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| January 25, 2010 |
| Driver News: Devlin DeFrancesco - Florida Winter Tour Orlando Rotax Report |
 | Rotax weekend one was anything but a celebration
(Photo: On Track Promotions - otp.ca) |
When the brightest memory he can take from a race weekend is celebrating a birthday between rounds, one knows it wasn’t a typical race outing for Devlin DeFrancesco. Returning to Orlando Kart Centre a week ago for the opening round of the Florida Winter Tour Rotax Max Challenge, DeFrancesco endured one of the roughest outings of his young career and was fortunate to walk away with Double-DNF’s at the end of it - fortunate because the walk came after his worst crash to date.
The weekend began well enough for the Mini-Max rookie, as DeFrancesco timed just outside the top ten among a field of 44 in Friday practice. He then posted P13 in morning warm-up and took a direct pass to the prefinal when he timed 21st in qualifying. Unaccustomed to sitting so deep in a starting grid, the DeFrancesco Racing pilot was quick to make amends. Running a near-perfect start in the run to turn one, he exited well up the grid, and by the end of the first lap was sitting an incredible eighth place, thirteen spots forward! He continued the charge on lap two, and had climbed all the way to fifth early in the lap before being unceremoniously taken out. The offending driver was penalized post-race, but it was little consolation to DeFrancesco who was left sitting P30 and driving with a bent spindle and tie rod. He managed to scrape back three spots on his way to the prefinal checker.
Things went little better in the Saturday main, as DeFrancesco retired at half distance of a fifteen-lap final. Returning Sunday as a ten-year-old birthday boy, he took a quick hold in tricky conditions and posted the third-fastest time of morning warm-up. Feeling better after nursing an illness during the week, he qualified P13 in the morning session and for the second straight day produced an incredible start and first lap in the prefinal. Capitalizing from an inside line, he was sixth by the end of lap one! Multiple position scraps followed over ten laps, and when all was said and done DeFrancesco crossed P12. It was to prove the high point of the day, as the final was devastating. Just three laps in, a brush with the barriers sent the Alonso Kart driver into a full heli-spin and DeFrancesco was thrown from his kart. The result besides the obvious retirement, was a badly bruised leg and a shaken-and-stirred ten-year-old.
As a result DeFrancesco took a pass on this weekend’s Homestead Karting Fall Championship finale, but early reports have him ready, willing and able to make the Championship Karting International Florida Cup opener this week running Vortex TaG Cadet. It will begin his third championship of the season, after back-to-back Winter Tour starts. For more information on the reigning Canadian National Micro-Max Champion, please visit http://www.devlindefrancesco.com |
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