By: Ashley McCubbin / Marcus Wilson

MARKHAM, Ontario — With no finishes outside of the top-five on street courses in 2026, Kyle Kirkwood entered the Ontario Honda Indy Dealers at Markham weekend as one of the drivers to watch.

Unfortunately, the Canadian streets did not treat him as fondly as his race over at Lap 53 of 90 following contact with the wall coming off of turn three. He was credited with a 21st-place finish.

“They didn’t come here with radius walls, right? As you’re wrapping around the corner, you can’t see the point and it surprises you there – but it’s not like it was any different than the rest of the weekend,” Kirkwood told members of the media. “It could just catch you off-guard and you find yourself focusing on fuel saving and maybe not so much on perfectly hitting your marks. Usually in those situations, you open your hands. You realize you’re too narrow and that time didn’t recognize it and hit that point in the wall.”

The contact was just a culmination of Kirkwood’s frustrations from the weekend in an event that he called “a bit of a mess” after qualifying 22nd for the race.

“The nature of the track – it’s a bit of a struggle,” he sounded off. “Obviously, it doesn’t race very well. The new asphalt is coming up so all the fine agitate is going off line. That’s why you see guys crashing and big differences between old and new tires on starts – just taking up a ton of marbles. There are also areas where the track is too tight, right? There is only one line down. The hairpin is a complete mess; I grabbed the clutch almost every single time going through there.

“There’s a lot of increasing radius which usually breeds passes and breeds crashes. Really, there hasn’t been really any passes – just crashes. There’s a lot of issues that they will sort out for next year.”