TORONTO, Ont. – Rookie Darren Keane will travel north of the border as he makes his street course debut through the streets of Toronto as the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda stages Round 6 of the 2017 Championship this weekend. Having competed in all of the events so far this year other than the season-opening St. Pete race and the previous oval event at Iowa Speedway, Keane has showed continuous improvement in his rookie year of competition.
Keane looks to build on his top-10 finish in his most recent outing at Road America three weeks ago driving for Newman Wachs Racing in the No. 36 entry.
Without the ability to test on a temporary street circuit, Keane has been doing all he can to prepare himself for the double-header event at the 11-turn, 1.75-mile concrete-lined street circuit.
“Toronto will be my first street race and I've been practicing some techniques on iRacing that my engineer told me will be essential to street course success,” said Keane. “But iRacing does not have Toronto so I've been practicing on other tracks. I also spent some time at GPX lab in Miami running the actual Toronto track on their sim. So I’m hoping this preparation will yield strong results this weekend.”
As a rookie, most of the tracks on the Cooper Tires USF2000 schedule have been new to Keane, but the 17-year-old racer has shown his ability to adapt to new circuits quickly and apply his lessons learned.
“My main goal this weekend is to just keep improving,” said Keane. “Again, having a clean weekend is essential to that goal, as I will have limited time to adapt to the challenges a street course provides. It is paramount that I keep the car in one piece throughout the weekend, so I can maximize the time I have on track, and hopefully have a strong finish to show for it at the end of the two races. I would love to have a top-eight finish – I think this is completely achievable as long as we have some clean racing.”
Staged as part of the Mazda Road to Indy, the Toronto event is a popular one, with a large crowd of spectators expected for the three-day weekend.
The Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda will see just one practice session ahead of qualifying and two races. Race 1 goes green on Saturday at 12:00 PM ET while Race 2 is set for a 9:40 AM start time on Sunday.