Super Series Round #6: Ayrton Demoss claims career win #3

The second half of the CalSpeed Super Series 2021 season continued in the reverse direction, and round #6 took to the Grande CCW layout to finish out the month of June in sport karting. The front of the field would be a mix of usual suspects and some new faces, and we were treated another fantastic race for the win, with talk around the paddock starting to edge towards how the points stack up…

Andres Prieto made in 2 in in a row for pole positions on the longest of the counter clockwise layouts, scoring a convincing fast time to claim the first starting spot for heat 1a. He would be joined in the top three bonus point positions by Sprint Series standouts Michael Martin in 2^nd, and Carl Zhu in third. Of the three however, only Prieto would capitalize on his favorable starting position by scoring a heat race win, as overall hardware contenders Ayrton Demoss and Michael Hazlewood claimed those wins in the first set of heats. Joining the trio would be some different faces at the front in the second set og three heats, as Kiron Chakraborty continued his break out season with a dub, Donnie Clarke took down his first heat win of the season, and Heather Perrin scored her first career heat race win as well. Overall, it would be Andres Prieto leading the field away for the A-Main, adding a P4 in his second heat to his heat one win and pole position in qualy…

Jenna Chin would lead the field away for the first main of the day, and immediately got out to a near 1 second lead over P2 Shelby Blecker on lap 1. Unfortunately, a mistake through the Short Beach corner would spell the end of her chances, as she plowed into the exit barrier at the start of lap 2, handing over the top spot to Blecker. Shelby would continue to lead the first half of the race, but would be challenged at the halfway point by young Joey Andrews. Andrews worked his way up from just inside the top 5 to take over the top spot on lap 7, and would hold on to eventually score his first win by a comfortable margin as the rest of the field battled behind him.

Unlike the B-Main, the A-Main would be a pretty straightforward affair, as long time sport karter Nick Marascio would take over the lead from the P2 starting spot on lap one, and go unchallenged for the 12 lap affair. A good part of why he was unchallenged, as the battle royal that ensued behind him for p2 starting immediately, helping produce a gap that would never be bridge. For their parts, James Lieser and Tony Wika would break away from the rest of the pack, but while they were as fast or faster than Marascio, it would not be enough to eat up the deficit, making for a just over 1 second win for Nick at the checkers, with Wika second and Lieser third.

Andres Prieto would be joined by Super Series rookie Michael Martin on the front row for the start of the A-Main, with the latter having some difficulty in his very first attempt. Because of that, the inside row would have the advantage heading into Short Beach for the very first time, but it would not be Prieto with the lead at the end of lap 1. Instead, Sean Fite would claim the top spot, and hold onto the lead for the opening two circuits with Prieto, Ayrton Demoss, Paulo Franca and Max Demoss in tow.

On lap three the attack came from Demoss, slotting into the lead from P3, with Prieto holding on, Franca come through to third and Fite slipping down the order to 4^th. They’d run that way for a couple of laps before Franca made his move to the runner up position, the catalyst probably coming from Ayrton beginning to pull away. Once Paulo made it by it was clear that he had the pace, and over the next almost 10 laps he slowly began to reel in the leader and was in position to challenge for the win with a couple laps to play. And challenge he did, sizing up Demoss and applying plenty of pressure in the final laps, but Demoss would not put a wheel wrong, claiming his third career win, and his second podium in a row. While Franca had to settle for 2^nd, it was his 4^th podium of the year, and a solid points day for him in the championship.

Behind the fight for the win was a huge battle for third; Prieto had it at first with Fite and the elder Demoss right there with him, but things really started to heat up right about the halfway point. Demoss would attack and take over in third, then have to fight off fellow Masters driver Diego Morales and several others before securing his first career podium in the Super Series.

Super Series Round #6 Top 10 Results

1. Ayrton Demoss
2. Paulo Franca
3. Max Demoss [M]
4. Tyler Redman
5. Andrew Wood
6. Andres Prieto
7. Donnie Clarke [S]
8. Diego Morales [M]
9. Carl Zhu [S]
10. Sean Fite