Road racers, oval track racers and kart racers all met up at K1 Speed on Sunday morning to battle on track while collectively doing good for the community. The Rally Against Hunger gave racers the chance to win a ‘thrill ride of a lifetime’ for a simple food donation.
Short-oval racers were represented by McPherson Motorsports. Ben McPherson and Daniel Demaras raced against each other in the Bone Stock series this summer. While Ben’s father Gord normally turns wrenches for on his son’s No. 46, he planned on schooling his boy on the kart track. Racers David Tolton and Graydon Bunn also made the trip down to Toronto, bringing significant food donations with them.
As racers arrived, they brought contributions of 50, 60 and 75 lbs., sending the total soaring, and straining Daniel’s back as he weighed donations and calculated starting positions. Veteran kart racers Christian Menezes and Chad Webster also brought massive food donations of over 200 lbs. apiece that had to be brought in on a dolly.
The food drive had no set goal; it would have been a wild guess at how generous racers would be, especially with a big grand prize on offer. In total, the Rally Against Hunger brought in 1,220 lbs of food, with the top donor being Graydon Bunn, with a whopping 273 lbs of food donated.
A special VIP Race started off the racing portion of the event. The original plan was to have reporters from The Varsity newspaper compete against Neil Hetherington from the Daily Bread (and some ringers) but work kept Neil from the track this time.
LDRC road-racer Bryan Ramchand started on pole with Mosport Karting Centre’s Jaden Harry in P2 and K1 Speed veteran Logan Goz starting third.
This was without a doubt the most violent race of the Rally Against Hunger. With only one race to ‘go big or go home’ racers like F1200’s Jason Abrams were expected to make big moves early on. The sound of karts slamming into each other echoed through the building (bringing out a red flag), but not before Jaden Harry took the lead and the win.
Jaden won the HIP Motorsports prize; a drive in a virtual rally car on their full-motion race simulator.
Before the main event in the Rally Against Hunger got started, some very special guests from Can-Jam Motorsports arrived at the track. Will and Roel came out to represent the company that helped make this event a reality. Can-Jam Motorsports built Disaster, Crazy Leo’s rally car that’s part of the Grand Prize. And Roel is the owner / driver of the Drift Taxi, so he had a special interest in the event. They even brought an entire case of canned goods for the food drive. What a great bunch of guys!
Despite the event being sold out a week earlier, two spots in a practice session magically opened up, giving Will and Roel some track time.
With the VIP Race decided, it was time for the big race in the Rally Against Hunger to begin.