FWT: Chaos in Mini ROK Pushes Final late into Sunday Evening

The largest class of the Florida Winter Tour ROK Cup weekend truly provided some excellent action and great racing by some of the youngest competitors in the sport. However on Sunday things got a little out of control with the drivers turning up the wick in hopes of winning the race in the first few corners of each race.

Qualifying

For second day in the row Jonny Edgar (BENIK Kart) claimed the pole-position, blistering off a lap time only 0.086 seconds quicker than Reece Gold (TonyKart) with Saturday winner Nicholas d’Orlando (KoeneUSA/TonyKart) right there as well with the top six all within two-tenths of a second.

Heat Races

Edgar was pushed hard but was able to secure two heat race wins to maintain the pole-position for the Final while BENIK Kart teammate Jak Crawford and Alessandro Famularo (AM/Espirit) claimed the other two heat race wins.

The grid for the Final featured Edgar and d’Orlando on row one, Famularo and Sebastien Montoya (BirelART) on row two and Gold and Canadian Matthew Latifi (Ferrolati Corse/TonyKart) on row three. A DNF in his second heat forced Crawford to start the Final from the twelfth position.

Final

It took four attempts to get the Mini Roks underway as major accidents on the opening lap forced the officials to stop the race three times. Settling the drivers down with a 30-minute break for many to repair damage, the race would be started under single file.

Several accidents forced officials to start the Mini-Rok final four different times. (Photo by: Cody Schindel/CKN)

Edgar led the field to the green and but d’Orlando made a move for the lead early and with it, he scored a nice gap back to Edgar and rest of the field. But Edgar was able to take advantage of a few small errors by d’Orlando to close the gap for the lead and separate himself from the intense racing behind him for third on back.

Latifi’s day was done when contact from Famularo sent him flying off track. No words describe the intensity of the racing for third through tenth place with most drivers not holding anything back.

With three to go Edgar made his move on d’Orlando to resume the lead he lost on lap one and it turned out to be the right time. Shortly after receiving the last lap flag, the group battling for third crashed hard into the turn one barriers, bringing out the red flags for the fourth time and ultimately ending the race before d’Orlando was able to mount his charge for the lead, scoring the victory for Edgar.

When the dust was settled, Edgar and d’Orlando were joined on the podium by Pauly Massimino (TonyKart) while Gold and Montoya completed the top-five even after being involved in the red flag incident. Famularo initially was scored in third, but multiple penalties eventually placed him 21st.

d’Orlando (l), Edgar (c) and Massimino (r) stood on the Sunday podium in Homestead (Photo by: Cody Schindel/CKN)