Round 4 of the Ferrari North America 360 Challenge was a slugfest in the wet, throughout the opening days of this year's Air Canada Grand Prix.

The rain fell like 1/4" ball bearings during practice and qualifying for both Formula One and the Ferrari Challenge. Although Michael Schumacher placed third best in his Ferrari F2003, it was Ferrari of Washington's 1996 Ferrari Challenge Champion Jim Kenton, who handily put his 360 Challenge up front, for Kenton's first ever pole position.

Despite the circuit riddled with kiddie pools, the Ferrari Challenge qualifying was at its usual frenetic pace, showing just over one second between the first four cars on the grid. Ferrari of Quebec's and Montreal's own Emmanuel Anassis and Ferrari Challenge new-boy did his share of hard work for sixth place on the grid, while Ferrari of Houston's former two-time Ferrari Challenge Champion Steve Earle, made an epic return to the series after a two-year hiatus in which he ran with the JMB 360N-GT. Earle secured third on the grid on the heels of Shelton Sports Cars' 2002 Championship runner-up, Doug Peterson. Allie Ash qualified fourth.

When race day rolled around, the sky was blue and the sun, despite the hellish forecast, was drying the track and warming the otherwise soaked through fans, who had already filled the stands by 9 a.m. for Sunday morning's prelude to Formula One.

At the drop of the green flag, Kenton apparently suffered a momentary lapse of heavy right foot and found himself set up completely wrong for Circuit Gilles Villeneuve's' dodgy turn two~three combo. Kenton was forced to give way to a possessed Doug Peterson and did all he could to hold off an even more crazed, hard-charging Steve Earle. Within three laps, Peterson had put a good three seconds between himself and the duel for second between Earle and Kenton.

It wasn't long before Earle would find a hole in Kenton's agenda, as once again Kenton would be passed at turn two, this time by the impossibly late-breaking Earle, who somehow maintained control of a car which was clearly at the limit of its suspension and tires. Earle wasted little time in catching and making surgical work of Peterson's front-running position, and from there on ran away to his third first place finish at Montreal.

Peterson, too had an encounter-free run, finishing almost five seconds behind Earle for second place. Kenton, on the other hand, continued to suffer from uncharacteristic driving foibles and soon came under pressure from Montreal's racing supa-star, Emmanuel Anassis. The Kenton-Anassis battle that ensued was stellar and embodied all that the Ferrari Challenge stands for. In the closing laps of the 30 minute race, the two cars and drivers passed and repassed each other no fewer than five times, at various and inconceivable areas of the track.

The jumbotrons lining the circuit unfolded the epic as the cars raced out of sight and when the two drivers came ripping down the front straight nose-to-nose on the last lap, the crowds were on their feet and roaring. Flying beneath the white flag, the two drivers raced door-to-door into turn two with Anassis seemingly in full control of the racing line. Kenton saw things a little differently, as he stayed buried in the throttle well beyond the last minute, while using the Ferrari's otherworldly Brembo brakes to guide him through an even more masterful late-braking pass, than that that was given to Kenton by Earle at the beginning of the race.

For the next two miles, Kenton pulled out every trick and then some to hold off an incredibly talented drive by Anassis.

Ferrari's Jean Todt and Ferrari Maserati North America's President and CEO, Maurizio Parlato presented trophies to the drivers. With three stops remaining in the 2003 North America 360 Ferrari Challenge, Jim Kenton maintains his lead over second place Doug Peterson by a scant 11 points and 24 points over the hard-charging Emmanuel Anassis.

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