"I look back at it all and I don't regret a thing."
Cort Wagner of The Racers Group
By Margot Orenchuk
Photos courtesy Margot Orenchuk 
BOWMANVILLE, Ontario (August 9, 2004) -- Cort Wagner is probably one of the best ambassadors for Sports Car racing you could speak to. He appears outrageous and what you would think of a single racer on the circuit, but when you sit down to talk to him he’s actually extremely the opposite of what you would originally expect. He’s the inaugural GT Champion of the ALMS, and a veteran Champion of several other series as well.  Cort took time out from a very busy weekend shuttling between Mid-Ohio and Mosport – six round trips – and spoke to RFM in between the trips. 

Margot Orenchuk: You are one of a handful of drivers this weekend that are doing ‘the double” with driving both the Grand American series in Mid-Ohio, and the ALMS series here in Mosport. What is your weekend going to be like? 

Cort Wagner: It’s fine! I was in Mid-Ohio yesterday, practicing. The first day of testing. And then 5 of us flew up last night on a charter, and it actually worked out fine. It’s only an hour and 15 minute flight.  

MO: I don’t understand why you even bother to come back today, isn’t it just private testing today?

CW: No, it’s the first day of testing for us. 2 hours of it. Then I am flying down again tonight, and staying down for the race. 

MO: So Pat (Long) will be qualifying the #66 car tomorrow? 

CW: Pat will be qualifying the car. (It turns out the Patrick didn’t get to qualify, as he has a bad accident in warm-up in the morning that sent him to hospital in a neck-brace; as of this writing we don’t know if the car will start the race tomorrow) We will fly back up tomorrow night right after the race.  

MO: How many of you? You don’t drive in the Cup race, do you? 

CW: No, I don’t drive in that race.  

MO: Now, this is the first year you are driving the Daytona prototype car in the GA series. What is it like to drive compared to the Porsche? 

CW: It’s a great car to drive. The DP’s are really fun, it’s a great series, and it’s a great racecar. Porsche are really, really super fast street cars. Porsche has built a super racecar, don’t get me wrong. It’s an incredibly fast weapon. The lap times on those cars are blisteringly quick. But they are a lot more difficult to drive. There is a lot more difficult at the limit than a DP car as far as risk to reward.  

MO: How do you enjoy Mosport? Is this a track you enjoy coming to? 

CW: I have been up here a lot of years; it’s a very challenging track to drive. Your setup here rewards you here amazingly. As far as carrying a lot of speed in a lot of corners. It’s pretty bumpy, it changes every winter with the snows, it makes this place different every year, and it’s a great track. You get the prototypes that are so much quicker than us in the downhill corners than us and mixing it up with them is very difficult in a traffic situation.  

MO: Is this a tough track to pass at, say like Portland? 

CW: Not too difficult. There are long straightaways and stuff, where you can get it done; it’s more that prototype traffic that will make it difficult.  

MO: Has Mr. Long been teasing out about winning (in the GT class) at Le Mans this year? 

CW: Oh, no, Pat is a great kid.  

MO: Wasn’t he excited about winning? We sure were for him! 

CW: I think he was excited, but he’s very quiet about it. He is not the kind of guy to brag. He’s a great guy. He takes every race as a new opportunity and a new venture and a new challenge. He’s a very good teammate. He’s actually the perfect team-mate because he’s working a lot harder than I am because he’s got a lot to prove, and he’s always in the big attack mode every lap. He is going to be a very good endurance driver. An amazing driver. He’s naturally very, very quick. He’s so very mature for his age. He’s driven over in Europe but he is just doing this series this year, and of course he did Le Mans. 

MO: How do you find this new qualifying format? 

CW: Are we doing that this weekend also? 1-lap qualifying? Because we did not in Portland.  

MO: Yes, we are. 

CW: I think it’s great. I like it because you know what you have got; you get 2 good opportunities to put a qualifying lap on without traffic, and to have a good qualifying run. And as a driver, it’s nice to be able to go on a racetrack and not worry about traffic. And racing in an endurance series, whether it’s a quicker car or a slower car, qualifying a lot of times you get held up. So it’s a nice opportunity for a driver to show his raw talent.  

MO: That is OK for someone like you that has so much experience at all these tracks; what about drivers that have never been to these circuits before and don’t have this experience? 

CW: A driver isn’t going to gain experience on 2 laps. I look at it from behind the steering wheel. As a spectator, maybe it’s better to see everyone out there at once.  

MO: What would you say so far in your career has been your greatest shining moment? 

CW: I was at Le Mans, and I put a car on the pole, and that was very special for me. I really loved that! Being the quickest there was great. I’ve had a couple of Championships with Ferrari that have been very special to me because they have been hard fights; driving for Ferrari was great. 1999 I won 3 or 4 Championships. That was a great year for me. To get the ball rolling for me to get to a level where I wanted to think about where I was going as a racer, I really want to win in Daytona Prototypes overall.  You always want to win “overall”.  You want to run upfront, drive in the lead class. And you don’t want to have to have a 9 million dollar budget like an Audi or a Lola to do it. Guys like Audi are so very rare. So the opportunities through the DP racing allow us to win overall. So a couple of times I’ve had a podium, I’ve led, I’ve been 3^rd. I led the points early on in the year. And that was great. In Sports Car racing I’ve had a great amazing 10-year run at it. I look back at it and I don’t regret a thing. 

The 66 car was able to run in the race on Sunday afternoon.  Although David Brabham was cleared to take Patrick Long’s place if the doctors turned thumbs down, Long was able to take his seat and the pair put the car in fifth place in class.  We hope Long will be himself again by Road America in two weeks’ time.