A Junior Debut Victory for Kennedy at ICAR

Making his first start of the season in his home country, Edward Kennedy (Energy Corse NA/Energy Kart) was impressive over the Coupe de Montreal weekend at ICAR.

He moved up to Junior over the winter and competed in a number of races in Florida, getting up to speed in the full-size chassis and that proved very beneficial as Kennedy was in control all weekend long.

Qualifying was very close. Kennedy and Olivier Mrak (REM/Kosmic) were separated at the top by only 0.075 seconds, with Alexis Baillargeon (PSL/BirelART) only 0.095 seconds off the fastest time in third.

An aggressive PreFinal saw the order shuffle quite a bit with Mrak initially getting the win but he was penalized for contact. Baillargeon was scored the victor over Decklan Deonarine (REM/Kosmic), William Turcot (BCR/BirelART), Kennedy and round 1 winner Major Makovskis (PSL/BirelART).

A wild opening lap saw Deonarine make a move for the race lead down the long back straight, but Baillargeon used a nice crossover in the following corner and that left Deonarine on the outside struggling to get in line.

Kennedy moved into second place shortly after and he was able to work with Baillargeon to pull a small gap on third place Cole Medeiros (REM/Kosmic).

Baillargeon tried to hold off Kennedy for as long as he could, but Kennedy slipped by on lap seven and had a slight edge in pace over the early race leader.

Watching the race leader pull away as the laps ticked away, Baillargeon could only observe as Kennedy would go on to take the victory, his first as a Junior.

A few seconds down the road, an awesome late-race battle for the final podium position saw Mrak beat his teammate Medeiros to the finish line with Turcot completing the top five.

Just like the Seniors, these Juniors showed how competitive it is upfront right now in Rotax competition and we’re expecting a few more front-running drivers to compete in the upcoming Canadian Open at ICAR to make it even more competitive.