Golan wins FR Americas Race 1 at CTMP

Brady Golan returned to victory lane at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park winning Race 1 in Formula Regional Americas Championship competition on Friday afternoon. Starting from the front row, Golan launched perfectly to take the lead before the field reached Turn 1, and never looked back. 

Evagoras Papasavvas (No. 71 Crosslink Motorsports Ligier JS F3) led the field to green, but it was Golan (No. 40 Toney Driver Development Ligier JS F3) who took the race lead off the starting grid. Behind him, Kekai Hauanio (No. 29 N-E-Where Transport / Crosslink Motorsports Ligier JS F3) and Cooper Shipman (No. 10 Driven Dynamix / Kiwi Motorsport Ligier JS F3) engaged in a heated battle for second, running side by side as they pulled back around to complete the first lap. Racing into Turn 1, Shipman took the position, but just a few laps later Hauanio completed the crossover to take the runner-up spot. With Luke Powers (No. 5 Wallace Heating & Air/Toney Driver Development Ligier JS F3) hot on Hauanio’s tracks, the pressure didn’t stop there. The Crosslink Motorsports driver spun in Turn 5, allowing both Powers and Shipman to pass before rejoining the circuit in fourth.

The group continued in that order until the yellow flag was displayed for the incident between Papasavvas and Christian Bogle (No. 7 Pelican Energy Consultants / Toney Driver Development Ligier JS F3) in Turn 5. With extensive clean up required, the checkered flag was displayed as Golan crossed the line, followed by Powers and Shipman.

“It was a pretty smooth sailing race for us, honestly,” said Golan after climbing from the car. I got [Papasavvas] at the start, and then held the lead all the way through. The car has been a rocketship all year, so I’m really happy to bring home some hardware. I have to thank my parents, everybody at TDD and on the No. 40 car; it’s been amazing all year.”

In the Master’s Cup championship, Kevin Janzen (No. 24 US Power Group / Data Center Solutions / Crosslink Motorsports Ligier JS F3) came out on top after an action-packed race. Joining Canada-based Atlantic Racing this weekend, Whitney Strickland (No. 77 TF Companies / Atlantic Racing Ligier JS F3) raced wheel-to-wheel with Janzen for much of the race before finishing second. Anthony Autiello (No. 07 Hope For The Warriors / Momentum Motorsports Ligier JS F3) recovered from an early spin to finish third.

“This race was fun,” said Janzen. “It was eventful. I had a really cool start – one of the best starts of my life. This guy [Autiello], I don’t know how he did it. He swerved by me on the outside of Turn 1. I couldn’t believe it; I was saying, ‘Man, I can’t do better than that!’ Then, I had some good battles with Whitney. We almost had maybe the worst crash ever – it was so close – but we didn’t somehow; we survived. It was so much fun. A lot of work, but a real big smile to go out there and get the win.”

FR Americas is back on track tomorrow at 11:20am ET for Race 2 from CTMP’s Labour Day Weekend Sprints. The event will stream live on YouTube.com/@RacingAmericaTV,