I wish I could say that last week's carb issues were a thing of the past but we're still struggling a bit to find out what the situation is. The kart is definitely quick once it gets up to speed, hence our personal best lap time of 39.14, but it still struggles to move on the low end. The carb was rebuilt, settings were changed, and we even began to teach Sam how to reach back and tune the darn thing in flight. And after all of this, it was still a roll of the dice on whether or not we would make it out of the pits under it's own power.
Although the stress level was much lower than last week you wouldn't have thought a thing had you seen Sam. We brought a couple of his friends from back home with us to the track and they quickly embarked on doing what all young boys do. Make stupid noises, run around like indians,(forgive me if any native americans are reading this, I mean no disrespect) and flirt with girls. This was the first time I might say that I've witnessed my son noticing the opposite sex. He keeps this kind of thing pretty much to himself but I know he notices them. He's just too shy to admit it. It's not until he's around other guys that you can see it more clearly. Maybe this is half the reason for his stupendous showing out on the track. That whole peacock displaying it's feathers thing is a very powerful motivator. Once the race came we were very confident that what little of a deficit we had we could conquer. The kart was getting pretty easy to predict and Sam was getting the hang of tuning it on the road. So this, combined with our dropping lap times, had us excited to see what the final held in store for us.
Travis Kosik joined us from his normal CES schedule and offered a great chance for us to compete with someone who was not only a great teacher for us but a good friend as well. I actually grew up with his late uncle Dave and knew his father and Aunt through this relationship. We all went to the same grade school together about 100 years ago and became reacquainted through the sport. Truly a small world.The final was pretty uneventful with Sam nipping at the heels of Travis for much of the entire race. Both of them were posting some pretty impressive times. Impressive for Travis in the fact that he hadn't been on this track for some time and was trying to find his stride again, and impressive for us in just being able to stay that close to him. The real excitment came on the last lap. I almost couldn't believe what I saw when the two of them were nose to tail coming down to take the checkered flag. At the last moment Sam drew out from behind him to challenge for the win and just came up short. We took second place but there was no more than a half a kart length seperating them at the line.
Aggression? I asked myself. Was that aggression I just saw? Is he finally finding the tenacity that I've told him he needs to do the job? I sure hope so. I could get used to races like this every weekend.
