Sunoco Ron Fellows Karting Championship presented by Toronto Star Wheels - Roth and Roll at Mosport

Roth, Wickens, Hinchcliffe, Mascoll, Oakman and Herder take wins in season 
opener

MOSPORT, ONTARIO - The season opening rounds of the Sunoco Ron Fellows 
Karting Championship presented by Toronto Star Wheels kicked off on the May 
10-11 weekend at Mosport International Raceway - with over 300 entries for 
the two-day event.

On Saturday, the only SRFKC class on the schedule was Formula Junior. 
Hurricane Racing's PTK (Paul Tracy Kart) driver, Guelph's Robert Wickens 
dominated both rounds over First Kart's Nelson Mason and Birel's Daniel Morad.
"I was hoping things would go as well as last year," defending Formula 
Junior Champion Wickens said. "The PTK was great and this is a good way to 
kick off a title defense."

Sunday's scheduled called for two rounds for each of the remaining five 
classes, but Mother Nature played a big part in the decision to shorten the 
schedule to one round for double points and double money. The rain and fog 
had settled in, calling Mosport home for most of the day.

By mid afternoon, teams were presented with a drying track, just in time 
for Canada Senior to take to the track.
 From the drop of the green flag, Canada Senior was a two-driver race for 
the win between Gold Kart's Rob Oakman and Marc Stehle, with Oakman taking 
the win by just .051 of a second. Third place finisher, CMP's Frank Launi 
came from 15th on the grid to take a well-deserved podium.

Canada Junior defending champion, Birel's Daniel Morad had two podiums in 
Saturday's Formula Junior races, but Morad's title defense got off to a bad 
start. "It was a last minute decision for us to run Canada Junior," the 
defending champ from Markham said. Problems in qualifying, and a spin early 
in the race, left Morad with a 19th place finish. The battle for Canada 
Junior win was between Gold Kart's Pearce Herder, CMP's Michael Glaze and 
Saturday's Formula Junior winner Robert Wickens. The three battled all race 
long and Glaze took the lead from Herder with just a few laps to go. Herder 
battled back to take the win by a scant .160 of a second over Glaze, with 
Wickens third.
"I didn't think they had enough to draft by me," Herder said after the 
race. "But I just went back to work and got the lead back." Herder also 
took home the day's GM Racing award for 'displaying outstanding competition 
skills and sportsmanship'.

RotaxMax is one of the new classes for 2003 and an impressive field of 75 
drivers showed up to contest the class. Pfaff Motorsports pole winner, Gold 
Kart driver Aaron de heus spun on the warm-up lap sending him to the back 
of the field, where he was joined by several other drivers that had also 
spun on the warm up lap.
First Kart's James Hinchcliffe jumped into the early lead and he held it 
until the red flag came out for an incident involving third place runner 
Jason Robar and a lapped kart that ended the race. Second went to Shawn 
Gardner, Robar hung onto third as a result of the official scoring going 
back to the final completed race lap. "It was a mess out there," 
Hinchcliffe said. "So much traffic, thankfully my First Kart would go where 
I put it. I am so lucky to have missed that spinner."

World Formula is the other new class to the series and PTK's Justin Mascoll 
went flag-to-flag for the win. CMP's Sal Ditta was second and Don Brett was 
third. Winnipeg's Jennifer Carlson was on a charge in her Birel. Starting 
24th, she come home seventh.

The headline class of the Sunoco Ron Fellows Karting Championship presented 
by Toronto Star Wheels is the Formula Senior class that features 120 mph 
six speed shifter karts. Birel's Mike Roth was in the championship hunt 
until the final race in 2002, and at Mosport he served notice that he was a 
serious contender for the 2003 title. Roth took the Pfaff Motorsports pole, 
and then led every lap to take the win.
"I am happy to get the year off to a good start," the Birel driver said. "I 
pushed hard the first couple of laps, then I looked back and saw Juliana 
[Chiovitti] and James [Hinchcliffe] fighting for position, so I just backed 
off a bit to save the equipment."

Behind Roth the battle for second was fierce. Chiovitti had her Birel in 
second spot and she wasn't giving it up to Formula Senior rookie 
Hinchcliffe. "It was a good fight," Chiovitti said. "But I wasn't leaving 
the track with James ahead of me."
Twice Hinchcliffe got past Chiovitti on the way into the sharp left-hand 
turn eight under braking, and twice Chiovitti re-passed Hinchcliffe on the 
exit of the turn.
"I tried it twice, but with all the rain in the morning, it was really 
slippy on the outside of the track and she got back by me," Hinchcliffe 
said after the race. Rounding out the top five in Formula Senior were Frank 
Launi, who started back in 20th and Cale Meeks.

The Pratt & Miller Engineering award for the 'participants who exhibit the 
highest levels of teamwork in the areas of presentation, preparation and 
results' went to the Hamilton Kart club, who showed up with a total of 96 
drivers - most of whom competed in the two new classes, RotaxMax and World 
Formula.

For a complete schedule of the event, visit www.asncanada.com or for 
directions to Mosport visit www.mosport.com. Future events will be held at 
Innisfil on May 31 - June 1, The Grand Prix of Barrie on June 20-22, Sutton 
on July 5-6, Hamilton on July 19-20 and the series finale will go at 
Goodwood on September 27-28.

The objective of the SRFKC is to help foster a professional environment for 
kart drivers; help create a positive attitude towards appearance, conduct 
and discipline; help foster the employment of the best practices for the 
safe and fair running of competitions; and help kart drivers to move up the 
racing ladder to automobile racing.
At the end of the season, eight drivers will be selected from the series, 
plus two drivers from the ASN Canadian National Championships. They will be 
invited to a one-day evaluation test at the Bridgestone/Firestone Racing 
Academy at Mosport, provided they are 16 years of age prior to the date of 
the test. Out of those 10 drivers, two will earn a full scholarship to the 
2004 the 2003 Bridgestone / FormulaCar Magazine F2000 Racing Series.