Eastern Canadian Karting Championship
Breakout ECKC Weekend for Ryan MacDermid in Rotax Junior
With the Rotax Junior category featuring a fresh new look of drivers for 2016, the opening round of the Eastern Canadian Karting Championship at Goodwood Kartways was the chance for a driver to step up and into the spotlight, setting themselves up as the driver that everyone will be chasing this season.
At Goodwood, that driver was Ryan MacDermid as the sophomore Junior put himself on the map with a dominating performance all weekend long, scoring the biggest victories of his young career.
Saturday
MacDermid (Ben Cooper Racing/TonyKart) set the bar in Qualifying, bettering Matthew Latifi (Ferrolati Corse/TonyKart) and Andres De Alba (PSL Karting/BirelART) with a pair of class rookies rounding out the top-five, American Yuven Sundaramoorthy (PSL Karting/BirelART) and Patrick Woods-Toth (Ben Cooper Racing/BirelART).
After an uneventful PreFinal, all eyes were on the Final.
MacDermid was jumped by De Alba at the start after he received a great push from Woods-Toth and both advanced past the pole-sitter before turn one.
After trailing the first two laps, MacDermid had a stellar third tour, diving to the inside of Woods-Toth in corner four and then to the inside of De Alba a quick corner later to resume the lead. From there it was lights out as MacDermid and De Alba drove away, although De Alba was never close enough to make a move.
Latifi made short work of Woods-Toth at halfway to move into the final podium position.
Matthew Latifi (218) and Andres De Alba (239) both scored double-podiums at Goodwood but were unable to top Ryan MacDermid (Photo by: Cody Schindel / CKN)
Sunday
Earning his second pole-position on Sunday, MacDermid bettered his fast time from Saturday, utilizing only two new tires as per the new ECKC rules this season.
However the Final wasn’t quite as easy as De Alba and Latifi were at their best in their final race of the weekend.
After MacDermid led the field to green, De Alba jumped to the lead before lap one was complete and Latifi followed him through. Latifi took the lead on lap three, but MacDermid overtook in turn one on lap four.
Full Results from the weekend
The battle wasn’t over as De Alba was the next to take a shot at the lead, taking over on lap nine. But MacDermid once again fired back a lap later to resume the lead.
As the laps counted down MacDermid built up a lead as Latifi attacked De Alba for second. Once clear, Latifi blistered off some of his best laps of the weekend to track down MacDermid but ultimately he ran out of time and had to settle for second with De Alba third.
With the victory, MacDermid completed an undefeated weekend.
