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Mini Max
PSL West Mini Max Saturday Report
New faces at the top of the order in Mini Max this year with a number of drivers graduated to Junior. The 15-minute session was dominated
by three drivers. Fast driver on Friday Sebastian Alvarez (CRG) held the provisional until Payton Durrant (Tony Kart) jumped up to the top.
Durrant held on to the end of the session with Alvarez off by 21 thousandths from the 54.923 lap of the Koene USA driver. Oregon driver Austin
Torgerson (Tony Kart) was right there with the top two, coming in at just 42 thousandths off Durrant’s time. Canadian Griffin Dowler (Kosmic)
was fourth with former Micro Max champion Jacob Blue Hudson (FA Kart) in fifth.
The Prefinal was decided at the opening corner as Alvarez was able to beat top qualifier Durrant for the lead at the exit. Durrant slotted into
second with Hudson and Torgerson trailing. Hudson held second briefly, but Durrant was able to hold on to the runner-up spot. Alvarez took
the win by two tenths with Durrant second. Torgerson moved up to third on the final lap, pushing Hudson back to fourth. Jak Crawford (Tony
Kart), the 2014 Micro Max Challenge champion, ran fifth early on but lost the spot to Canadian Marco Kacic (CRG) with Dowler back to sixth.
Alvarez held the lead from the pole position with Dowler moving ahead of Durrant. The two went back and forth early for several laps for the
runner-up position, until Hudson came in and took the spot. Once there, he helped the group to reel in Alvarez, which began some jostling for
the win. On lap 14, contact shuffled the group up, including Durrant going off course and dropping back to eighth. Then on lap 16, contact
took Torgerson and Hudson out of contention. During that time, Dowler took over the lead and was able to drive away to the victory. Crawford
was second, but Kacic was able to move into the position by the checkered flag, also scoring the fast lap of the race. Alvarez ended up fourth
with Niemkiewicz in fifth.
Griffin Dowler