The twists and turns of Canadian Tire Motorsport Park were filled with action this past weekend.

The NASCAR Pinty’s Series was at the historic venue for its second last round of the season.

With major championship implications hinging on the results, there was a lot of pressure on the contenders throughout the weekend.

Practice
Saturday practice was an eventful session, topped by Marc-Antoine Camirand with Treyten Lapcevich right behind him.

It sets a captivating tone to the rest of the weekend, showing that both drivers have the speed to be dueling at the front come qualifying and the race.

Camirand’s 1:22.161 put him .281 seconds ahead of his championship rival and .421 quicker than Alex Labbé in third. Rookie Kyle Steckly and Andrew Ranger rounded out the top five.

The youngster put in the fourth fastest time of a 1:22.662, .025 ahead of fifth and five tenths off the top of the leaderboard.

One shock in the session was Alex Tagliani, who ended up 12th fastest and was 1.530 seconds off the pace of Camirand.

Qualifying

One of the most important qualifying sessions of the year took place Saturday evening, helping set the stage for Sunday.

One hour to determine not only the field, but also set up the battle for either a title win, or one more chance in Delaware.

In the end, it was Dumoulin landing on pole ahead of Camirand and Labbé, with Lacroix and Alex Guenette rounding out the top five.

Lapcevich put himself on the back foot for Sunday, only managing to qualify in 7th, meaning he’ll have some work to do in order to seal the title, needing to beat the St. Léonard d'Aston, Que. Native by 10 or more points.

Race

The green flag dropped and there were some early battles going on between Camirand and Dumoulin with the former taking the lead off the start until the latter made a fantastic move along the outside of turn eight to move back ahead a few laps later.

The race entered a calm state around lap 12 to 13 with green flag pit stops, until a caution came out around lap 29 for a stalled vehicle on the back straightaway.

Racing got back underway on lap 37, but the field didn’t even complete one lap before the engine on Ranger’s Chevrolet let go, spreading oil throughout turn 10, which caused the crashes of Gary Klutt and Wallace Stacey.

This incident caused a red flag, as major cleanup of the spilled fluid and stranded racecars was needed.

When racing got back underway with eight laps to go, Lacroix took the lead from Tagliani and began to check out from the field.

But there was one driver that was determined not to make this easy for him.

Dumoulin, who restarted fifth, was on a charge with fresher tires and making moves through the field. Upon getting to second, started chunking into Lacroix’s lead at a rate of around .500 seconds a lap.

By the time the white flag came out, the two were bumper to bumper heading into turn one.

After searching for an opportunity in the first two sectors, Dumoulin made his move into turn eight, going around the outside. Lacroix held firm as the two went hot into turn nine, setting up one last shot into the final corner.

It could have been a bump and run, it could have been an opportunity to get aggressive, but that wasn’t something that happened.

Dumoulin raced clean and in the end, Lacroix hung on for the win, his first of the season.

In the post-race press conference, that last lap was a topic of conversation.

“We all want to win,” Dumoulin said to reporters. “But I want to win the proper way. In the last corner there it would have been super easy to just drive into him and get the win.”

Camirand rounded out the top three and set the series’ single season record with nine podiums and 12 top fives.

This result means the title race between he and Lapcevich goes onto the final round, where he knows it will be a tall task.

“It’s going to be hard to fight against him,” said Camirand after the race. “He’s going to be pretty good over there…we’re going to push really hard to the end, and we’ll see what we can do at Delaware.”

A strong run from D.J. Kennington sees him finish in fourth while Labbé’s up and down race was punctuated with him rounding out the top five.

The 30 year-old suffered shifter problems but then recovered to lead the most laps in the race.

Points leader Lapcevich came home in sixth, having a quiet and respectable race while keeping himself out of trouble.

He will look ahead to Delaware in order to secure his first Pinty’s Series title.