Bortolotti had has fastest lap of the race on the first lap and held off a charging Marco Cirone of Toronto to complete the 20-lap race in 46 minutes five seconds, less than one second ahead of Cirone.
"I got more laps in here than Marco, but he came on strong and it was a good race," Bortolotti said. "I got away early, but I used up my tires.
"There was a lot of pressure and a lot of anticipation leading up to it. I was just hoping to bring her home, and we were lucky enough to do that."
There were actually two GT3 races on Sunday, and there are two more weekends of racing in the series. Bortolotti won the afternoon race as well, increasing his margin of victory to nearly 14 seconds ahead of Cirone.
James Hoddinott of Ottawa was third after finishing sixth in the morning race.
The next weekend of racing is June 3-5 at Circuit ICAR outside of Montreal and July 23-24 Mosport in Bowmanville.
The Calabogie track opened in the fall of 2006 after three years of design and planning. It was the site of a super bike race last year.
"In terms of the facility with all of the buildings and the infrastructure, it's one of the best tracks in North America," said Laurance Yap, the public-relations manager for Porsche Canada.
"It's almost like a country club concept in that they host a lot of lapping days and a lot of car club days. They had a super bike race here last year, so it has become a very important track on the North American scene."
The concept of a Porsche based one-make cup series dates back to 1986, with the Rothman's-Porsche Challenge Series for normally aspirated Porsche 944s in Canada and the Porsche Turbo Cup Championship for 944 Turbos in Germany.
The series disappeared from Canada two decades ago, however, so its return is long overdue.
"It's been a long time since we've had a series like this and people were wanting to fill in the gap in motorsport activity in Canada for a long time," Yap said. "There's now a kind of structure at Porsche where they encourage each of the markets to have one-make racing series locally. This is actually the 20th country that there is a GT3 Cup Challenges."
Bruce Gregory, one of the founders of the Calabogie Motorsports Park, said it was rare for the first owner of a race track to make money because of the investment needed to get it off the ground. Not so in this case.
"We're racing nuts, but there's also some good business heads," Gregory said.
"We definitely play on it is the right way to put it, but it was built as a business that would guarantee a profit."
Bortolotti is happy to have the track close to home to race on as well.
"This is what we dreamed about having: races like this up in our own back yard," he said. "How fantastic is this? It's a very technical course with 21 corners in it. There are increasing radius corners, it has got elevation changes, it has got blind corners. It has got everything. It's not an easy track to master.
"The facility itself is No. 1, there's no denying that, and the track is the smoothest one I've ever been on. It's absolutely a dream to drive. It's not as high speed as a lot of other tracks are, but that's made up in the fact that it's very technical. It's a real, true momentum track and it requires all your skill level to maintain good speeds."
Source http://www.ottawacitizen.com/
"I got more laps in here than Marco, but he came on strong and it was a good race," Bortolotti said. "I got away early, but I used up my tires.
"There was a lot of pressure and a lot of anticipation leading up to it. I was just hoping to bring her home, and we were lucky enough to do that."
There were actually two GT3 races on Sunday, and there are two more weekends of racing in the series. Bortolotti won the afternoon race as well, increasing his margin of victory to nearly 14 seconds ahead of Cirone.
James Hoddinott of Ottawa was third after finishing sixth in the morning race.
The next weekend of racing is June 3-5 at Circuit ICAR outside of Montreal and July 23-24 Mosport in Bowmanville.
The Calabogie track opened in the fall of 2006 after three years of design and planning. It was the site of a super bike race last year.
"In terms of the facility with all of the buildings and the infrastructure, it's one of the best tracks in North America," said Laurance Yap, the public-relations manager for Porsche Canada.
"It's almost like a country club concept in that they host a lot of lapping days and a lot of car club days. They had a super bike race here last year, so it has become a very important track on the North American scene."
The concept of a Porsche based one-make cup series dates back to 1986, with the Rothman's-Porsche Challenge Series for normally aspirated Porsche 944s in Canada and the Porsche Turbo Cup Championship for 944 Turbos in Germany.
The series disappeared from Canada two decades ago, however, so its return is long overdue.
"It's been a long time since we've had a series like this and people were wanting to fill in the gap in motorsport activity in Canada for a long time," Yap said. "There's now a kind of structure at Porsche where they encourage each of the markets to have one-make racing series locally. This is actually the 20th country that there is a GT3 Cup Challenges."
Bruce Gregory, one of the founders of the Calabogie Motorsports Park, said it was rare for the first owner of a race track to make money because of the investment needed to get it off the ground. Not so in this case.
"We're racing nuts, but there's also some good business heads," Gregory said.
"We definitely play on it is the right way to put it, but it was built as a business that would guarantee a profit."
Bortolotti is happy to have the track close to home to race on as well.
"This is what we dreamed about having: races like this up in our own back yard," he said. "How fantastic is this? It's a very technical course with 21 corners in it. There are increasing radius corners, it has got elevation changes, it has got blind corners. It has got everything. It's not an easy track to master.
"The facility itself is No. 1, there's no denying that, and the track is the smoothest one I've ever been on. It's absolutely a dream to drive. It's not as high speed as a lot of other tracks are, but that's made up in the fact that it's very technical. It's a real, true momentum track and it requires all your skill level to maintain good speeds."
Source http://www.ottawacitizen.com/
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