The Hot Wheels INDYCAR Junior Grand Prix powered by K1 Speed rolls into the Toronto area on Friday, July 13 to complete a championship field.
The top three finishers of the Toronto event will join similar finishers from recent competitions in Indianapolis and Arlington, Texas, for the Hot Wheels INDYCAR Junior Grand Prix Championship at San Francisco’s K1 Speed facility on Sept. 13. The finals will be held in conjunction with the 2018 Verizon IndyCar Series finale, the Grand Prix of Sonoma (Sept. 14-16).
All karting qualifiers earn trips to the finals, where they and their families also will be invited to attend INDYCAR’s season finale weekend.
The Toronto round – open to karters ages 8-14 – will be held at the K1 Speed facility at 75 Carl Hall Road, Unit 9, in North York, Ontario. Check-in begins at 4:30 p.m. ET July 13. For more information, visit k1speed.com/jrgrandprix.html. The Toronto qualifier is being run in conjunction with the Honda Indy Toronto, the 12th race of the Verizon IndyCar Series season that takes place July 15 on the streets of Exhibition Place.
INDYCAR drivers Josef Newgarden (Indianapolis), James Hinchcliffe (Arlington, Texas) and Robert Wickens (Toronto) are serving as Junior Grand Prix mentors at the qualifying events and will help host the karters in Sonoma. The INDYCAR drivers can relate to the Junior Grand Prix because most had Hot Wheels growing up.
Now in its 50th year, the Hot Wheels diecast car is the No. 1-selling toy in the world, with 16.5 Hot Wheels sold every second. The name came from the first response of Mattel co-founder Elliott Handler upon seeing the first design rolling along the floor.
“Those are some hot wheels,” he said.
Host site K1 Speed has more than 30 karting facilities across the United States and Canada.
Karters who qualified for the championship thus far are:
Indianapolis round: First place, Jacob Bolen, Leland, Illinois; second place, Joshua Bolen, Leland, Illinois; third place Elliott Cox, Indianapolis.
Arlington, Texas, round: First place, Robert David Warren Jr., Mansfield, Texas; second place, Nathan Jurgens, Dallas, Texas; third place, Huston Cornish, Fort Worth, Texas.
Watch here for a recap of the Texas event: