Legault races away with Ontario Open Championship.

The Kyle Legault domination of Canadian speedway shows no sign of deterioration as he raced away with the Ontario Open Championship at the Paris speedway over the weekend. Philip Lemay took the division two event while Shawn Morrison was the division three victor.

In the Ontario Open the race format was the traditional 16 man, 20-heat program with the four top scorers moving forward to a final race and the winner based on total points for the night. None of the meeting favorites slipped up in the early heats and only two points separated the top six after three rounds of racing. Kyle Legault and Craig Estelle were unbeaten, Joe Heye and Aaron Hesmer were a point back with Jerry Harman and Bobby Muszynski two adrift.

While Heye, Harman, and Hesmer kept up their challenge with wins in the next round something had to give when Legault, Muszynski and Estelle went head to head. Legault and Muszynski hit the first turn fractionally ahead of Estelle who was forced wide and the race was on. Legault picked off Muszynski on the first lap and raced off for the win. Estelle looked likely to take second as Muszynki, racing for the first time this year, appeared to be tiring. But unfortunately for him he was pinned outside him as Muszynski drifted out to the boards and took him with him and all but out of the race. Fred Legault seized his chance to move into second and Muszynski kept going to take third while Estelle could only restart and circle round for fourth.

The first heat in the final round was crucial as Heye, Harman, Hesmer and Estelle were all in it and needing points. Heye made the gate and led from start to finish with Estelle holding off Hesmer's challenge for second while Harman was at the back. In the third lap Hesmer got the entry into turn three wrong and to avoid Estelle's rear wheel went right out to the fence allowing Harman to move past and take third. This mistake meant the end of the night for Hesmer as it left him tied with points with Estelle and Harman for the last two places in the final four and eliminated as a result of finishing behind them when they met.

All four finalists still had a chance to win as they came to the tapes but Legault left nothing to chance and after he found a tiny gap to squeeze past Estelle out of turn four the result was never in doubt. His win was popular with the fans and put an exclamation point to his domination of racing at Paris this summer.

Behind him Heye was in excellent form and had his best finish of the year. While Craig Estelle could feel unlucky with the manner in which he lost points in his critical fourth race, fellow American Harman was delighted with his fourth place finish. Tribute is also due to Michel Lemay who aggravated his injured shoulder during the meeting but resisted the recommendation of the St John Ambulance staff to sit out the rest of the night, continued to race and managed a sixth place finish with a truly gutsy performance.

The division two event provided some exciting racing and division three more than its share of minor spills. Fortunately those involved escaped with minor scrapes and bruises.

Phil Small was ahead in points with 15, while John Perry had 14 and Phil Lemay 13. Phil Mosquera was the other finalist but with 9 points he could not catch Small. Perry's hopes vanished as the tapes went up when his engine gave up the ghost and he could only watch as the others raced away. Lemay grabbed the lead and although Small stayed close for most of the race, he stretched his advantage over the final lap for a comfortable win. The two point differential between first and second place tied him on points with Small and gave him the title based on his higher placing in the final heat.

Best effort of the night was a never say die ride by Small in his final qualifying heat. Last after the first lap, he moved to third but still followed Lemay and race leader Charland as they approached the final turns. Lemay opted for the inside line leaving the outside to Small. It proved to be a bad choice as he was pinned behind Charland while Small was able to find the drive to power around both and snatch the win on the run to the line.

The competition in D3 was not nearly as close as the anticipated battle between Shawn Morrison and John Bennett simply did not happen. Both Bennett and last week's winner Paul Martin had meetings they will want to forget as Bennett hit the track four times during the night and Martin went down three times. Going into the final Morrison had a four-point edge over his nearest rivals and only needed to finish to take the title. It took three tries to complete this but although Jocelyn Lesieur overtook him on the final lap to deprive him of a maximum score the title was his by a comfortable margin.

Quite a night for Morrison as not only did he win the championship he finally moved past Bennett, after weeks of chasing him, in the hunt for the season's high points total and must now be favored to complete the double by clinching this next week.