Grand Prix, Honda Indy back-to-back starting today

I am going to draw your attention to a few things today.

First, the Grand Prix du Canada is taking place in Montreal and I am there reporting on it (what a surprise, eh?) for Toronto Star Sports and the Toronto Star Wheels website, thestar.com/autos.

By the time you read this, I will have been writing stories and tweeting from Montreal for about a day, so if you’re not near a television for qualifying later Saturday or the race Sunday, go to thestar.com/autos where I will be keeping you right up to date.

And before I ramble on any more about the Grand Prix, I want to remind you about Toronto’s big auto race of the spring/summer and that is the Honda Indy, which is being held a month early this year because of the Pan Am Games.

This means the Indy will be running through the streets of Exhibition Place next weekend. A Special Preview of the race and the festival weekend can be found in the Saturday Star you’re reading right at this very moment. Pull out Section M (right after the Weekend/Life Section) and you’ll find everything you would ever want to know about the big race.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that as of about mid-evening on Wednesday night, Lake Shore Blvd. W. that runs past the Ex will be closed to all traffic except the racing cars. It will reopen in time for the morning commute next Monday.

Now, while some people may grumble about this, I look on it as a positive: you will get to practise your patience. Those special reserved lanes on the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner that are being set aside for Pan Am Games athletes, officials and politicians are going into effect June 29th and will re- main in play till after the Games.

Which means the month of July is going to be — let’s call a spade a spade — a traffic nightmare. So let’s just think of the Honda Indy road closing as a warmup for the chaos that’s coming.

OK, if you’re not going to be in Montreal for the Grand Prix, and want to watch the action on TV, here’s the rundown:

Coverage of qualifying on Saturday will start at 12:55 p.m. on TSN. It will be followed an hour later by the premiere of Braking Point, a documentary on Canadian racer Luke Chudleigh. An encore presentation of Braking Point will be presented on TSN2 Sunday, right after the Grand Prix telecast.

(By the way, Braking Point, which was produced by Open Wheel Productions in association with TSN, chronicles the 20-year-old Milton driver’s life as he competes in the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 Series for the chance to climb Europe’s racing ladder to Formula One.

While some might grumble about the closing of Lake Shore Blvd. W. for the Indy, I look at it as a positive

(We had a chat the other day. Chudleigh said he now knows what the hockey players felt like when their lives were being filmed for documentaries leading up to the annual outdoor Winter Classic games each January. “But, after awhile, you don’t even notice they (the cameras) are there,” he said.

Coverage of the Grand Prix, incidentally, will begin on TSN Sunday at 1:35 p.m. with the BBC’s Grid Walk, followed by the race.