Cherry Valley Motor Sports Park - 6/27/09

We'd been away from the track for a couple weeks, but it seemed much longer. Missed everyone! We brought a 'Get Well' card for everyone one to sign for our good racing friend who's been in the hospital/ICU for nearly a month.

Normal race weekend format, two 10 lap heats and then the 15 lap feature. Chris always draws my number to see where we start in the heats. She drew a #8, which is good and low. Put me on the outside of row one in heat #1, but then the field is inverted for heat #2.

Kart felt fast in practice, but my Mychron isn't working and I couldn't see my lap times. In heat #1, I was able to hold P2 for several laps, but holding them off meant I was holding them up. Not that I cared other than knowing the longer I held them up, the more likely they would take a desparate move. Two karts got by me clean and they ended up finishing 1-2.

Heat #2 was inverted, so I started out back. I got by one kart at the start and then began working on the next. I got inside on a tight left, got too hard on the brakes, and looped it. I probably could have used less brake and leaned on the kart on the outside, but the guy on the outside is a good friend and a clean racer. I kept the kart running at least and went back after them.

I caught back up the the same kart #24 that I spun trying to get around. We fought like hell for the rest of the heat. I was all over him. I raced him super clean, bumping him only on the straights. But I never got the job done. It's a fine line between not racing hard enough and wrecking someone.

In the feature race, I started closer to the rear than the front based on my heat finishes. Things got a little crazy at the start of the race. The race starts on the main straight and goes into a tight hair pin turn. It often gets messy, tires squealing and karts bouncing off and sometimes up and over each other. There is a guy fairly new to karting and very aggressive. NOT a good combination. (See previous race weekind update, heat #2). Nobody wants to be near him on the starting grid, least of all in the hairpin at the start. I was behind him going into the hairpin and he is bumping and bouncing off karts. That is not the fast way through the corner. He goes wide and is sliding, so I dive under him near the exit of the hairpin. Now we are nearly side-by-side going down hill through some S-turns. Not a place to be racing. Who's going to lift or who's going to crash! Well, I did neither and he did the later. Not bad and was able to continue.

And guess what happens next... he catches me back up at the end of the race! Below he is right behind me and a rookie in his first race is in front of me. I'm expecting payback and have to clear this rookie very very quickly and cleanly.

One second before this picture was taken, all hell broke loose in this very high speed corner. You can see a wisp of tire smoke over my left shoulder. It was very ugly! This is the corner entering the main straight. I was right behind the red #14, coming hard to set up the straight, and the #36 was on my rear. Earlier, the #14 pointed me by, being a rookie. As we approached the corner, he looked inside, saw me and pulled outside. I went under him, thinking he was letting me by. Not so. He came right down and we hit wheels in this fast corner. NOT GOOD! We both bounced violently in the air, went wide and the #36 sailed by. MY BAD. I apologized after the race.

Again, I didn't finish very well overall. We had a ball racing and that's the most important thing. I didn't break anything either. But even though there wasn't anything big that needed repair, I left the kart with the owner of the track. Joe is a master at karting (national champion) and asked him to replace my spindles and do a thorough once over on everything. I'm confident he'll find some speed for me. No way it could be the wheel man! LOL