Di Leo Prevails in Vega Cup Series Debut

The sweet smell and roar of shifter kart engines returned to the province of Ontario on Sunday as the Vega Cup officially made it’s debut in Innisfil, Ontario. Taking part of the Canadian Karting Challenge event, the Vega Cup was the show at the Innisfil Indy with three shifter classes on tap; Junior, Senior and Masters.

With a mixture of TM, Vortex ROK and Modena engines powering the, there was a great mixture taking on the small, tight and unusual Innisfil circuit.

After qualifying it was Ethan Simioni topping the time charts with local driver Frank Launi joining him on the front row for the standing start.

A wild PreFinal saw Launi spin off in turn three on opening lap while bumper to bumper the karts navigated the extremely bumpy track. Zachary Shearer took his turn leading the heat but Simioni found his way back by before the end to win it and retain his pole-position for the Final.

After two failed attempts to start the final, the lights finally went out for good on the third try and Shearer jumped to the early lead.

A few laps in Simioni made a move to the lead in three, but Shearer countered the move on exit and won the race to turn four, but tough luck caught Simioni on the exit of four as he appeared to get on the throttle a little too early and looped the kart into the grass, allowing Marco Di Leo to advance to second.

Di Leo then went to work on Shearer and took care of business by the halfway mark of the 20 lap main event. He was then lights out from there, easily pulling away to victory by a margin of 1.8 seconds.

Shearer held on for second, keeping a very hard charging Launi at bay while Simioni rebounded to fourth, setting the quickest lap in the process. Davide Greco was fifth.

Shifter Senior Final Results