30 July - Remedial Math Needed
Apparently we get ourselves so worked up on race day we can't event count. As Julie worked on the club points last night we realized that there weren't 13 karts in Briggs Medium last Sunday but 15 - making our performance that much more satisfying. So if you visited this site on the 29th and now it seems like the numbers are different, it's not you. We need to go back to second grade and practice counting by twos.

27 July - Our Strongest Showing Yet
As we hitched up the trailer Saturday morning, July 27th, we weren't expecting much from the day. 12 hours later we were in celebration mode. No, we didn't win the feature. We didn't even win a heat. But a 7th, a 3rd and a 4th in a field of 15 made us feel pretty good.

Waves of thunderstorms and a forecast of rain through the afternoon had us thinking in terms of survival (we've never found a good wet set-up) before we ever reached the track. Another unknown factor was the quality of drivers from the Buckeye Kart Club, racing with us in this event as our club's guests. Would they put us further down the order or would we enjoy a home court advantage? We weren't sure.

After a two hour weather delay the karts hit a dry track. Our practice session offered us no indication of how the afternoon would go as Dana was bottled up in traffic the entire time. Our first race of the day would be our first measure of of how our day would go.

Dana was started Heat One in the twelfth (of fifteen) position but by the end of the six laps had worked up to a sixth/seventh photo finish with Dan Rafeld of the Buckeye Kart Club. It wasn't Dana's nose that was across the line first in that photo but it was a heck of a run, snagging a couple of good passes and capitalizing on the attrition of others.

As usual, the first heat's starting order was inverted for Heat Two putting Dana on the outside of row one with Bo Strawser. Bo got a better start but Dana was able to slide in behind him to claim second place. Immediately she was under attack from BKC driver Troy Chamberlain but after a couple of laps was able to pull away from Chamberlain and gain on Bo. But back in the pack Joe Fagan was on fire and passing karts left and right. When he passed Chamberlain it was obvious Dana would have a new attack on her hands and with two laps to go Joe got by without much of a fight. But as Fagan then closed in on Strawser, new hope surfaced in the prospect of those two getting into trouble before the end of the race. That prophecy just about came true as the Joe & Bo Show began in the last turn of the last lap and as those guys pounded on each other through the second half of Turn Ten, Dana dove to the inside to steal the win from both of them and if they had kept it up just a little bit longer, she would have pulled it off. Nevertheless, the finish had everyone on their feet.

The 7th and 3rd earned Dana the fourth starting spot for the final. Dana made a sensational start, pushing Jason Karr across the starting line as the green came out. She would have been happy to follow Jason around Joe who started on the pole but as they all turned into Turn One she found herself tangled up with with BKCer Jeff Wheeler. From the pits it looked like she was going to wind up sideways across the track with the other 11 karts bearing down on her. Somehow she got it straightened out and didn't even lose a position.

It did put her into the grasps of Jacob Gearhart and spent the entire race trying to shake him. He made several tries causing huge gasps from our crew but Dana never made a mistake. And we're finding that that may be her strongest quality - that she can run under pressure without making big mistakes. In fending off Jacob, Dana finished fourth on the track behind Jason, Joe and Wheeler but third among the MSOKC drivers earning third place points and Dana's first podium.

And to cap things off, Dana's sweetie, Sean, won his his heat race and his feature race in the 80cc Shifter class. They seem to inspire each other. We also found that we solved the video camera battery problem and are happy to report that every lap of all three races were recorded from the front cowling of the kart. I hope to have one of the techies at INFONETICS show me how to get video tape to a digital file and post the more exciting footage here.

Overall, a great day in spite of the early gloom and doom and great teamwork to finish each race and finish fast.

14 July - Fighting With The Fast Guys
Each time we go out we seem to learn something new. But the trick is then to know when and how to apply it. Slowly we're getting to that point and things came together today. An outright third in the first heat race and fiercely fought few laps with Joe Fagan in the final made it a very rewarding day for all of us. It probably didn't hurt that friends Jason Rodgers and Jordan Smith had come out to watch Dana race. Shifter racer Sean Dillon, who has become more than just a fellow racer to Dana, was also trackside to give her inspiration. Sean's team, M & S Racing, was kind enough to loan us a tach/temp display to replace our fritzy one and for the first time in several races we had RPM and engine temperature data we could rely on. Butch McCall also hovered around our pit offering appreciated suggestions.

For the first heat Dana pulled the pole position but Jacob Gearhart, who has been running very strong the last few races, got a great start and took the lead going into turn one. Dana not only stayed in touch with Jacob but kept series leader Jason Karr at bay for several laps before making a slight mistake and letting him by. Behind her (and not really that close) at the checkered was the rest of the regular fast guys making us feel pretty good about our progress.

Having the pole in heat one means starting last in heat two and the best Dana could manage was eighth, not being able to find a way around Mark Rice. Not that heat two was without incident - Dana had Matt Rice climbing over her rear wheels after she had passed him for eighth.

The combination of the the third and eighth place finishes earned Dana a sixth place starting spot (out of ten entrants). She got a good start and stayed right with the lead group as the green dropped. When Jason Karr uncharacteristically spun at turn three, she moved up to fifth with Joe Fagan just behind her. Several times Joe made lunges to the inside of Dana's kart but couldn't get his point made. At about half way Joe got a run down the inside at Seven and took the line away from Dana but his tighter line robbed him of momentum and after running side-by-side down to Eight Dana took the position back. Joe mounted another challenge a lap later going into Ten. Again, Dana gave Joe enough room to race but no more and again they went wheel to wheel through Ten and then One. Somehow Dana emerged ahead of Joe exiting Two and refused to concede the position again. The next lap, Joe tried his move going into Ten again and this time made it stick. Dana chased Joe all the way to the flag and, in fact, both seemed to gain a lot on fourth place man Ron Potts. And it says a lot that Dana and Joe could run about six corners total side by side and not put a mark on either kart.

Although the battle was lost for a top five finish in this case, I think we're gradually winning the war. It was a great couple of races for us and will carry our confidence into the next race on July 27th.

10 July - A Little Publicity
An article about our (mostly) female racing team and The Scott Wolfe Moving Forward Fund appears in the July 10 edition of The Hilliard Northwest News newspaper. We hope to be able to reprint it here in the future for our visitors who live outside the Northwest Columbus area. Many, many thanks to Brenda Stevens, Deb Spence and "Nick in Sports" for their interest and time.

6 July - Mining For Tenths
Perfect racing weather greeted us as we rolled into Circleville Raceway Park on Saturday, July 6th. Too bad it wasn't a race day.

After racing three straight weekends, we were glad to have two weekends off from the Mid-State Ohio Kart Club schedule but our desire to be as competitive as we can in the Briggs Medium Class had us out on the track for some more serious testing and practice. On the agenda were some chassis setting changes and cold tire practice starts for Dana.

As usual, Dana ran clean all day - over 40 laps total - never putting a wheel off the road and the only session with a spin was during intentional hard-charging on cold tires. Also as usual, she was very consistent. After a lap or two to get used to the changes she would click off three to five laps all within .2 of each other. In fact in one session she ran five laps that never varied more than .11. For the test we decided to save the new race motor and replaced it with our older, tired one. Nevertheless, her best times of the day were low 51s so we were encouraged. We found a thing or two that seemed to work but just as important, we found many things that didn't. Over all we're pretty sure we found another two tenths. A lot of work for .2 but at this point that's what it takes and combined with a little more confidence on cold tires, we hope the effort shows on July 14.

01 July - The Opposition
It's a tough class. Check out some of our competition here or click "The Comp" button on the left.


© Copyright 2000, 2001, 2002 Conlin SpeedSports. All rights reserved.
Server space for this website graciously provided by Infonetics, Inc.