Points Racing

Thursday night at K1 is a weird mix of people.

There’s a group of Asian students from York University up the street, taking a break from studying, laying down sub-25 second laps.

There another bunch of rowdy “bros” crashing karts into each other, getting kicked out by the manager Kevin.

There’s a group of 30-something year old women from Nissan Canada who’s boss has paid for a ‘corporate event’ that only he seems to be enjoying. Too bad one of the women didn’t put him into the wall to bring him down a notch.

Then there’s Daniel and Chris, back at the track again, trying to shave a tenth or two off their fastest times while accumulating K1RS points. The last outing at the track was busy, and there wasn’t much of a chance to get in clean laps. But this time it’s a weeknight, so most junior racers are home studying…but Daniel Demaras is on track and he’s set a personal best of 24.557 seconds. Practicing, adapting, learning.

Chris Demaras is happy just cruising around the track. Every three laps, he slows down for a cool down lap (killing his ‘average lap time’ count) to relax, tighten up his belts, and make another attempt at a quick time. Chris proudly hold up the time sheets from nearly 10 races, but he is spent…and it shows.

A young man in a custom painted helmet approached Daniel. He’d noticed Daniel’s smooth driving style. The bouncing in the seat to help accelerate out of the corners showed that Daniel was no rookie anymore. He introduces himself as Alejandro Liverant, and he’s the 2012 TRAK Rotax Senior Champion. He mentions that he recognized Daniel’s Day-Glo helmet from the track, and came over to chat. After a long discussion about Goodwood, Mosport, Team PRO and the high cost of racing, the food had gotten cold, but young Demaras was glad to have met a fellow racer.

Alejandro Liverant