After a qualifying wreck for the NASCAR Pinty’s Series race on the Streets of Toronto, Kevin Lacroix’s team purchased a car from Scott Steckly’s team overnight and brought it to Exhibition Place with high hopes for the first street course race of the season.
However, it was all for nought as the winner from Jukasa Motor Speedway last month crashed that car and finished 16th in the 19 car field on Sunday.
“We needed more than one day or one night to make a car good,” Lacroix told Short Track Scene after the race. “We tried the best we could to make it driveable, but really, it was just a matter of time before I crashed it. It was un-driveable. First time out with the car was in the race, so it’s tough and I did the best I could.
“The whole weekend was one to forget.”
READ MORE: Andrew Ranger celebrates third Pinty’s Grand Prix victory
Qualifying fourth, Lacroix had to drop to the rear of the field with his new car and climbed all the way to seventh before his afternoon began to unravel.
The Quebec native had a flat tire on the warm up lap but was back to 12th by Lap 16. Two laps later, he had moved up three more positions and by Lap 26 he was seventh. He was ninth when he hit the wall in Turn 5 on Lap 31, ending his race.
“It feels bad really because we knew we bought the car from Scott,” said Lacroix. “We knew that they have good cars, it’s just it was not racing for a year and we don’t know what they did to the car and we just took the car last night and put the mechanic in and we needed to go testing before racing with it but it was not possible so it’s just a shame.
“I was not really comfortable with the car. One lap I would be really fast, the other lap I would make a mistake because it was not really comfortable. It’s just a shame, we had good expectations coming here and we’re going away, we were coming from Chaudière with bad luck and we’re leaving here with bad luck again.”
The championship leader after his win at Jukasa, Lacroix is now seventh in points and 22 markers behind the likes of Andrew Ranger, LP Dumoulin, MA Camirand, Cole Powell, DJ Kennington and Alex Tagliani.
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