Calgary Kart Racing Club Enjoys Double-Header Weekend

The weather was picture perfect as the Calgary Kart Racing Club held their first double-header weekend of the season, hosting round three and four of their club championship. John Kwong highlights the action for us. 

CKRC Club Race #3

The weather in the week leading up to the CKRC Race 3 & 4 double header was turbulent with spring rain showers but the forecast for good weather came through for a fantastic weekend of racing at North Star Raceway. All classes were well represented with Briggs Senior class at 19 entries being the largest grid. The whole event ran smoothly and on schedule. A couple of drivers had a talking to from the race director, Fred Causer to maintain the high competitive driving standards. Several competitors from the EDKRA came to race as a prelude to the later running of the Alberta Shoot-Out to be held in September.

Rotax Masters
Josh Carter took the pole position to lead the 7 Masters entries and it was looking good for Josh after he took the Pre-Final win. Mario Gimenez had other plans as he took the lead on lap 3 and held on for a 0.613 margin of victory in the Final with Carter 2nd and Brendon Sanguinetti 3rd.

Shifter
John Kwong took the pole in qualifying with a 53.884 lap over the seven kart shifter field. The Pre-Final had an exciting first few laps with Brian Taylor, Nathan Bartley and John Kwong mixing it up. By mid race the front 3 settled down but the rest of the field changed many positions with Brennan Peters moving up to 3rd while John retired with a shifter lever mount failure. Brian Taylor got the holeshot in the Final over Nathan Bartley and led for the first few laps. Nathan and John were able to get past Brian on lap 4. John caught up to Nathan but Nathan’s radiator mount broke and he retired with a mechanical DNF.

Junior 1 Briggs
The Junior 1 Briggs class is strong and thriving at the CKRC with another strong turnout of 13 competitors. Kiefer Peet took the pole in qualifying with the top 3 in the 1:04 second bracket. Enzo Sartor took a convincing win with a 2 second margin with 2nd thru 4th maintaining their positions for the entire race. Matthew Chan made some headway going from 11th to 9th

Senior Briggs Light and Masters
The biggest class of the day with 19 racers. As each official session occurred, the track record for this class seemed to be re-set. Skylar Dunning captured the pole with the top 4 competitors in the coveted 1:02 sec lap bracket. John Kwong fell back to 5th place on the first lap but was able to make his way back to the leaders, Noel Dowler and Skylar Dunning to have a spirited battle until lap 8 when Skylar got the plastic horn from John Kwong at Turn 2 sending Skylar off track and back to a recovered 5th place. Paul DiStephano had a good charge from 17th to 11th in the Pre-Final. For the Final, Dowler, Dunning and Kwong had an epic dual as the lead position was swapped several times in many different sections of the track. These competitors haven’t seen each other in this class on this track for awhile, so figuring out strengths and weaknesses were discovered with each lap completed. Kwong finished .050 secs ahead of Dunning to take the win. Wilson Dolan was the sole Masters driver for the day and was able to finish 15th overall.

Junior Rotax
Levi Schmidtke took the pole position with a 55.660 lap. Matthew Taskinen hot off his recent Can-Am win in Richland, Washington continued his success by taking the win with a 2.4 sec margin of victory over Levi Schmidtke who started from 5th after losing his sidepod in the Pre-Final. Connor Peet was 5 seconds back in 3rd.

Mini-Max Rotax
James Altamirano took the pole, Pre-Final and Final for a clean sweep over Enzo Sartor and Kiefer Peet.

Senior Rotax
Skylar Dunning led 10 competitors with a clean sweep of Pole, Pre-Final and Final win. Mark Newson and Ben Maxfield were 2nd and 3rd. Bobby Wallace made his first appearance this year after about a one year layoff and was showing some of his past form.

Junior 2 Briggs
Another solid representation from the Junior 2 Briggs class with 11 competitors as Jill Altamirano, Levi Schmidtke and James Altamirano completed the podium as 1st ,2nd and 3rd. James had the drive of the day by recovering from last place to 3rd place podium postion. Lots of positions changing in the midfield as well for these young drivers.

CKRC Club Race #4

Day 2 of the CKRC double header race weekend continued with beautiful sunny skies and no wind. The shifter class participants decided to forego the Sunday event which shortened the day for everyone.

Rotax Masters
10 competitors for Sunday’s race with Josh Carter taking the pole again and following it up with the Pre-Final and Final win for the day. 2nd place was Brendon Sanguinetti and Dan Peet 3rd. Sanguinetti was the hard charger coming from 8th to 2nd.

Junior 1 Briggs
Kiefer Peet took the pole in the 11 driver field but Enzo Sartor was victorious in the Pre-Final and Final with Kiefer 2nd and Nicholas Taylor 3rd. The lead was exchanged between Kiefer and Enzo on lap 6 and the last lap.

Senior Briggs Light & Masters
Track conditions and drafting were the perfect setting for the Briggs Senior track record to fall yet again as Skylar Dunning put in a blistering lap in the Final with a time of 1:02.107 besting last years lap record of 1:02.63. The top three were nose to tail until John Kwong tried to go inside Dunning at turn 2 and then turn 4. Momentum was lost but Dunning was able to re-catch Dowler and they traded the lead several times with Dunning playing major defence to hold off Dowler at the stripe.

Junior Rotax
Matthew Taskinen dominated the field by taking the Pole, Pre-Final and Final with a 2.3 second margin of victory over Levi Schmidtke and Connor Peet. 4th thru 6th places traded spots near the beginning of the race but everyone pretty much held their spots.

Mini Max
James Altamirano continued his winning ways with Enzo Sartor 2nd and Kiefer Peet 3rd.

Senior Rotax
It was a smooth weekend for Skylar Dunning as he remained mostly unchallenged for the entire weekend in Rotax competition taking the Pole, Pre-Final and Final with Mark Newson 2nd and John Kwong 3rd. The rest of the field saw a few passes mid race.

Junior 2 Briggs
Matthew Taskinen took the Pole in Qualifying but had a DNF in the Pre-Final. Levi Schmidtke was able to take the win in the Final with a battle for the lead changing hands with James Altamirano on the last two laps. Taskinen was able to work his way from the back of the 10 kart field to 3rd place.

CKRC Members will be joining the EDKRA for the first rounds of the Alberta Shoot-Out on June 11 & 12 which will count as part of the CKRC Club Championship. CKRC Club Race #5 is the next event at North Star Raceway on June 19th.

All photos by Dan Frederickson