I apologize to anyone who may have ventured out to the Badger Kart Club to see us on Sunday May 20th. Scheduling conflicts and personal committments made it impossible to attend the race like we had planned.
Our next scheduled event is in Shawano Wisconsin on June 9th and 10th. We will most likely be using this time beforehand to test at Badger not only for this event, but mainly the Midwest Sprint race being held here at our home track on the 7th and 8th of July. If there's one event that you planned on attending this year then this one is it. We hope to see you there.
May 21, 2007
May 09, 2007
Fish out of water
That's what I felt like at least, and I'm sure Sam felt a bit that way himself. These kids that came to compete in the WKA Man Cup's Zoom Zoom Nationals sponsored by Mazda were the real deal. They were undoubtedly some of the best in the country, and a few from beyond our borders. Because I didn't know that's what's to be expected at a Manufacturer's Cup event, it made for a long stress filled weekend.
We arrived in South Bend Indiana at about 6pm on Thursday. With the exception of a slight deviation from our intended course, (we got lost) I thought we managed to make good time seeing that it was my first time behind the wheel of the S.S. Marmurowicz for such an extended period of time. And in Chicago rush hour traffic I must add.
Our worst fears were confirmed the moment we went to registration and were told that all electric hook ups were taken for the weekend. I was the FIRST person who had called six weeks ago and reserved a space for our trailer with electric. Not having a generator on board I had stressed that it's of the utmost importance that I have one. "No problem" they quickly replied, "You're the first on the list" I was told, and they still managed to screw things up for us. Luckily it was a temporary thing as they made one available shortly thereafter for us. I was known to them as the "No Generator Guy" and once that was said, action was quickly taken. I want to especially thank the fine gentleman who flew all the way from Florida to help in registration and had to put up with me. I was quite irrate when he informed me of the shortage and I truly didn't mean to take it out on him. But you have to admit that driving 4 hours in a moving billboard, fighting crosswinds, and listening to an ongoing acapella choir of Are We There Yet would put anyone's nerves on edge. The only thing left to do after we had set up camp was to walk the track, getting some much needed reference points on it. The course in general really didn't look like much other than maybe for a small right hand chicane which led onto a banked left-hander. This one was particularily important due to the fact that it dumps you onto the front straight, and a long front straight I must say. It was no surprise to us that this part of the track eventually prooved to be our achilles heel all weekend.
We arrived in South Bend Indiana at about 6pm on Thursday. With the exception of a slight deviation from our intended course, (we got lost) I thought we managed to make good time seeing that it was my first time behind the wheel of the S.S. Marmurowicz for such an extended period of time. And in Chicago rush hour traffic I must add.
Our worst fears were confirmed the moment we went to registration and were told that all electric hook ups were taken for the weekend. I was the FIRST person who had called six weeks ago and reserved a space for our trailer with electric. Not having a generator on board I had stressed that it's of the utmost importance that I have one. "No problem" they quickly replied, "You're the first on the list" I was told, and they still managed to screw things up for us. Luckily it was a temporary thing as they made one available shortly thereafter for us. I was known to them as the "No Generator Guy" and once that was said, action was quickly taken. I want to especially thank the fine gentleman who flew all the way from Florida to help in registration and had to put up with me. I was quite irrate when he informed me of the shortage and I truly didn't mean to take it out on him. But you have to admit that driving 4 hours in a moving billboard, fighting crosswinds, and listening to an ongoing acapella choir of Are We There Yet would put anyone's nerves on edge. The only thing left to do after we had set up camp was to walk the track, getting some much needed reference points on it. The course in general really didn't look like much other than maybe for a small right hand chicane which led onto a banked left-hander. This one was particularily important due to the fact that it dumps you onto the front straight, and a long front straight I must say. It was no surprise to us that this part of the track eventually prooved to be our achilles heel all weekend.
The entire day on Friday was reserved for practice and we were bound and determined to take full advantage of it. That was until Sam became ill after the second session. From that moment on the only thing his rear end saw was the bed in the trailer. He complained that he must have eaten something to cause it but I still think it was nerves. I had them and I wasn't even driving.
Saturday was originally our day to race but they bumped us to Sunday about two weeks prior to the event. Most teams with much deeper pockets would either add or remove weight, or install another engine to compete in another class on this day but for us it was a day off. We sat on a few corners, watched the lines and habits of the faster guys, and just took good mental notes. We toured the pits, visited with friends, and came to the stark realization that there are more people in this world who spend alot more on karting than we once thought. We passed by the pits of independant drivers who had as many as four karts per kid! I saw one pit where their young driver, who was all of 10 or 11 years old, had four karts with his name on it. I saw more lap top computers and techy nerds assembled in one area than I had when I worked for Ameritech! And tires! Let me tell you about tires. I am positive that I was the only guy who let his driver go out on the same set of tires all day. There were people scrubbing in sets of tires and throwing away rubber that I would use for 3 races back home. Not here though. I figure most of the front running teams spent more on tires this weekend than I will all year long. It's amazing how the cost of living keeps going up and with fuel prices nearly killing us we still have people who have this much disposable income.
After 50mph winds and light rain on Saturday we woke to sunny skies and about 65 degrees on Sunday. It was definitely shaping up to be a great day for racing. We jumped into our first practice session of the morning and looked pretty good. His times consistently fell and he looked much smoother behind the wheel. The only thing that he was still fighting was the chicane and bank combination. The kart just didn't reassure him that it was going to stay on track in that section. I tried to figure out what else I could do to help settle the kart down in that area but I kept coming back to the fact that what we really needed were those extra 4 sessions that we missed during Friday's practice. With Keith, Gina, and Caleb from Margay lending a hand in getting us properly set up, I had felt that the kart was doing all that it could. We just needed Sam's confidence level to be a bit higher and the only way to do that is lap after lap of practice.
We qualified 26th out of 26 drivers for the pre-final. And it was not because of Sam. We managed to get bumped to the back of the field since my fuel didn't register properly with their testing equipment. It wasn't until the official tested it three times that I remembered I still had fuel from our local track mixed with the spec fuel they sold at this event. Had we managed to practice a full day on Friday we would have easily burned through all of it but since we parked the kart after only two sessions we still had some non-spec fuel in the tank. Darwin is laughing I'm sure. Unfortunately for Sam his first race would be short lived as there was a huge wreck going into turn one just after the drop of the green flag that took out nine competitors. There were so many karts spinning and flying off the track that Sam had no where to go to avoid them but straight off the track. He spun, killed the engine, and ended up watching the rest of the race from the outside of turn one.
And here's another one for the Darwinian Theory. I went running over to the fence where he's standing and asked him to hand me his helmet, gloves, collar, and so on. What the heck I thought, I'll make him more comfortable while he's standing there in the sun and lighten the load that he has to bring back with him. What I didn't realize at that moment is that after the race he still needs to cross the scales in tech. He goes through without his gear and ends up 2 lbs under weight. We receive another penalty and will start from the back of the pack in the final as well.
An F on a report card is not tolerated in our household. Although Sam and his sister have been doing extremely well this last year, he for one has seen his share of less than adequate grades on previous report cards. So it was our little inside joke when I told him that this weekend he really needed to try hard to get me an "F". The "F" I'm talking about is a "Finish" in the final race. You see at this level the WKA does not allow back markers to be lapped. If the lead group is within two corners of catching you, they quickly bring out a black flag and your race is done for the day. I was doing the math, and with Sam being 4 full seconds off the leaders and having to complete 16 laps of a .7 mile road course, it was going to be close.
Saturday was originally our day to race but they bumped us to Sunday about two weeks prior to the event. Most teams with much deeper pockets would either add or remove weight, or install another engine to compete in another class on this day but for us it was a day off. We sat on a few corners, watched the lines and habits of the faster guys, and just took good mental notes. We toured the pits, visited with friends, and came to the stark realization that there are more people in this world who spend alot more on karting than we once thought. We passed by the pits of independant drivers who had as many as four karts per kid! I saw one pit where their young driver, who was all of 10 or 11 years old, had four karts with his name on it. I saw more lap top computers and techy nerds assembled in one area than I had when I worked for Ameritech! And tires! Let me tell you about tires. I am positive that I was the only guy who let his driver go out on the same set of tires all day. There were people scrubbing in sets of tires and throwing away rubber that I would use for 3 races back home. Not here though. I figure most of the front running teams spent more on tires this weekend than I will all year long. It's amazing how the cost of living keeps going up and with fuel prices nearly killing us we still have people who have this much disposable income.
After 50mph winds and light rain on Saturday we woke to sunny skies and about 65 degrees on Sunday. It was definitely shaping up to be a great day for racing. We jumped into our first practice session of the morning and looked pretty good. His times consistently fell and he looked much smoother behind the wheel. The only thing that he was still fighting was the chicane and bank combination. The kart just didn't reassure him that it was going to stay on track in that section. I tried to figure out what else I could do to help settle the kart down in that area but I kept coming back to the fact that what we really needed were those extra 4 sessions that we missed during Friday's practice. With Keith, Gina, and Caleb from Margay lending a hand in getting us properly set up, I had felt that the kart was doing all that it could. We just needed Sam's confidence level to be a bit higher and the only way to do that is lap after lap of practice.
We qualified 26th out of 26 drivers for the pre-final. And it was not because of Sam. We managed to get bumped to the back of the field since my fuel didn't register properly with their testing equipment. It wasn't until the official tested it three times that I remembered I still had fuel from our local track mixed with the spec fuel they sold at this event. Had we managed to practice a full day on Friday we would have easily burned through all of it but since we parked the kart after only two sessions we still had some non-spec fuel in the tank. Darwin is laughing I'm sure. Unfortunately for Sam his first race would be short lived as there was a huge wreck going into turn one just after the drop of the green flag that took out nine competitors. There were so many karts spinning and flying off the track that Sam had no where to go to avoid them but straight off the track. He spun, killed the engine, and ended up watching the rest of the race from the outside of turn one.
And here's another one for the Darwinian Theory. I went running over to the fence where he's standing and asked him to hand me his helmet, gloves, collar, and so on. What the heck I thought, I'll make him more comfortable while he's standing there in the sun and lighten the load that he has to bring back with him. What I didn't realize at that moment is that after the race he still needs to cross the scales in tech. He goes through without his gear and ends up 2 lbs under weight. We receive another penalty and will start from the back of the pack in the final as well.
An F on a report card is not tolerated in our household. Although Sam and his sister have been doing extremely well this last year, he for one has seen his share of less than adequate grades on previous report cards. So it was our little inside joke when I told him that this weekend he really needed to try hard to get me an "F". The "F" I'm talking about is a "Finish" in the final race. You see at this level the WKA does not allow back markers to be lapped. If the lead group is within two corners of catching you, they quickly bring out a black flag and your race is done for the day. I was doing the math, and with Sam being 4 full seconds off the leaders and having to complete 16 laps of a .7 mile road course, it was going to be close.
He started from the back of the pack and luckily made it through any incidents that had happened around him. And although this race was pretty uneventful, there was one particular driver worth noting who was much quicker than us but had a bear of a time keeping himself on the track. He would go off at a corner and Sam would slip through, then he would catch and pass him, only to spin off course again on a different corner. This went on for several laps and I felt it contributed to some very quick lap times for Sam since he was either running from or chasing down this guy. That all ended after about the fourth mistake when the guy caught Sam for the last time and never looked back. That wasn't before he ran into the back of our kart two or three times to drive the point home that he felt we were holding him up. A couple of those hits came on the banking and you could clearly see Sam's head snap back and forth as he hit him. And although when I was first told about the black flag policy I didn't care for it, I could now see to a certain degree where the logic came from. The WKA feels that with the level of competition at National events, there are bound to be instances where the leaders are not going to tolerate slower traffic and just bounce a kid off the course if they got in their way. If it keeps my son or anyone else from getting hurt then I can live with it. I've never been one to question any rule when it regards safety. I just think the guys who formulated this rule had their heads screwed on wrong and are penalizing the wrong people. I mean c'mon, we don't arrest people for getting assaulted by another individual, we go after the perpetrator.
The race ended for us on lap 12. What had once looked like a very distinct chance of us finishing the race on the lead lap had gone south with the wave of a black flag. Sam quickly responded with a hand in the air and an exit off the track as to say "Thanks guys for letting me play too". We were both a little disappointed and relieved all at the same time. Disappointed in the fact that he was doing so well in keeping himself in arm's length of the pack and getting quicker and quicker each lap, and relieved that he made it back in one piece. Kart and driver. His eventual finishing position was 24th out of 26th so we beat somebody, and we're all ok with that. I think we all learned alot from this event with Sam hopefully having more confidence in himself now.
Although our schedule has changed for this season (see side bar) I could see us competing in another one of these events some day again. I know of one family who's son competed in Sam's class who had beaten all of the deep pocketed factory drivers last year when the Man Cup came to our home track so it can be done. For now I think we're going to focus more on the Midwest Sprint Series. I'm told the talent is more regional than world wide and is a good stepping stone to the Man Cup. With a little luck and a whole lot of work we'll be there again.
The race ended for us on lap 12. What had once looked like a very distinct chance of us finishing the race on the lead lap had gone south with the wave of a black flag. Sam quickly responded with a hand in the air and an exit off the track as to say "Thanks guys for letting me play too". We were both a little disappointed and relieved all at the same time. Disappointed in the fact that he was doing so well in keeping himself in arm's length of the pack and getting quicker and quicker each lap, and relieved that he made it back in one piece. Kart and driver. His eventual finishing position was 24th out of 26th so we beat somebody, and we're all ok with that. I think we all learned alot from this event with Sam hopefully having more confidence in himself now.
Although our schedule has changed for this season (see side bar) I could see us competing in another one of these events some day again. I know of one family who's son competed in Sam's class who had beaten all of the deep pocketed factory drivers last year when the Man Cup came to our home track so it can be done. For now I think we're going to focus more on the Midwest Sprint Series. I'm told the talent is more regional than world wide and is a good stepping stone to the Man Cup. With a little luck and a whole lot of work we'll be there again.
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