All weekend long, the Racing Edge Motorsports duo of Zachary Claman DeMelo and Emma Delattre controlled the top of the charts at the Canadian Open, and started on the front row for the Final, while Patrick Woods-Toth (Prime/BirelART) and Nicholas Hornbostel (REM/Kosmic) were knocking on the doors of the leaders just waiting for an opportunity.
Knowing it could be his only chance, Woods-Toth pounced right from the drop of the green flag. From P3 on the grid, he pushed DeMelo past Delattre into the first corner and then dove to the inside of corner two to grab the lead. As the pack shuffled places from corner three through five, six, seven and eight, Hornbostel slotted into second, Delattre into third, DeMelo fourth and Cole Hooton (Prime/BirelART) fifth, while Marc Antoine-Poirer (C-RAD/BirelART) dropped back from his fourth-place starting spot.
DeMelo quickly discharged Delattre on lap two and Hornbostel on lap three, both into corner one, to regain the second position. Hornbostel actually slipped to fourth on lap three as he was forced wide exiting corner two and shortcut the inside of turn three, coming into contact with Hooton on his return to the racing surface.
It all settled down from there though. Woods-Toth built up an advantage of one second that DeMelo wasn’t able to close up and after eighteen laps Woods-Toth celebrated the victory. Unfortunately for Delattre she was bounced off the final step of the podium for a pushback bumper violation, moving Hornbostel to third, Hooton to fourth and Chris Chanko (VSR/TonyKart) to fifth.
With the win, Woods-Toth will join Team Canada at the Rotax Grand Finals for the third time in his career.
