Dana putting the kart through its paces

The Story So Far

When our little saga last left off, Conlin SpeedSports was patiently waiting for the return of one of their engines from the dyno department over at McCall Motorsports. That return happened Thursday night and with the motor finally being set onto the kart chassis Friday morning, it was just under 48 hours before it would be racing around the Circleville Raceway Park circuit.

The kart hadn't moved under it's own power since October of last year and a lot of changes had been made over the winter: New bodywork - would there be any interference? Problems with tire or ground clearance at speed?; 25lbs of weight added - how would the added weight affect handling?; new dashboard and controls - would they all work and be readable or accessible when suited up and driving at speed? With less than 40 hours until tracktime, none of these unknowns had been tested.

And Dana's ride was not going to be ready either. McCall Motorsports serves many, many of Central Ohio's karters, all of whom were crunching for Sunday's race, and the demand on Butch's time by real, live, paying customers kept him away from Dana's kart in the last week. So it was decided midweek that Dana and I would share our kart for the one race. This was fine with Dana, running her first race in a familiar kart agreed with her but it meant there would be twice the work for the crew come Sunday. All the more reason to get out for practice and shake some of the bugs out.

But first, a team photo

As soon as the girls got home from school Friday afternoon, we headed out to CRP for Friday evening practice with a brief stop at Butch's McCall Motorsports shop for some last minute supplies. We arrived about 5:00, enlisted a fellow karter's girlfriend/wife/crew to take our team photo and then got to work.

Dana went out first with instructions to do about five laps and come in for us to check everything over for leaks and loose nuts and bolts. As the very first test driver, she also had to keep a close eye on the engine temperature gauge in case something was not quite right there. Right away we could hear some of the body work scraping the track at certain bumpy parts of the track. She came in, we checked things over (all was fine - including the nose where it was touching the asphalt on the bumps) and she went out again.

Let the hot laps begin

McCall Motorsports breaks in the engines they build on their dyno so we didn't have to run a break-in schedule, we could begin hot laps right away. Dana set out and within a few laps had gotten the cobwebs out. Coming back in she reported that the handling, one of our greatest concerns considering all the weight that was added, seemed fine and she was having no trouble. Her mission was to get back into the driving groove - no heroics, no personal lap records, and above all, no going off the track. She did just that - a clean run with respectable times.

Dana's Session 1 times

Next, it was my turn. I went out with the intention of going pretty easy and gradually getting up to speed. But Dana was right; the kart felt good, seemed well balanced and it was hard to hold back. It was like riding a bicycle, as they say, the lines, flow and rhythm came back quickly. Almost as though there hadn't been a five month lay off.

The only problem I was having each lap was arriving too fast for Turn Four and not being able to pick up a late apex. But one of the first things I noticed was the pull the new engine had. The additional power was noticeable coming out of just about every turn.

Rough ride

A few laps into my session I did exactly what I had warned Dana not to do: go off the track. Likely distracted by some technical pondering, I somehow turned in way too early for Turn Nine and had the two inside wheel on the wrong side of the curb. The result was a rough ride as the nose, frame, floor pan and then the seat (and beyond that 1/8" of fiberglass, my butt) skipped and chattered across the cement curbing. I immediately came in so we could put the kart up on the stand and see what damage I might have done. Other than making the seat bottom a little thinner, there was none so I headed out again.

I noticed the clutch seemed to be engaging a little low and made a mental note about that. The other thing that became apparent was the tendency for the front end to bounce a bit over the bumps. In the corners this was more of a concern because it affected the handling and grip. We hadn't had this problem last year so I suspected the 10 lbs of weight we had mounted between the pedals just in front of the front wheel centerline. I wasn't sure so we'd leave it on for Sunday to see how it went.

Jim's Session 1 times

We were practicing the entire time under the threat of rain and there was even a sprinkle during my stint but not enough to make the track slick. But because of the dark skies, we were loosing light fast so Dana went out for one more session just to get further reacquainted with the kart and track. But at the same time neither of us wanted to over do the first time out for the year and be so sore and stiff as to be useless come Sunday. So after a handful of tidy, consistent laps, Dana came in and we called it a day.

Dana's Session 2 times

All in all, a good test

And it was a successful day. We were encouraged but the performance of the motor, found some work would have to be done to the clutch and that this year's prep had been pretty thorough and well executed: only one bolt came loose in the 30 or so laps we turned.

We began to allow ourselves to get excited about our first race of 2001!