CKN Driver Diary: Anthony Tolfa @ ECKC Mosport

Eastern Canadian Karting Championship Round #1
Mosport International Karting:
May 30 – June 2, 2013

Mosport International Raceway was the host to round 1 and 2 of the 2013 Eastern Canadian Karting Championship. This is one of my favourite tracks in the championship! The elevation changes are fantastic, and there are lots of high-speed corners. The weather we had this weekend was absolutely crazy! Thursday and Friday stayed dry, but when racing started Saturday, and Sunday many people rolled the dice on tires! Some hitting the jackpot, and others coming up empty handed. With all these changing conditions the drivers really including myself had to really adapt to the track, and fine the limit each and every session.

Excellent Qualifying: Top-three on both days
Both days I found success in Qualifying. Saturday I qualified P3. I really felt I could have had pole, but didn’t put the lap together, and was followed closely the whole session by my nearest rivals who ended up out qualifying me. The Sunday was the same story more or less. I qualified P3 again, but caught traffic half way through the session. Still I was thrilled with how qualifying went.

Second-place in both Pre Finals!
From my third place starting position I was able to stay calm and have brilliant starts in both pre finals. Although I struggled both days in the pre final, I was happy to finish second and be on the front row for the finals.

Two runner-up finishes has Tolfa in the hunt for the Championship exiting Mosport
(Photo by: Cody Schindel/CKN)

Saturday Final: So close to Victory
The Saturday final was a very tough race for myself. The start of the race went okay at first. I dropped back to third, but I ended up doing a double overtake in corner four, which promoted me into the lead! After I took the lead I gained a comfortable lead, but little did I know that the people behind me were gaining fast! The track was drying up so fast this weekend when it stopped raining. Me taking the lead in the earlier stages when the track was very wet, I didn’t think much as the race went on. All I was doing was breaking deeper, and carrying more speed through the corners. The track was actually drying up so fast that when I got passed, the new leader was running a dry line almost. As I crossed the line in second I remember thinking what my mechanic for the week Mike Maurini said “If winning was easy, then the losers would do it”. In the end I learned my lesson, and gained valuable experience from that race!

Sunday Final: Another Podium Appearance
After almost tasting victory yesterday in the wet, I wanted to make sure I learned from yesterday’s mistakes. Sunday’s final stayed dry luckily, and at the start I managed to get the jump on the inside row, and stormed into first place. As I lead after the first few laps, I could tell that second place was still very close to me. As we were entering a very tight and fast section of the track, the second placeman dove into the lead, putting me onto the slippery part of the track and I ended up rejoining back in third. As I saw the new leader was a couple seconds up the road I focused on hitting all of my marks, and tried to eliminate any driving mistakes as I tried to catch up. With five laps to go I finally caught up to second place and passed him, but the leader was not within reach!

The Weekend Overall
This weekend is a dream come true! I can’t thank Mike Maurini, Clark Hadden, Darren White, Dave Collins, the Summit GP team, and my parents enough for everything they did to make this weekend such a success!