Curran Accomplishes Rotax Junior National Championship Goal; Woods-Toth to RMCGF

When the season began, Dale Curran had decided to shift his racing attention to events in the USA. But by mid-summer, he changed his mind and decided to step up to Rotax Junior and focus on the Canadian National Championships at Mosport. He took part in the final round of the Eastern Canadian Karting Championship along with select other events and quickly became a favourite for the National title, even as a class rookie. On Sunday at Mosport Kartways, Curran drove a perfect race in the National Final to accomplish his goal.

In Saturday’s PreFinal front row starters, Thomas Nepveu and Patrick Woods-Toth collided in the opening corners to not only hurt their chances of the National victory but also earned them a trip to the steward’s office as they have endured a feud this season. This opened the door for Curran, Mackenzie Clark and a number of other drivers to start up front for Sunday’s Final and not to worry as much about Nepveu and Woods, at least not in the opening laps at least.

When the green flag flew, Curran quickly jetted off to turn one with the lead while Clark was shuffled from second to fourth, slotting in behind Kai Dalziel and Mark Davis. Curran quickly built up a lead, posting a number purple laps with his fresh new rubber. Dalziel remained second just ahead of a battling Davis and Clark.

Clark drove to the inside in turn six on lap four to take the spot and as he slid wide on exit he was on the inside in a drag race up the hill with Davis. Just behind them, Nolan Bower and Robert Soroka were also drag racing up the hill and those watching from the sidelines could almost feel something was going to happen.

It did. Clark was tagged by Soroka and slowly spun in corner seven coming to a stop mid-corner and while Davis, Soroka and Bower managed to get around, Xavier Harris and Griffin Dowler did not, crashing hard into Clark, ending both their races.

Clark limped around for a lap after that with a badly bent kart and missing nosecone. His race was done.

The race for third continued on lap three when Bower climbed up on the back of Soroka, pulling his exhaust off, ending Soroka’s race and Bower falling back to fifth. Davis jumped up to third and in the middle of all of this, Nepveu had climbed from the rear to fourth.

Davis closed in on Dalziel in the closing laps and overtook him for the second spot. It was all settled from there as Curran managed his lead to the checkered flag to take the National Championship at Mosport, two years after he claimed the Rotax Micro-Max National title at the same Mosport track. Davis held on to second with Dalziel rounding out the National podium.

Nepveu took fourth with Woods-Toth crossing in seventh, which was enough for him to remain atop the combined points standings and earn the invitation to compete at the Rotax Grand Finals as a member of Team Canada.