June 9 was the last day of school for the girls and a rare Friday that didn't find Dana working. I had taken a vacation day to give the landscaping the Spring once-over in the hopes that it would stop the neighbors from pointing and shaking their heads. This meant we'd all be in one location come late afternoon and we decided to use the opportunity to practice a bit on on-track technique.
We set out early for the evening practice session arriving actually before the track opened. This was fortuitous as we were able to walk the track undisturbed except for the track owner mowing the grass in preparation for the next day's shifter kart (the really fast guys) race. Walking the track leisurely is always a benefit since you're able to see things that can affect you lap times that, at speed, go unnoticed.
We were so early that we arrived before our 14 tooth gear that treated us so well at the last race. Bob Strawser, who was tracking down a 14 toother of our own so we wouldn't have to borrow his, showed after we had a couple of sessions in using the 15. We had the 14 in for the third session on but ran into other gremlins that kept times down.
The plan was for just Dana and Tracy to lap - any session I would do would simply be putting time on the motor and miles off the tires. Since the race on June 4 we had made a change to the fuel tank based on our strict interpretation of the rules. This caused the problem we fought early in the year of starving the fuel in the right hand corners to come back. Regular readers may recall that Briggs & Stratton "tank repair" part limited the tendency for the fuel to slosh away from the pick up tube. By re-installing the tank repair kit for what we thought was legality, we brought the problem back on ourselves.
Also a new problem: the afternoon sun was getting pretty low and was creating quite a glare for both girls as they ran full throttle down the backstraight towards turn 5. As the solution, I introduced them to the time-honored racing trick taping of the visor to shade the eyes.
Frustrated by the poor times that were the result of this starvation, between sessions four and five Tracy and I pulled the fuel tank off and repositioned the repair kit so slightly more closure was afforded while hoping to still have enough opening to remain legal. At these practice sessions, time spent back at the trailer fixing stuff is time wasted and demands quick wrenching. But, sometimes quick wrenching has it's penalties in of itself. In this case it was proper hygiene that was compromised when I decided to reuse the gasket between the fuel tank and the carburetor instead of taking the minute or so to retrieve and install a new one. As I was putting the last few turns on the bolts I wondered if any little bits of gasket had fallen into the tank but shrugged it off and continued.
Dana suited up and set out on her third session. She stopped not quite halfway through her first lap. To her credit she did a good job of getting off the track and removing the chance of being clobbered by another practicer. When I got out there, the engine simply refused to start - almost as though it was not getting any fuel. Hmmmmm.
We rolled the kart back to the paddock and then the trailer. As soon as the tank was off the source of the problem was evident. A minuscule speck (Dana said it looked like a gnat) of gasket had lodged in the pick-up tube and blocked off the fuel flow. It was a great object lesson since it illustrated how a piece of debris that small could simply cause the engine to stop working.
The momentary lapse in cleanliness in the interest in getting the kart back out took us off the track far, far longer than the minute or two it would have cost to do it right in the first place. The tank had to come off again, the pick-up bowl had to be emptied and cleaned and the carb, what with the chance that other bits and pieces could have been sucked up, had to be removed, inspected and blown out.
Once back together Dana went out again and shortly came back in complaining of no grip - the kart was sliding around. The sun was setting and the track was cooling fast and this probably accounted for the reduced adhesion. Extra points for recognizing the change through the seat of her pants and calling into the pits for some kind of fix. We lowered the tire pressures a bit, putting a larger contact patch on the ground was the idea. The change wasn't reflected in the times but Dana seemed more comfortable at the wheel. The kart was still cutting out in the right hand corners so any hope of improving times was dashed. Both Dana and Tracy continued to improve form though and in that regard it was a successful outing.
It was only later, after we had called
it a night that we got a clarification of the "talk repair" rule and learned
that we had it positioned correctly before and that the rule was interpreted
pretty loosely. Putting back the way it was would be priority one
before the next race on June 17.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|