29 September - INFONETICS Day At The Races 2002
Great weather greeted the employees, families and friends of INFONETICS for the second annual INFONETICS Day At The Races. Unfortunately, the INFONETICS Racing team didn't have a day to match.

In her first heat Dana started from sixth position and was only able to improve one position before the checkered flag. The problem wasn't her or the kart - she ran low 51s in practice on a green track - but she just didn't have quite enough extra to get through traffic for another position. The "in kart" video replayed several attacks on Matt Rice that she coudln't quite pull off.

The second heat gave her an outside front row starting position which promised a great opportunity for a good finish. That promise disappeared in a cloud of tire smoke, dust, grass and body work at turn Two. Chasing Jason Karr and Marc Rice through into turn Two and hoping to slide inside and into second going into Three, she wasn't aware of Jacob Gearhart coming up the inside of her. Jacob is in a very tight battle for second in the championship and was eager to stay ahead of Joe Fagan and John Fox. As Dana turned in for Two, the two karts got together hard, Dana spinning to the left as Jacob ran over the nose of her kart. Jacob was able to gather it all up and continue but Dana found herself skidding sideways in front of the other six karts. Everyone was able to find a way past except poor Fox who had no place to go and t-boned our kart hard. Both John and Dana ended up out in the grass. After a few seconds that seemed like minutes, Dana got pointed the right way and resumed the race, although far, far adrift of the others. John's engine stalled in the incident and was stranded there in the infield.

We felt bad seeing John on the sidelines the rest of that race since, he too is in that tight fight for second in the points race and was just a victim in this incident. But good natured John was philosophical about it later and placed no blame on anyone. With a clear track ahead of her, Dana was quickly back up to low 51 second laps which indicated to her relieved crew that she was all right and apparently the kart was too. In spite of the impact to the left front wheel, the wheel and tie rod were only slightly bent, neither enough to affect performance. Between the heat and the feature we checked the alignment but mainly had to repair bodywork. John actually got the worst of it, having to scrap his kart's nose entirely.

Also between the heat and the feature we did a little dog and pony show for our guests, introducing them to some of the less obvious features of a racing kart. Sean Dillon then described the performance differences between our Stock Briggs and his M & S Karting 80cc Shifter. Then to illustrate the performance extremes, we set up a grudge match between Sean and Dana. As flagger, I guess I must have forgotten to get out of Sean's way when I dropped the green flag and it wasn't until Dana was already to turn Five before I realized he was still there on the start line waiting for me to get out of the way. He caught and passed her in four laps (truth be told, I don't know how I got the math wrong because I expected him to catch her in two laps). But it was a good demonstration and everyone seemed to enjoy the face-off between the two sweeties. It was suggested by some of the onlookers that Sean would be paying for that pass later that night.

The Feature wasn't nearly as much fun as the grudge match. A poor grid position, the result of the two poor Heat finishes had Dana once again trapped behind slower traffic. Frustration caused a rare spin at turn Seven but with a clear track Dana showed the pace she could run at - her laps times immediately fell to 50s and 51s from 52s. Again, the video replay showed just how much of a challenge she faced as she tried to find a way past Marc Rice.

Sean faired much better in his feature, winning the 80cc Shifter class by a comfortable margin over Mike Long. Sean has a natural smoothness that makes driving that super-fast kart look easy. But, dude, those donuts still suck.

At the end of the day guests Dustin Frea and Paul Mechling took us up on our offer of a few laps in the kart. Both did a fine job of picking up speed but both also had to admit underestimating the physical demands. Josh and Lacie Mechling took us up on our offer to take their pictures behind the wheel and under the helmet.

Special thanks go out to Mike Yoerger, Daryl Dillon and Mike Long for the use of their canopies for our INFONETICS hospitality area. Having found out Thursday that the canopy I was planning on had become unavailable, I emailed a sort of mass plea for a replacement or two Friday morning. By noon we had three of them lined up even more offers in the afternoon. And that's all you have to do in this sport - you mention that you need something and you get half a dozen offers. We race with a great bunch of folks.

22 September - Another Taste Of Something Faster
One of the good things that came out of last weekend's rain-out was a talk with Mike Unger about where we should go next. Or more specifically, what the next step should be for Dana's driving development. For some time we've been thinking of moving her into something faster next year. Mike highly recommended the HPV class and generously offered to let Dana try his Biesse chassis (which just so happens to be for sale at the end of the season) out at Circleville Raceway Park a week later.

We arranged to meet Mike at the end of OVKA's race day at CRP. We had a chance to talk with Mike, and fellow HPV racers Brian O'Hara and Ken Martin a bit before their feature race and Dana learned what she could expect when she got out there.

In her first session out she played it very cautiously, just getting a feel for the additional power and speed. After a short break to let it all sink in, she when back out to push it a bit. On her second flying lap she looped it at Six but other than that, had no miscues. With a little work she was able to smooth out her troubles at Four but seemed unable to not overdrive the kart into Nine. Nevertheless, she got down to a 47.42 which impressed Mike and Brian, both agreeing that mid 47s would put her mid-pack in a typical race.

We simply wanted to see how well Dana acclimated herself to the higher performance and, frankly, whether she'd scare herself silly or worse, would go plunging off the track somewhere. Not only did neither of those things happen, but we were encouraged by how quickly she got comfortable. So we've got some thinking and ciphering to do.

14 & 15 September - Long, Rough Weekend
In preparation for the tenth race in the MSOKC championship, we made the trip to Camden, Ohio Saturday morning to find the best set up for Sunday's race. We had raced at G & J Kartway only once before, in June, and back then we felt lost without the necessary track time and set up information. Figuring out the right gearing and chassis set up not to mention Dana finding the proper lines through G & J's three trickiest corners would make us more competitive.

On the road by 7:30am, Dana was on the track with fresh McCall Motorsports power by 10:00. Six hours, nine sessions, over 75 laps and 600+ corners later we had bettered our June time by .6 of a second. The thrill of that progress was tempered by knowing were still about a second off the fastest guys in our class. Dana was used up and I was out of ideas to go any faster so we decided to call it a day.

But before we could even head back to our trailer to pack, Shirley Rose, Bryan's mom, informed Dana that she was going back out there but this time in the Rose Animal kart. Some readers may recognize Bryan's name from last year's race reports as he and Dana had several good races as they fought over 2nd in the MSOKC championship. The Roses have been making a serious effort in the new Animal class, following the Gold Cup National circuit this year. Their offer to have Dana try the more powerful kart came just at the right time as we are trying to decide if we should do another year of Briggs flat-head or go to something a little faster like the Animal or maybe a two-cycle engine like HPV. But one of the questions we were hoping to answer before making the commitment was whether Dana was really ready for something faster.

It all came about so quickly, I wasn't able to do the coaching I would have liked to have done, letting Dana know what to expect and how to approach the better acceleration and speed. She did pretty well on her own though. She got on the power a little too early coming out of One and spun on her second lap and once forgot that she needed to brake (she was just lifting in our kart) at the end of the back straight and ran wide but other than that kept it on the road and didn't embarrass herself. It was a tremendous compliment that the Roses had the confidence in Dana's driving that they would let her test the kart they intended to race the next day. Many, many thanks to the Rose family for the opportunity.

Sunday dawned gray and damp but the weather radar we saw before checking out of the hotel showed rain east and some way west but otherwise looked like we'd stay dry. Apparently, we were watching a Weather Channel rerun because between Brookville and Camden it began raining with a deluge and didn't let up until well after we were back at our pit spot. The Ohio Valley Karting Association, with whom we were racing, doesn't race in the rain so the weather delay gave us a chance to bench race with our friends for a while. By virtue of arriving Saturday we were able to get a pit spot near the grid but one that also turned out to be at a sort of intersection of pit roads and our canopy was the MSOKC hangout there for a while.

About 10:30 the OVKA officials called the race off even though it had stopped raining and looked to be brightening in some spots. But to make the best of a poor situation, we packed up the rest of gear and set our sights on Connersville, Indiana, 40 miles due west, where a "street" race was being held. We knew Brandon Rees was racing there and Joe Fagan and cousin Eric both headed over there as soon as our race was called to see if they could still register and race. We just wanted to see what that race was all about.

It did sort of salvage the day to at least watch some racing and after seeing how well Joe did we were wishing we had got there a half hour earlier and got Dana signed up. Judging by Joe's second place, Dana might have been able to finish in the top three. Maybe next year. Instead we took up position at the hairpin and spent the day signaling the gap to the kart behind to Brandon, Joe and Eric.

With racing winding down, we piled back in and got pointed for Columbus. But we hadn't even made it out of the parking lot when, in the mirror while turning, I noticed a lot of negative camber on the left trailer wheel where there should have been none. A quick investigation under the trailer revealed a serious crack in the axle! Certainly there was no way we'd make it all the way home with a full load. Fortunately, our heroes, Rees Racing, were still in the pits and Rick never even hesitated when we asked if we could off load some of our stuff to their rig. Racers are always eager to help other racers but we've found that is especially true of Rick, Teresa and Brandon. They're always quick to offer advice, parts or muscle power. There's not a doubt in my mind that if it weren't for them we would have had to find costly repairs on the road. As it was, the Reeses were able to go on ahead and drop our equipment off at our place while we limped in from Indiana. Can't thank those folks enough for bailing us out.

It was a long, expensive weekend with not much to show for it except a lot of surprises - some good, some bad - and a story. But that's racing.

12 September - Profiled On Women In Racing Website
Thunder Valley Racing, a website devoted to "Woman Racers and Their Fans" recently added Dana's profile to their list of lady racer bios. Check it out at thundervalleyracing.com/racers/meet under the "Other Racers" section. And while you're there look around a bit - Dana's in good company and Thunder Valley has lots of useful & interesting racing info for both sexes. The site is best viewed using Internet Explorer.

7 September - Best Laps Of The Year
Saturday, September 7th saw the Ohio Sprint Series run at Circleville Raceway Park, their last race of the season. OSS is the next step up the seriousness ladder for karters - between local club racing and big-time national events. Although it was a non-championship race for us, we decided to run with them for three main reasons: 1) It would give us a chance to race against some new drivers and let us see how we stack up against these serious guys, 2) to try some changes we wouldn't want to risk in a Mid State of Ohio Kart Club points race, and 3) 'cause we felt like it.

We knew we wouldn't be very competitive because, unlike MSOKC, OSS has no tire restrictions and we couldn't see buying soft, chewy tires just for one race. But we figured we'd find some folks to race with and although the turnout was a little disappointing (only seven karts in our class, nine in our race) we were right.

Dana started on pole for the first heat but a bad start saw her fall to fourth by the back straight. She lost one more position before the last of the fast OSS guys moved up through the pack. She had a great fight with Joe Fagan for fifth for which the position swapped back and forth a couple times. Fagan Racing was not having their best day. Besides trying to make their softer tires work, they were experiencing a mysterious carb problem. That combo had us preying uncharacteristically on Joe in both heat races.

In the second heat Dana started DFL (Dead Freakin' Last) but by the end of the first lap had moved up two or three positions. About mid-race Dana was able to stick to one of the OSS guys' bumper and follow him through as he passed poor Joe at Turn Five. That's called freight-training - when one or more cars or karts go by nose-to-tail while another racer gets forced off line by the first guy. Dana managed to finish fifth in that race and gained some very good traffic experience. Good video off the nose of the kart too.

We had been trying new ideas all day - after each practice session and heat race. There are many, many adjustments that can be made to these karts to tune them to the conditions and we always try to simplify it for Dana by asking her if she could only make one change to the kart to make it better, what would it be? Based on her answer after Heat Two, we tried something that we've been told shouldn't make any difference.

It made a difference to our kart apparently as in the final Dana cranked off six laps in the 50.8 & 50.7 lap range, the first ever for us. Still not the 49s that Jason Karr runs but getting closer again. Dana started fourth in the final and finished fifth, surviving being clobbered from behind at Turn Three on the first lap. The impact had the nose of the other guy's kart up on the back of ours and a little too close to Dana's helmet for anyone's comfort. Nevertheless, she kept everything under control (barely) and didn't even loose the position. But having no warning of what was coming from behind, the incident rattled Dana just a little for a lap or two and it showed in her times but she then settled herself down and ran her six 50s. It helped that she could see she was gaining on Joe again and was determined to get by him for bragging rights. But whatever problems he was having mid-race he was able to adjust for them and maintain his margin over us for the last lap and a half.

With three races remaining in the MSOKC championship, we're fifth. It's unlikely we'll be able to improve on that but in racing you never, ever give up and we'll be working just as hard to gain points on Joe, John Fox, Jacob Gearhart and Jason Karr as well as not falling back into the clutches of Ron Potts. A one bad day for anyone could change the whole thing. We're not gonna let it be us.

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