24 February - Florida Spring Training Day 4: Tire Work And Test Driving A New Package

First order of business was to find some compressed air with high enough pressure to pop the beads of about a dozen tires onto the rims of about a dozen wheels. Mike's nitrogen tank didn't have the necessary regulator to do that safely. So a tour of Palmetto gas stations was undertaken but who ever has the franchise for those $0.25 air pump/vacuum machines has done well in central Florida - we could find no gas station with the old reliable big, loud compressor.

But when we came upon Professional Automotive Services and noticed that they had a performance division, we figured we found the Holy Grail. Introducing myself to the owner, Bill Lee, I learned that he has been into drag bike racing most of his life and in addition to his own car now, was currently fielding a Junior Dragster and a Junior Drag Bike for his son who had recently won a championship. I described our plight and since racers love to help fellow racers, our problems were over. Bill directed us to the "Tire Mounting Bay" and made short work of mounting those tire. He mounted all 12 or so in the time it take me to mount two at home. We were genuinely grateful for Bill bailing us out because things were looking grim until that point.

Dana and I set about getting to know our new club spec tire, the Vega SL5 "Blue". To start out, we used the same set of Vegas that we ran on Mike's Leopard/Biesse back in October in the enduro. They still had lots of grip and were still very consistent. We ended up using them the entire day and they never went off. Late in the day Dana did a 33 lap stint and the tires were still looking and behaving well. At the end of that long session the kart became looser but we concluded that was from heat build-up since the set up was giving Dana just a touch of oversteer. After about 250 laps (and counting) on this set, I continue to be impressed by the performance of the Vegas.

Late yesterday when I went to download the test data from I discovered the My-Chron download cable did not make the trip to Palmetto with us. A potential disaster to be unable to download any of the testing done this week. But a call home late last night got Julie to find the cable in the tool cabinet we decided to leave at home at the last minute and then Lynn was able get it over to FedEx before they closed - despite not feeling very well. Once again, our success depended on us all working as a team and the team came through. The FedEx guy showed up at a little after 10:00 and instead of not being able to find the place like I feared, the FedEx guy said he'd been watching the place being built and wondered what it was. He was delighted to have a reason to come in and find out.

Curt Paluzzi, publisher of National Kart News, who arrived late yesterday, had brought down a new Exciter kart for Mike to write an article about. The Exciter is a Yamaha 4-stroke 250cc with a six-speed transmission. Mike took it out for a couple sessions and then turned it over to Dana for a few sessions to get a non-shifter driver's perspective. You'll have to wait for the full review in NKN but Dana said it was a lot easier to drive than Mike's ICC and way more fun.

Just as we were finishing up lunch, my Aunt Janet, cousin John and wife Marie and cousin Diane who live nearby came out to see what we were up to. John had been a Kawasaki motorcycle dealer in the Tampa area before selling it off to retire, so the karts were right up his alley and had lots of questions. They stayed long enough to watch one of Dana's Exciter sessions and my initial go in the Exciter. Dana was right, the Exciter was a blast to drive and Mike was impressed by how quickly I became comfortable with the shifter having never driven any shifter before. It was nice that Aunt Janet brought the crew out to see my maiden shifter run and I was glad I didn't embarrass myself too badly. I learned later from Curt that John may come back out on Friday to give the Exciter a run.

About 1 p.m. a storm moved in and testing was suspended for about 2 hours. As the track was drying Dana and I walked the course and had a debate about whether the entry to turn Seven could be a passing zone. I said if you were following someone through Six, you could apex Six a little early and not come back across the track for entry to Seven, just shoot down the inside. Dana said No Way.

When the track dried, Curt suggested I go out in the Exciter, which was a little faster than the HPV, and chase Dana around. This was the most fun I've had driving for years. Also the most frustrating. The Exciter was definitely faster than the HPV (somewhere between 1 and 2 seconds per lap) but with me driving it anything I gained on Dana I would throw away with some dumb overdriving or shifting mistake. Eventually we got ourselves running nose to tail and I was able to test my theory of the Six/Seven combination.

The first time I tried it though I was introduced to overbraking in a kart with front brakes - just like a car, when the front brakes a are locked there's no steering, and if Dana had not been on the ball we would have collided. We went round like that for about 10 laps and I tried that move about 5 times. I wished I knew which way to turn the brake bias to distribute the braking to the rear wheels more but I couldn't chance making it worse. The one time I was able to force my way down the inside and get ahead, I didn't have the presence of mind to go down another gear to compensate for the super tight line around the corner, Dana started pulling away and by the time I thought to down change I got flustered and actually went up a gear. If I had more than two sessions of shifter driving in my entire life at that point I coulda made that pass stick. Well, maybe tomorrow.

The last exercise of the day had Dana go out and lay down her fastest laps. Of those 50.78 was her best. Mike then went out in the HPV to see what he could do and to see if ICC has erased his ability to be smooth. His was best was 50.81 but laying the data traces from both drivers showed Dana giving up a mph in the way she took Turn 4. She had her assignment for tomorrow.

Oh yeah, it was sunny and 82.

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