2014 CKN Year in Review Awards: Young Driver of the Year

For the second year in a row we present the CKN Year in Review Awards. We here at Canadian Karting News decided to create our own set of awards, all pertaining to categories we feel worthy and throughout the final weeks of 2014, we will highlight an award for categories such as Junior and Senior driver’s of the year in both the Rotax Max and Briggs & Stratton divisions, helmet design of the year, Canadian event of the year among many others.

To see the full list of awards and announcement dates, click here.

While these are all the opinion of CKN, you can let us know who you think deserved each award. Using the comments below each article, let us know who you feel was worthy of the award and a short blurb why you believe so.

**2014 Young Driver of the Year**
2013 Winner: New for 2014

Nominees:

– Justin Arseneau
– Ryan Dezell
– Thomas Nepveu
– Alexandre Legare
– Jeremy Tallon
– Carson Vogel

Winner: Alexandre Legare

While we admit the competition all season long in our youngest divisions was quite small, the racing itself was quite remarkable. A quick glance at our nominees for the 2014 CKN Young Driver of the Year award shows six drivers who all have very bright and illustrious careers ahead of them as they advance up the karting ladder.

Deciding a winner of this award was very challenging. Out west Carson Vogel and Ryan Dezell dominated their categories to win the championships while in the East Thomas Nepveu and Jeremy Tallon and Justin Arseneau were all putting in excellent performances of their own. But when comparing the results only one of them had three titles to their name in 2014 and that was Alexandre Legare.

Fresh into the Mini-Max category with a new team to boot Legare was an immediate threat when the season began, winning the opening round of the Coupe du Quebec. While it took him three rounds to get his first win in the Eastern Canadian Karting Championship, his dominating performance at the ASN Canadian National Championships really stood out amongst the best competition in the country. To cap things off, Legare secured both the ECKC and Coupe du Quebec Championships in Mont-Tremblant in the wet, with one victory coming on slicks in sudden downpour conditions.

After one season of Mini-Max, Legare is on his way up to Junior for 2015 and we can’t wait to see how he does in a faster and more competitive class.

Alex Legare (c) celebrates his ASN Canadian National Mini-Max Title (Photo by: Cody Schindel/CKN)