Music: {allcanada} 2010 Review: Canadian Tire Series Wrap-Up

As the year 2010 comes to a close, a final adieu must be bid to the fourth season of the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series presented by Mobil 1. The year was highlighted by DJ Kennington's long overdue first championship, but now it's time to close the book on the year passed.

T.O.
In July for the first time since its inception in 2007, the Canadian Tire Series competed within the city limits of Toronto – Canada's largest city. After taking over the city's IZOD IndyCar Series event in 2009, Honda Indy Toronto organizers extended an invitation for a Saturday afternoon race to the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series. After years of successful CASCAR events in Toronto, the competitors were delighted at the addition to the schedule. With many sponsors based in the Greater Toronto Area, race teams seized the opportunity and used the event to host their business partners and activate marketing campaigns. In the race, Andrew Ranger collected the inaugural victory after dueling with JR Fitzpatrick for most of the afternoon.

Live From…
The NASCAR Canadian Tire Series had a pair of races telecast nationally on TSN in 2010. Both the Toronto and Montreal races were aired live on TSN, Canada's sports leader on television. The network is home to NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and NASCAR Nationwide Series events, in addition to, the one-hour race recap shows shown for the balance of the Canadian Tire Series events. These were the first two live broadcasts on TSN, but its French-speaking counterpart, RDS, has aired the Montreal event live each year since 2007.

King Of The Road
Ranger, the two-time series champion, spent the better part of his season competing in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East, but he did find time to compete in five Canadian Tire Series races in 2010. Four of those events came on road courses. As has been the case since he began his stock-car career, Ranger displayed his prowess on the road-course tracks by picking up wins in Toronto, Trois-Rivieres and Montreal. He finished second to Fitzpatrick at Mosport International Raceway. In 16 career road-course starts, the product of Roxton Pont, Que., has nine wins, five second-place finishes and a third-place result. Additionally, Ranger collected a pair of wins – California's Infineon Raceway and Connecticut's Lime Rock Park – in K&N Pro Series competition.

Left Turns Only
Just as impressive as Ranger was on the road courses, Kennington was as equally so on the ovals. In his eight 2010 starts on oval tracks, Kennington picked up five victories, six poles, seven top fives and eight top 10s. He started off the season on a strong note with a win at Delaware (Ont.) Speedway, his home track, and followed that up with wins at Autodrome St. Eustache (Que.) and Auto Clearing Motor Speedway in Saskatoon, Sask. At crunch time in September, the driver out of St. Thomas, Ont., came up with triumphs at Barrie (Ont.) Speedway and Riverside International Speedway in Antigonish, N.S. In his series career, Kennington has nine wins, 23 top fives and 28 top-10 finishes in 34 starts on ovals.

Battle Royale
Highly competitive races with fantastic finishes have been a staple in the Canadian Tire Series, but for whatever reason that spirited competition never translated into heated points battles for the championship. The points lead never changed hands more than three times in a season. The 2010 race season changed that, however. Kennington and Fitzpatrick waged a season-long battle of the series crown. The two exchanged the points lead six times during the year before Kennington emerged as the victor.

In The Nick Of Time
As with any outdoor sport, weather plays a large factor. This year, the Canadian Tire Series fared pretty well, but, on more than one occasion, there was not much time to spare. After closing out the 2009 season with a pair of rescheduled dates, the 2010 season didn't start off much better. In the opener at Delaware Speedway, rain was in the area all day and began to fall during the race. On the bright side, though, it remained light and intermittent up until Kennington's Victory Lane celebration when the heavier precipitation came. The post-race rain shower also made appearances at both Mosport International Raceway and Mosport Speedway near Bowmanville, Ont., along with the GP3R 100 at the Grand Prix de Trois-Rivieres. Dark, threatening clouds began to move into Toronto from Lake Ontario during the Jumpstart 100, but they cleared the area without impacting the race at all. Certainly not a perfect meteorological season, but the spirit of the racers, teams and fans was never dampened in 2010.

Soon the calendar will change and the 2010 NASCAR Canadian Tire Series presented by Mobil 1 season slides into the annals and becomes history. A new year brings renewed vigor for all the race teams along with high hopes and the dream of donning the crown in 2011.