Green Speed Karting

Team News: Greenspeed Karting - ECKC Mosport Report

Under much better skies, GreenSpeed Karting pulled into Mosport this past weekend looking for some redemption, after a challenging round 1 & 2 at Goodwood only weeks before. Several GreenSpeed team drivers knew they had a chance to make moves in the points standings as the ECKC season reached the midpoint of its inaugural year.

In Friday's practice sessions the track was already fast with laptimes being laid down that proved quicker than the final race times from the same track in the BSRKC series a year earlier. The tone was set early and with promising weather in the forecast, the team went to work looking to dial in a winning set-up.

Rotax DD2:

In Saturday action, Darren White came back strong after some opening round struggles and put his Tony Kart off-pole, by a tenth with team mate Eric Gerrits seven spots back in ninth. The DD2 pre-final was a clinic by White who broke away early, and kept on breaking away cruising to victory, 6.5 seconds clear of the field. Despite posting a top five time, Gerrits wasn't able to make the moves he had planed in the short heat race and settled for eleventh, but with the confidence that he had the kart to still make some moves in the final

In the Saturday main, a strong run by White gave him second at the line, missing by a mere tenth, while Gerrits found the holes needed to move up six spots and cross in fifth, producing two top-five results for GreenSpeed.

In Sunday action, White was again on the front row but this time in the pole position setting a fast lap of 53.679, with teammate Gerrits slotting in ninth. Prefinal action saw "Whitey" take the lead on lap five and never look back en route to a repeat of Saturday's prefinal, taking the win. Gerrits on the other hand never got a lap in and was a DNF with damage to his kart. In the main, White never saw another kart as he led from green to checker to cap off a perfect day. In fact, from Saturday qualifying to the Sunday final White was never worse than second and delivered a solid performance picking up much needed points in the championship hunt. Despite starting 27th Eric Gerrits with his never say die attitude, delivered an impressive drive moving past fifteen other drivers to cross twelfth.

Rotax Senior:

In Rotax Senior, Andy Jaffray coming off back to back wins in the Brian Stewart Kawartha race a week earlier struggled early in qualifying Satuday. Getting to the track a bit late on Friday put him a bit behind the field in terms of testing but he consistently improved throughout the day qualifying 23rd, but moving up to seventeenth in the prefinal and again, to thirteenth in the final. Sunday was a near identical day for Jaffray who qualified 22nd, again moving to seventeenth in the heat race, and twelfth in the main. White who had a respectable day Saturday qualified seventh, and despite falling back to ninth in the pre-final, worked back up the field for a fifth-place finish. In Sunday action White opted after qualifying ninth, to pull out of Senior for the day and focus all efforts and energy on DD2. A move that paid off in spades for the former DD2 Canadian National Champion, BSRKC Champion and FWT Champion.

ICC Shifter:

As the ECKC series introduced the ICC class for the first time in the series, Ryan Horses took to the track Saturday and delivered a trio of 3's from qualifying through the final race. Coming off a weekend at BSRKC where Horses developed a hand injury, he struggled to drive consistently and was forced to retire from Sunday’s event shortly after qualifying. Horses who has consistently been up front in ICC, was frustrated to have to pull out of the class and off of one of his favorite tracks but he knew he just wasn’t able to perform at his best and opted to rest vs. aggravate the injury further. Ryan is set to compete again in just over a week as the BSRKC series moves to Innisfill for round two.

Rotax Junior:

In the ultra competitive Junior filed, the weekend made for some interesting changes in the field as many drivers who delivered solid results in round one were shuffled back in the pack while others with mediocre results in round one, came roaring back in round two.

One of the most consistent drivers on the weekend was Austin Milwain, who was set up for a perfect day on Saturday after he grabbed the pole, and leveraged his great starting position to deliver the prefinal win. In the final Milwain maintained the lead through the first four laps but contact by the P2 kart sent the pair to the back of the field. Putting his head down Milwain then went on an incredible run working his way back up through the field to fininsh 9th. Sunday Milwain was again on pole, the 3rd of the weekend for GreenSpeed, and with the field starting to close the gap on times, Austin crossed the line fourth. The main saw the lead three break away with Milwain trying to run down the two leaders but lap after lap the top three came around with an almost identical gap of a few kart lengths separating each and the three leaders never changed from lap three though twenty. All in all a podium for Milwain and the great moves though the filed on Saturday allowed "Ozzy" to grab second place in the points hunt with the championship still very much in reach.

GreenSpeed's two other Junior drivers Ethan Livingston and Cameron Morrison struggled early in Friday practice sessions but started to dial in the set up as Saturday progressed. Both drivers came out of the prefinal the way they entered, in tenth and tewlfth respectively, but each were able to better their position in the final by exactly five spots each, crossing fifth and seventh.

On Sunday both Livingston and Morrison again got off to a slow start, both qualifying outside the top ten, but each made progress in the prefinal moving Morrison to seventh and Livingston to eighth. In the main, GreenSpeed's junior pilots got off to a great start with the trio of Milwain, Morrison, and Livingston all running inside the top eight, but in lap four Morrison was hit from behind on entry into the final corner onto the straight, spinning him sideways where he was then hit by two other dirvers including Livingston who had nowhere to go. The contact dropped Morrison back to 14th but turning it up a notch Morrison drove back though most of the positions he lost to cross 10th , with Livingston 11th. Morrison was later assessed a two position penalty for a different incident which is currently under protest. With two thirds of the ECKC series now in the books GreenSpeed still has all three of its junior drivers in the top ten in points and is looking for a very strong final two events to march all three pilots up the points ladder.

"It was a rewarding weekend for our team overall," noted team owner Mike Morrison. "We showed great speed all weekend in several classes and we are happy to come away with three poles, seven top five finishes, and four podiums. The team owes some real thanks to the tuning trio of Mike Roth, Leonard D'arrigo and Ian Macintyre who were relentless all weekend in their quest for the right set up, and to the team caterer Megan who kept us all eating the right kind of food, and great food al weekend long."

With a break from racing action this weekend, the team is looking forward to the second round of the BSRKC series at the newly resurfaced Innisfil Indy June 11-13. For more information on GreenSpeed karting please visit us at www.greenspeedkarting.com