TORRENTIAL downpour at the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park (Mosport) caused limited visibility, and eventually hampered young Guyanese Rayden Persaud in his event.

Competing in the Junior Rok Class of the Canadian Karting Championship, Persaud managed to qualify eight on the grid of 18 drivers in the earlier session.

Qualifying was split into three groups, considering the large number of competitors, and Persaud led the first group on track in wet conditions.

He returned a 1.11.7 seconds time which was the average of the first session, but as the second and third group came out, the track dried out allowing for faster times to be attained.

Added to that was a speedier approach to qualifying, which only featured two hot laps, as against in Guyana where drivers are given five laps.

In today’s heat, however; a sudden downpour meant that the dry weather slicks had to be swapped for the wet weather tyres literally minutes before the race began.

However, some expert mechanical work by Stefan Jeffrey allowed for them to just make pre-grid seconds before they were let out onto the track.

While the formation lap started with a light drizzle, by the time they got to the starter, a full storm was on. A false start did not help Persaud either, as he fell to the back and could not get back to his spot in time when the race was restarted.

That, coupled with poor visibility saw him end 15th, but still optimistic of a better performance.

“Yeah, it was bad today (yesterday). I couldn’t see. But I’ll still start eighth tomorrow (today) so there is some hope to make the best of that. It was my first race here in the wet, so I am learning,” he said.