The second championship series to hit the streets of Trois-Rivieres, Quebec this weekend was the Eastern Canadian Karting Championship. After Saturday’s Coupe du Quebec round, the inter-provincial series took their turn and provided the many fans on site some great racing action all day. Once again Mother Nature played games with everyone in the paddock as rain threatened all day and even drizzled down multiple times during the day but never enough to force drivers to rain tires.
The third round of the ECKC set the tone not only for their final round of the championship, held in September in Mont-Tremblant, but also it was the final major race before this years Canadian National Karting Championships, held at Goodwood Kartways in Ontario.
Although there was only a small crop of Micro-Max competitors, those on hand put on a great show and battled all the way to the end of their Final.
After sitting on the pole, William Chayer (KMS/Birel) surrendered the lead in the Prefinal on lap one to Matthew Latifi (Ferrolati Corse/TonyKart). The two would almost immediately break away from the pack, as Thomas Nepveu (SH Karting/Zanardi) and Joshua Cunha (IPK/OK1) battled for third. Trouble for Latifi on lap six saw Latifi come in contact with the barriers in the final sector of the lap, forcing him down to seventh and eventually out of the race. This moved Chayer to the lead and Nepveu to second with Cunha into the top-three, running that way to the finish.
The Final would see a light sprinkle fall before the Micro-Max’s hit the track. This delayed the start, but with the sun back out the track was dry as they left the grid. Leading the way to green, Chayer controlled the race early as Nepveu and Lagare slotted into second and third. On a roll from the rear, Latifi was up to fourth by lap two and tracking down the leaders. Moving by Lagare on lap three in turn six, Latifi wasted no time getting to second passing Nepveu a couple corners later. He then set his sights on Chayer who had built a decent gap. But it didn’t take long for Latifi to track him down and quickly take the lead away by lap six.
From there Chayer did all he could to hang on to Latifi, but was no match. Behind Lagare and Nepveu enjoyed spirited battle for the third position with Lagare taking the third and final podium position.
The win was Latifi’s fourth of the ECKC season putting him well in control of the championship entering the final round at Mont-Tremblant.
