CKN News & Notes: Eastern Canadian Karting Championship Goodwood

It was another very successful weekend for the Eastern Canadian Karting Championship as round two invaded Goodwood Kartways, near Stouffville, Ontario for races three of four and the eight race championship. A record number of entries, along with great racing through every class helped draw a great crowd of spectators to the event as well.

Here is our CKN News & Notes recap from the event.

Saturday Results | Sunday Results | Photo Gallery 1 | Photo Gallery 2 | Photo Gallery 3

Record turnout of drivers for standalone ECKC event

Saturday’s race at Goodwood saw a record turnout of racers as 173 drivers were entered through the nine official ECKC classes. Only events combined with the Coupe du Quebec have been higher in years past making this the largest standalone ECKC event yet. The growth comes as the Briggs & Stratton program continues to develop with the Junior and Masters classes having great fields, while Senior continues to draw new faces to the crowd.

ASN Canada comes down hard on fuel additives

At Saturday mornings drivers meeting, ASN Canada FIA’s Paul Cooke made his presence known on where ASN stands in regards to harmful fuel and oil additives. A great statement opened the eyes of many as ASN announced that testing would be conducted throughout the weekend in search of those “cheating to win”, with big penalties to come to those caught. While many drivers were disqualified on the weekend for fuel issues, mainly purchasing fuel from the wrong station, we have not yet been informed of anyone being caught for additives.

More to come on this subject as the season continues. You can also read more on ASN Canada’s position on fuel and oil additives in their recent press release.

Double-double: drivers sweep main events in all but two classes

The competition was second-to-none at Goodwood, but that didn’t stop seven drivers from scoring a pair of victories on the weekend. Each class, with the exception of Rotax DD2 and Briggs & Stratton Junior, featured a double-winner. Some of the notable dominations included Thomas Nepveu in Micro-Max, Gianfranco Mazzaferro in Rotax Junior and Zachary Claman DeMelo in Rotax Senior, while Jonathon Treadwell (Briggs Senior), Keith Barrick (Briggs Masters), Sebastien Alvarez (Mini-Max) and Chris Glover (DD2 Masters) had their work cut out for them in order to secure both wins.

With the current hot streaks of many drivers, it will be interesting to see how many of them can carry over the momentum to round three in just over a months time on the streets Trois-Rivieres, Quebec.

Mexican driver Sebastian Alvarez scored two Mini-Max wins at Goodwood, meaning no Canadian driver has won through four races this season in the category (Photo by: Cody Schindel/CKN)

Briggs & Stratton classes welcomes more new faces

The Briggs & Stratton Senior class once again had 29 drivers enter the weekends event, but the lineup of drivers was much different than what we saw at Mosport. The additional drivers was star studded as it included the likes of Marco Di Leo, Luke Chudleigh, Steven, Szigeti, Pearce Herder, Jean-Francois Lafontaine, Frank Launi and we even saw Indy Lights driver Matthew Di Leo out testing in a Briggs, although he didn’t race. All of these drivers have had success in much higher categories, but have opted to join the Briggs program for it’s incomparable level of competition.

In Briggs Junior, Xavier Dorsnie made his debut after competing early on this season in Mini-Max, while Briggs Masters was the largest we’ve seen yet.

All signs right now are pointing to a massive turnout of four cycle drivers at this years ASN Canadian National Karting Championships in Mont-Tremblant and we cannot wait! Can you imagine seeing 50 Briggs & Stratton Seniors on the entry list? We can!

Scary Sunday weather forecast turns out for the best

The entire week at Goodwood featured beautiful sunny skies with temperatures in the high 20’s. But Sunday’s forecast called for late afternoon thunder showers and a possible soggy ending to a successful week at Goodwood. With only half the main events completed, those dark clouds on the forecast arrived on the south side of the Goodwood facility, and even a few drops of rain sputtered down. But that ended up being all that was in store as the rain held off and the sun returned just before final podium presentations.

Intensely close qualifying sessions

The racing was great with battles up and down the grids in all classes, but the qualifying sessions at Goodwood on the weekend were very exciting to say the least. Quick sessions forced drivers to put in their best laps early on, but in most cases it came down to the wire with positions coming down to hundredths and thousands of a second.

Rotax DD2 on Saturday was by far the most exciting. PSL Karting teammates Jeffrey Kingsley and Alessandro Bizzotto traded the top spot lap after lap, continuously bettering the others time. When the checkered flag flew, Bizzotto nipped his fellow CRG driver by a mere 0.002 seconds!

In Briggs & Stratton Senior, the top 24 drivers were within four-tenths of a second on Sunday, with a pair of equal lap times inside the top-ten. It is just that close right now.

Rotax Junior was much of the same. positions two through five in Sunday qualifying were all within the same tenth of a second, with three of them separated by a mere hundredth of a second. Intense!

A great crown was on hand at Goodwood to take in the action. (Photo by: Cody Schindel/CKN)

Track records smashed at Goodwood Kartways

To cap off the great weekend, we will note that almost each class bested the previous track records at Goodwood Kartways. High levels of grip and perfect conditions helped the cause for most drivers and for the Rotax classes, the new MOJO tires are receiving great reviews, especially in Rotax DD2.

Gianfranco Mazzaferro smashed the Rotax Junior record on Saturday, positing a time that was respectable enough in Rotax Senior, while Zachary Claman DeMelo bested the record in Rotax Senior.

Alessandro Bizzotto held the Rotax DD2 track record for 24 hours, only to have teammate Jeff Kingsley snatch it away from him on Sunday.