Nearing the midway point of the NASCAR Pinty’s Series season
and the Canadian national tour has developed quite the championship battle.
Alex Tagliani became the fourth different winner in four
races to open the season two weeks ago on the Streets of Toronto and closed the
gap on leaders Andrew Ranger and Kevin Lacroix — both whom had over 20-plus
points over the rest of the field.
Tagliani gained seven spots on Ranger and is now just 14
markers behind. Lacroix is just two behind Ranger. Meanwhile, defending
champion LP Dumoulin is a manageable 22 points behind.
Tagliani is still working towards his first NASCAR championship
and admits that his short track program is the weakest behind the two street
courses and his natural road course background. It was especially important for
Tagliani to win Toronto with three consecutive short track races next on the
schedule — two at Saskatoon on Wednesday night and another on Saturday night
at Edmonton.
“We got aggressive with some things at Jukasa and
probably should have gone back to the old reliable,” Tagliani said.
“So, we have some work do with the short ovals. We salvaged a fifth, which
was a lot better than I think we were that day and that was important because
it’s about the averages.
“To win a championship, you have to average a
fifth-place. We always want more but if our worst days are fifth, that’s going
to go well. The important thing out west is that it’s three short ovals in four
days. That’s almost a quarter of the races. The two at Saskatoon are important
because that’s 96 points available if you can win both. So, we’ll want to play
it smart in that first race, fifth-place average, and go all out for the win in
the second race.”
The twin 125 nature of Saskatoon lends itself to first-time winners,
especially in that first race with so many championship contenders making sure
their car is in reliable shape for the nightcap. Donald Theetge and Cole Powell
earned their first victories at ‘The Toon’ last year.
Ranger has enjoyed a resurgent season to date, his first in three
years, a slump he cites was due to an unfair regulation against his new M1 MOPAR
engine. But now his engine is on a level playing field and the results reflect
it.
But this is going to be a true test for the two-time
champion as he has not traditionally enjoyed the western swing. With the
exception of one Edmonton win in 2014, Ranger typically finishes around fifth
in the prairies.
Like Tagliani said, that’s enough for championship preservation,
but he wants more.
“I haven’t had a lot of good days out west,”
Ranger said. “We’re going to go out there and get the best we can and hope
we’re still in the championship lead when we return home to Trois-Rivières because
we’re really good there.”
The wild card in all of this is Dumoulin, who is much better
than his 6.6 season average to date indicates. The two-time defending champion
finished in third, fourth and third at Bowmanville, Jukasa and Toronto and was
caught up in a crash with Jason Hathaway at Autodrome Chaudière.
It’s even more remarkable that Dumoulin finished on the podium
at Exhbition Place because he did so with an engine problem throughout the
race.
He won at Edmonton last year en route to the championship so
it stands to reason that the 47 will get back on track this week as well.
The first race on Wednesday night in Sakatoon goes green at 8
p.m. ET at the Wyatt Group Raceway. The second Twin 125 is slated to start at 10:30
p.m. The races will air live on FansChoice.TV in the United States and on the
TSN app in Canada.
The complete NASCAR Pinty’s championship standings can be found below.
- Andrew Ranger
- Kevin Lacroix -2
- Alex Tagliani -14
- L.P. Dumoulin -22
- D.J. Kennington -34
- Alex Labbe -38
- Mark Dilley -38
- Jason White -40
- Jason Hathaway -41
- Donald Theetge -41
- Marc-Antoine Camirand -49
- Brett Taylor -50
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