Despite an older chassis and the Ford powerplant, Craig Willis finished top-3 in the Toyo Tires F1600 A Class Championship. (Photo-Richard Coburn)

Craig Willis is ecstatic to take home third place in the 2014 Toyo Tires F1600 A Class Championship. While most drivers likely would not say the same, for Willis this has been an incredible accomplishment. Competing against brand new cars Craig has been driving the home-built Aero2, created by his Uncle and Father. This 24 year old car has some incredible history including three championships from former Formula Ford Series' in Ontario. It's glory days ended in 2003 when it was put away in storage until Craig started driving it in late 2012.

Last year Craig competed in the same series, winning the title for the B Class Championship. This class within the Toyo Tires F1600 Championship is designed to bring all cars older than 1994 together to compete on an equal playing field. Craig took away 9 of the 14 wins for the season. With very little in the way of sponsorship for 2014 he decided to take the same 1990 Aero2 and compete against all of the brand new cars in the A Class. In addition, the engine of choice for the A Class is the Honda power plant that simply was not designed to go in a much older car, so Craig stuck with the original Ford Kent motor. This would add another level of challenge for the young driver.

Going into the last weekend of the 2014 season Craig sat in third place overall but that could quickly change. Hot on his heals were Caitlin Johnston and Reid Arnold and just ahead of him was Chase Pelletier with a sizable point advantage, but anything can happen in racing.

"From the moment we rolled the car off the trailer on Friday we were suddenly plagued by a mysterious high speed hesitation," said Willis.

The car had been perfect at the previous event where Craig claimed two 2nd place finishes and abruptly they were searching for answers. Determining that they were facing an electrical problem they started changing all the usual suspects but by Saturday the problem still hadn't been cured. Fortunately it was raining and the issue would not impede performance too much.

Craig qualified 11th but that became a non-issue when more problems arose just before the race. Still trying to solve the mystery they purchased, charged and installed a new battery but determined that they also needed a new distributor.

Once installed and running well, the booster battery was unplugged only to find out that the new battery didn't work. In a mad panic Craig had to get out of the car while the old battery that resides under his knees was re-installed. The grid had already rolled onto the track for their warm-up lap when Craig arrived at the grid and was sent out to catch up. A first corner incident following the green flag and subsequent pace car allowed him to catch up to the field but there were 25 cars ahead of him. Craig worked frantically to pass as many cars as he could and managed to finish 9th in class, an outstanding drive.

Sunday, the final race of the series, presented an all-new day. Practice went extremely well, the engine miss was gone. Qualifying was very intense as everyone was quick with cooler temperatures. Craig finally broke into the 29's, without a drafting partner, when he reported that the engine had gone off and he parked the car on the back straight. In another mad scramble, parts were flying off the car to find out what was wrong. Finally diagnosing the problem and very thankful it wasn't terminal Craig was set for the race.

Qualifying eighth meant he had substantial competition ahead of him including Caitlin and Chase. The start was wild with four cars wide on the front straight hurtling towards corner one where they all managed to get through intact. Craig ended up behind Caitlin where they battled for a couple laps until Craig was able to get by. The first four cars had already created a gap when Craig made it to fifth. Recognizing that he couldn't catch the leaders without a yellow, Craig managed the train of six cars. He had created a nice gap until Max Hanratty passed Caitlin and started to close in on him. Max and Reid Arnold managed to pass Craig moving him to 7th, and then passed each other. The last lap board came out and Craig had his work cut out for him.

"I knew I had to pass one car before the back straight and the other after, so I put my head down." Craig passed Max in Corner 2, on the outside!

"They were side by side with less than a wheel width between them, but they never touched," reported spectator Robert Calisi.

Max ended up spinning in the confined racing space but didn't hit anything finishing the race in 10th. Craig continued to close the gap to Reid, catching his draft on the back straight, he popped to the outside at the top of the hill. They went through corner eight side-by-side and Craig held on to bring home 5th place. An incredible run.

Although he didn't end up on the podium this weekend, as he had hoped, he brought home third place in a championship that many didn't believe he could contend. A season full of thrills, disappointments, challenges and growth has been the ultimate year of his life...to date.

Many thanks go out to Toyo Tire F1600 Championship, Carbonio Advanced Composites, Master Mechanic, Unilock, Aim Autosport and Mom and Dad for an extraordinary year!