and then leave the final 5km that adjoins to another major highway unpaved? aggh!

I arrived at the track at about 7:30am, and already there was a bit of a lineup. After a short wait, I was registered and processed into Class A, and told to report for tech inspection.

The main paddock was huge and nicely paved - no dusty dirty paddock here! I reported for tech inspection - mostly a bit of wheel shaking and sound testing, and I was off to wait in the line of cars for Class A - behind a very nice Porsche 911 GT3. One of many, many Porsches scattered around.

As time passed, and more and more attendees filed in, it became apparent that this was going to be a showdown of wealthy car owners. There was some pretty nice hardware making appearences : apart from the slightly more common but still fantastic high-end 911s, there was a Lamborghini Gallardo and a Porsche Carrera GT. The GT is worth a cool half-million in Canadian dollars - for just one lil' car!

Fruit, cookies, and fine delectables from the local Timmy's were provided on a set of tables all arrayed with fall colors. More and more cars started arriving, most of them very expensive and quite rare. Ferraris, Lotuses, Porsches, BMWs, Corvettes - these made up the bulk of the vehicles. A pretty highbrow event.

An advance warning: I took an excessive number of closeup pictures of some of these cars. I couldn't help it - they really are moving works of art!