21 September - Best Team Finish So Far: Both Ladies Podium
With a little nip in the air while setting up, we were back at Circleville Raceway Park for the 11th of the 13-race Mid State Ohio Kart Club championship for what would turn out to be our best team performance ever. Although it sure didn't look like it would earlier in the day.
Dana's day was fairly routine with her complaining about the handling in practice on a green track. But as practice progressed the track came to her and the balance she's used to at CRP was there by the first heat. We discovered that we had used up a lot of brakes at South Bend but we able to get Dana more pedal before the second practice.
We were very pleased to see a new driver in the HPV field. Kelly O'Chocke was starting her first kart race in brother Mike's Paul Tracy Kart and HPV engine. At 15 years old she looked pretty dang fast for having only been in the kart three times before her race. Kelly's dad, Howard said they're thinking about running HPV with MSOKC in 2004 so maybe next year the guys will have two ladies kicking their butts (sorry guys, couldn't resist).
This year though, at this race, Dana had about a 50 point lead over John Fox in the HPV points race and it was up to us not to do something stupid to throw it all away like being disqualified for something or just breaking down before the green flag.
In the first heat Dana started third next to Kelly. Roberto Zayas had pole with John Fox on the outside of row one. The green saw John hustle around Roberto and into the lead. Roberto, getting faster at each outing with his new Biesse kart, slipped in behind John and didn't give Dana much opportunity to get by and set after John. Coming out of Eight Roberto ran a little wide and Dana tried to take advantage only to find herself on the outside going into Nine. Roberto got sideways and ran wide making Dana run wider. She fell of the track, caught a little air before sliding nearly to a stop. She recovered and about mid-race and was able to launch herself out of Four and get around Roberto before Five. John was about seven seconds ahead at that point but by the end of the race she had made up about six of those.
In HPV Heat 2 Dana inherited the pole when Kelly moved herself to the back for lack of experience but this also gave John the outside front row. He used it to his advantage and shot into the lead. Dana never fell more than four kart lengths but couldn't find a way by. After two heats John had gained four points on Dana - could he make it eight?
But John's two firsts earned him the pole, which as we learned earlier in the year, isn't the advantage it is supposed to be in HPV. As they gridded up Dana knew it would come down to the start - leading into the first turn would likely negate John's point gain and not leading would probably allow John to double it. No doubt John knew it too. It would be kinda like the gunfight at the CRP corral. Dana had the quick draw though and led flag to flag for her 15th win of the season. John was there the whole way as was Roberto, continuing to refine his new ride.
As dramatic the points situation was in the HPV races, for real drama you had to look to Tracy's day.
An untested (shame on me) clutch adjustment between practice and the first Briggs Stock Medium heat presented itself as all wrong as we fired up the engine on the grid. Instead of engaging at about 4000rpm as calculated, it was revving to about 5500. This meant that at the run up to the green flag and when powering out of turns Four and Seven Tracy's kart would not be getting power to the rears wheels as quick as her competitors. But the primary concern was how the start would work out - there would be 12 snarling karts behind her ready to bump her out of the way should her kart falter. But there was nothing we could do about it, we were out of time.
Our problem was evident to everyone on the grid. John Gearhart was quick to assess the problem and came up with a solution. Rather than causing a scramble to get around Tracy's struggling kart as the green comes out, Jacob Gearhart, starting right behind Tracy would push her across the line after which the clutch should be engaged and she should be able to keep up to speed. It worked. Jacob pushed Tracy into third place going into Turn One and from there she was able to hold her own. Jacob got by her for that third spot but Tracy hung on - just barely - with Jenna Gearhart and the others jamming up behind her on the exit of Four and Seven but unable to get around. As it was, Jenna, Marc Rice and Tracy fanned out coming up to the checkered for an exciting finish.
Second heat, Tracy's clutch was corrected but she was buried back in eighth starting position. But managed to get past two karts to finish in sixth. On the way to doing that Tracy again lowered her personal best lap at CRP and in doing so achieved a goal she set for herself early in the season - a 50 second lap. But the combination of a fifth and a sixth was good enough to earn her the fourth spot on the feature grid.
She used that spot to her advantage and was up to third coming out of Turn Three edging out Jacob (some way to repay his earlier help, huh?). She stayed ahead of Jacob for several laps (even without his help!) before falling to fourth. Fact was by lap three Tracy was in trouble. The small stumble late in the second heat that we dismissed as low fuel had made itself much more obnoxious. She had that same snarling pack jamming up behind her again at all the right handers. In fact coming out of Seven and Nine Tracy was challenged just about every lap, each one a nail-biter for us back trackside. With two laps to go I turned to Dana and said I didn't think she could hold off Marc, Jenna and others. Tracy proved me wrong, not only fighting tooth and nail to keep that fourth place but with one lap to go inherited third when Jacob pulled off at Seven with a dead engine. At the line Tracy had half a kart on Marc, earning a hard fought place on the podium.
That was a tough break for Jacob. We learned later that the screw-on terminal on the spark plug had unscrewed itself. But he was pretty philosophical about it saying that "there's a few more races" to go in the season.
So, a big day for Conlin SpeedSports with both gals placing in the top three. How does it get better than that (well, we know how but we won't talk about that until it happens)? Family friend Hilary returned for her second race in a row and brought along another Hilliard Darby Panther, Brittani. We were happy to have them with us, brightening our pit area.
12 - 14 September - We Learn A Lot At Final GLSS Race
We set out for South Bend Raceway Park for the sixth and last race in the Great Lakes Sprint Series WKA Divisional championship with several objectives in mind: have fun, learn a new track and last but not least try to finish ahead of Lance Hancock. Placing ahead of Lance in the SBRP feature would move Dana into second place in the GLSS HPV Senior Light final points. We met two of those three objectives.
Testing on Friday, the weather was perfect but our driver wasn't. Dana was suffering from fever, congestion and laryngitis, the lingering effects of a virus she'd picked up earlier in the week. Nevertheless, when her helmet was on, she delivered, getting the most out of our kart each time she went out. After a couple sessions of simply learning the track, we began to work with the kart's balance and making it handle on that circuit.
SBRP is an active track and has more rubber down on the asphalt than CRP and other tracks we've run. We didn't really appreciate that as we worked for a good set up within our usual range of changes and adjustments. Early in the day our changes resulted in lower times but as the day wore on and the track got stickier as more karts lapped the track, changes had less effect. One of the clues that we had the wrong set up for the conditions was that gearing changes did not have the expected affect on the max rpms. Another was Dana's (at the time) strange request for the kart to slide more. She was happy with the balance but wanted the kart to have less grip. It's rare that a driver asks for less grip. But her instincts were right as we were to find out later.
Frankly, I wasn't sure how to give the kart less grip but maintain the balance we had found. So as it was we soldiered on with the changes we knew and made moderate progress. By the end of our day we had worked down to a 44.1 and were fairly pleased with the progress. But we were sobered up a bit though when Lance went out late in the day and ran a series of 42s. SBRP is Lance's home track but even so, a second plus was humbling.
Saturday we spoke to our version of Patrick Head (the Williams Formula One team's lead engineer who sometimes engineers the car from the factory via telecommunications rather than being at the track), Brian O'Hara and got some set up and driving advice for dealing with the conditions we found ourselves in. We were also closely watching the weather. We had to concede that, in kart tuning and track knowledge at SBRP, Lance and his dad had us covered in the dry. But as we learned at BeaveRun, our wet set up was pretty good and Dana's driving style adapted better to the rain than Lance's. Needless to say, The Weather Channel was a popular channel on the hotel room TV and there might have been a prayer or two for rain.
Sunday dawned gray and by 7:30 all of South Bend was wet and on the drive out to the track it looked like our wishes for wet conditions would come true. But shortly after the setting up at the track the skies lightened and the rain dissipated. Worse, our own personal meteorologist, farmer John Gearhart, was predicting the rain stopping and the track drying by noon. He was right, practice was on a damp track but by the time qualifying started the track was almost 100% dry. At least Dana was feeling a lot better than Friday.
Just before qualifying we were thrilled to see my cousin Chick Maloney strolling our way. He and his wife Carolyn had driven the 90 or so miles to SBRP to watch us race. It was great visiting both of them as the last time we had seen each other was at my dad's funeral last year. As usual, I wished I could have spent more time with them but Chick was able to get an idea of what we're trying to accomplish all day at the races and an overview of kart tuning back at our pits. It was very flattering that they would come all that way to see us race. Hopefully we can work something out with more of the family back in Chicago when we race at Norway next year.
As expected we were hopelessly out-classed by Scott Rettich and Hancock in qualifying. Hancock earned the pole with Rettich second. The "pre-final" was pretty much a lapping session for Dana as Lance and Scott drove off to a pretty good race. The changes we made had loosened the kart and at one point she did a lazy little half-spin but carried on, no harm done. We were able to adjust the loose out of the kart and in the Final Dana turned her best lap of the weekend, a 44 flat. Meanwhile Lance and Scott put on a heck of a show with a nearly photo-finish at the end.
The two races made it very obvious to me that we had missed the set-up big time. The other guys were visibly faster through the long 180 degree turns and at the chicane that led onto the main straight they fought to keep their karts on the track while Dana went through there flat out with six to twelve inches to spare. So it wasn't until the ride home that I began to realize Dana was right Friday when she indicated that the kart was stuck too well. Although the kart was balanced, it was using up some of its power & speed just pushing itself around the turns. Without the pressure of an impending practice session or race I came up with several solutions that would have made the kart run "freer" as they say. The next day I spoke with Brian and Mike Unger and they confirmed my suspicions and agreed with my solutions and offered a few more. The thing is, they could have suggested these things before we left for South Bend but I wouldn't have really understood why we were doing these things. I'm the type that learns by doing and doing a weekend like this certainly is a learning experience. Passion is the mother of invention in racing. We'll be ready next time.
So, a third in our first year of racing Divisionals and this faster HPV kart. Not bad. We got some very lucky breaks in the GLSS series like David Cox and Hancock being DQ'd in the first race, Handcock's broken chain at BeaveRun and others. We were rewarded for our perserverance and reliability over our speed. Rettich had everybody covered, Hancock had everybody else covered. We placed as well as we deserved and are looking forward to next year.
06 September - We Do All Right Under The Lights
A rare Saturday afternoon race schedule, an unusually high entry list and a late start conspired to give Dana and Tracy their first taste of racing under artificial lighting. Both adapted well and over all had a pretty good outing for the day. Dana picked up win #14 for the season and Tracy racked up another top five finish.
Dana found herself gridded third for her first heat behind John Fox (with a fresh engine) and Don Wilbur. Next to her was Roberto Zayas at the wheel of his brand-new, just-delivered-at-the-track Biesse. Jim Giacomelli of J & J Racing was providing trackside support for Roberto, dialing the Viper in to the track and driver.
At the start John jumped into the lead with Don following him. Dana slotted into third. Don was running well and Dana had a difficult time finding a way by. About mid-race she found an opening going into Turn Nine, but John was all but gone. In the remaining laps Dana gained on John but ran out of laps and had to settle for second (there was a time not long ago we would have been thrilled with second).
In the first heat of the Briggs Stock Medium race, Tracy started 4th of 10 karts and was holding the position all the way onto the backstraight where the engine suddenly lost power and the rest of the field streamed by as Tracy coasted through turns Five and Six. She watched the rest of her race from the grass between Six and Seven. Another bad hit for her championship points.
The bigger concern was what caused the engine problem. The fear was that if we had hurt our remaining race motor in a big way, Tracy might be done for the season. It was an anxious and long wait for the race to finish and our kart to be brought into the pits. The first thing I did was turn the crankshaft and was relieved to find it still had compression. Back at our trailer we pulled the plug and was really relieved to find that the plug's gap had been mashed closed by the intake valve. Apparently through repeated tightening the electrode indexing had gradually gone off and at high rpm the intake valve got thrown up far enough to smack the gap closed. And easy, inexpensive fix. Not enough of those.
For the second HPV heat, Roberto elected to give up his pole starting position and moved his new Biesse to the back so as to not be dialing in his new kart in front of the other sorted karts. This put Dana on the pole with Don outside and John right behind her. At the green Dana got into the lead and John made short work of following her through for second place. John's new motor served him well as he stuck on Dana's bumper nearly the whole race. Dana was able to stay ahead to rack up her 14th win of the season.
Tracy's second heat went much better than her first, starting from the seventh position in the fading daylight. Dealing with being completely blinded for several seconds each lap by the low sun, she worked her way up to fifth where she finished strong, seemingly keeping pace with the acknowledged fast group. She had a great seat for an exciting race up ahead of her as Bo Strawser, Eric Fagan, Tyler Tatman and Brandon Rees fought in a tight group most of the race. On the last lap Bo and Eric slugged it out over the final few corners giving Eric the win by inches at the line.
By the time the features were ready to run the lights we on and it was pretty dark beyond the track's perimeter. CRP could use a few more lights but it was much better than when I raced under the lights several years ago there. In addition to the under-illuminated areas there was thin layer of dew forming on everything which added another new variable.
Dana got a great start from the outside of row one and led out onto the backstraight. As she shot toward Turn Five she backed off early partly because her braking mark on the track had disappeared in the dark and partly due to concerns about the dew. John, with his many years of experience at CRP - some of it racing at night no doubt - showed no anxiety at all and swooped into the lead. It took Dana a couple laps to adjust to the new, weird shadows and visual clues but soon she was on pace with John and started closing the gap. The features were shortened to six laps instead of eight and we we left wondering if she could have challenged John in another couple laps. But those conditions rewarded experience so John deserved that win.
Tracy's feature was kind of uneventful (what a nice change!) - she started from the seventh position again and in adapting to the new conditions held her spot but couldn't improve on it. She finished 7th and was particularly happy with her performance but at least she got though a entire raceday without being run over or squished between other karts.
Julie did a great job of video taping the races which provided the photos you see here. We also enjoyed having Julie's friend Hillary along for the day. Hillary has been hearing the racing stories for years and finally came out to see for herself - and help us fight the mosquitoes. And it was nice to have Jim Giacomelli take a break from tuning Roberto's new Biesse and come by to visit a while in our pits.
01 September - We're Famous!
Way back in April Mike Unger (who is no stranger to this website) asked us to do a new product review for an article he was doing for National Kart News. Mike writes for NKN regularly and often is given first crack at the new products. An engineer (for Honda) by trade, Mike uses sound, logical, scientific testing procedures for all his published karting articles - which is why we were shocked when he asked us to test the new Tillett Ribcage Support System. What did we know about scientific testing - logical or otherwise?
But the Tillett Ribcage Support System was a good choice for us. Dana has always had trouble fitting her very feminine framework into kart seats molded to the masculine physique. We were a little concerned at first that the support panels that more or less wrap around your upper body might interfere with some of the parts that make the female form, well, female. It's not too good to have your go-kart getting a little too friendly with you at 65 mph. But as it turned out, these concerns were unnecessary.
At the first Great Lakes Sprint Series race at Norway we installed the panels, recording the process on film and then sending Dana out to get some impressions. The complete story is clickable on the Magazine images here but in short, she loved them and felt much more secure in the kart. Later, we related our opinions and photos to Mike and he took it from there. By the way, I'm given credit for the photos when it was actually team photographer Julie that took the pics. I mention that in case some of you sharper readers were wondering how I managed to take the photos and be in them too.
Just so you know, National Kart News is THE magazine for serious karters. It is the ONLY karting magazine Conlin SpeedSports subscribes to and we think that anyone that is into karting or is even thinking about getting into karting should buy a multi-year subscription to this fine, quality periodical. (And we're not just saying that because we don't have permission from NKN to put a copy of this highly informative article on our site and are hoping that if they find out about it they won't send us a cease and desist order nor are we trying to impress them with multiple links to their wonderful website, www.nkn.com.)
It should be said the images are huge so if you click the magazine on the left or right, be prepared for a wait and if you're on dial-up, go take a nap and come back to it. But if you do, read slow so that we get our full 15 minutes of fame. Thanks to Mike for thinking of us and getting us the exposure.
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