The first race of the 2015 season is in the books as the Rotax Challenge of the Americas has invaded the Musselman Honda Circuit in Tucson, Arizona. It was very windy and cool to start the weekend, but when it came time for the Finals on Saturday the sun was out and the wind faded away, it was time to get down to business.
Excellent racing a theme on track Saturday as for the main categories, the races went down to the wire.
Mini-Max was stellar with no less than six karts battling for the lead as the laps wound down in their Final. The lead exchanged often between Mexican Sebastian Alvarez (PSL West/CRG), Canadian Griffin Dowler (RPM/Kosmic) and American Peyton Durrant (KoeneUSA/TonyKart). These three along with Marco Kacic (PSL West/CRG), Austin Torgerson (TonyKart) and Jacob Hudson (FA Kart) put on a heck of a battle until two laps to go.
Dowler made a move to the inside of Alvarez for the lead in corner five and while Dowler was able to sneak through, contact behind him sent Torgerson into the dirt, Durrant up in the air and the rest scrambling to hang on. This allowed Dowler to claim the first Mini-Max victory of his young career following by Kacic and Jak Crawford (Nash/TonyKart) who sat alone in seventh just waiting for something to happen all race.
Alvarez, Filip Niemkiewicz (CRG) and Durrant completed the top-six while Hudson, Hannah Greenemeier (Praga), Oliver Reed (Birel) and Alexis Apodaca (Zanardi) completed the top-ten.
Drivers will be back on Sunday for another full race day of competition.
