With the Canadian season coming to a close last weekend in Mont-Tremblant, Quebec, the Eastern Canadian Karting Championship awarded the final tickets to drivers joining Team Canada for the Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals, held in New Orleans, USA.
With the addition of the Rotax Micro-Max and Mini-Max classes for this years Grand Finals, Team Canada now boasts a massive roster of 31 drivers! Drivers have qualified through the Canadian Championships, ECKC and Western Canadian Championships as well as international stages such as the Florida Winter Tour and the Rotax Euro Challenge.
Interestingly, three of the four ECKC Champions crowned in Mont-Tremblant had already qualified for Team Canada, therefore the championship runner-ups were awarded. In DD2, Brendon Bain joins another Canadian DD2 powerhouse team seeking Canada’s fourth straight DD2 title, as championship runner-up to Ben Cooper. Winning on Sunday confirmed Francis Mondou the DD2 Masters ticket, as Stuart Clark won the title. While Olivier Bedard earned the ticket in Rotax Senior after just missing the championship to Zachary Claman DeMelo. With Rotax Junior coming down to the wire, Jeffrey Kingsley scored the title with a podium finish on Sunday.
There is two more shots for Canadian’s to qualify for the Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals as this weekend the the Rotax Can-Am Championship wraps up in Oregon, and at the Rotax Pan American Championships in New Orleans in October. The event is an open invitation to drivers around the world looking race their way in and/or prepare for the Grand Finals and should boast some impressive entry numbers and racing.
Here is Team Canada as we stand now:
Rotax DD2
- Ben Cooper
- Marco Di Leo
- Pier-Luc Ouellette
- Brendon Bain
Rotax DD2 Masters
- Stuart Clark
- Francis Mondou
- Scott Campbell
Rotax Senior
- Skylar Dunning
- Zachary Claman DeMelo
- Olivier Bedard
Rotax Junior
- Coltin McCaughan
- Gianfranco Mazzaferro
- Jeffrey Kingsley
Rotax Mini-Max
- Thierry Cote
- Carson Vogel
- Griffin Dowler
- Antonio Serravalle
- Roman DeAngelis
- Samuel Lupien
- JP Hutchinson
- Tommy Simard
- Joe Soranno
Rotax Micro-Max
- Thomas Nepveu
- Marco Kacic
- Jordan Novota
- William Chayer
- Matthew Latifi
- Xavier Harris
- Alexandre Legare
- Joshua Cunha
- Jeremy Tallon
The 2013 Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals will be held at NOLA Motorsports Park in New Orleans, USA on November 13-16. This will be the first time the “Olympics of Karting” will be held in North America.
