2003 MSOKC HPV Champions

30 May - All Podiums, All Day

Both ladies had a great day in their third race of the '04 MSOKC Vega Tire Championship taking top three finishing positions in each of their races. We were trying with all our might to get Tracy into first place and nearly got the job done in the Super Can feature - sooo close. Meanwhile, we were apparently trying with all our might to keep Dana from winning any of her races but failing each time when luck stepped in to save the race.

Due to the holiday weekend, entries were down in just about all the classes with Super Can only having 10 karts and HPV down to 5. Significant in that was that Barry Hatcher, Dana's main rival was one of the folks missing from the roster. More...

16 May - Tracy's Turn For A Win!

In a crazy day that saw Dana racing in Tracy's class for one heat then winning another INFONETICS HPV heat for herself and Tracy surviving some scary moments and some wheel to wheel racing, Tracy was rewarded for her perseverance with a Feature win. It was the Yang to last week's Ying as the win came after the checkered flag, in the tech shed.

The weekend started off badly when I broke my own cardinal rule by not touching the karts until 24 hours before they were to be loaded up for the race. I advise other racers to always unload, clean and inspect their karts in the days following an event. That way if they discover something broken or worn there will be time to respond by ordering parts or making arrangements for repairs. This is a busy time around the house and office and there I was at 7:00 Friday night, finally pulling stuff apart for Sunday's race. And sure enough, there were some surprises waiting for me. More...

08 May - Off To A Great Start!

The first race of the 2004 season rewarded us for our pre-season work and gave us encouragement for the balance of the season. But it also wasn't too early to learn another lesson the hard way.

Not only did Dana pick up where she left off last year by winning her first heat and finishing in the top three in all events but Tracy also showed that she can run up front by leading half her heat race before giving way to last year's Champion, Brad Carroll. Unfortunately, her hard earned second place in that race was taken away when she crossed the scales .5 of a pound light. Yes, that's right, half a pound. More...

25 April - Rained Out!

Just goes to show that no matter how you plan and prepare, you're always at the mercy of Mother Nature.

Opening weekend started out great enough. On Saturday the weather was spectacular and we were at the track making final tweaks and tuning for Race #1. We quickly found good balance on both karts and produced times we were very happy with. Tracy and Dana even bettered their prior personal best laps. More...

23 April - With a Little Help From Our Friends

We're blessed with some great friends that lend us very valuable support. On the eve of a new season we'd like give 'em some extra attention. Learn a little bit about them here!

21 April - Kids Learn About Karting

When was the last time you brought your go kart to work?

We did April 21 as a little treat for the kids in Dana's class at the Goddard Preschool in Dublin. In conjunction with other activities celebrating the Week of the Small Child, Dana set aside some class time for her kids so that she could explain her hobby to them. At two or three years of age, some of the children in her class think Miss Dana (as they call her) lives at the school and does nothing in life but keep them amused and occupied (that's okay, there's times when Miss Dana thinks that too) so for them to see that she has fun away from school like they do was important. More...

14 April - We Decide To Not Run GLSS

Due to personal obligations, family schedules, tight funding and potentially low entry numbers, we have made the difficult decision to not compete in the Great Lakes Sprint Series, a WKA Divisional series, this year. We have also decided to forego the one WKA Manufacturer's Cup race within striking distance for us May 14 through 16th.

The decision to not run GLSS was particularly difficult as the variety of venues forces us to push ourselves on unfamiliar tracks and against the best kart racers in the Midwest. But having heard that Kristi Snell and Scott Rettich would not be competing in the HPV class this year we had to question the sensibility of spending several hundred dollars per weekend to race against possibly one other driver in the HPV class. The Manufacturer's Cup race at Norway Motorplex was abandoned because it comes directly in the middle of a particularly busy period for the team both on the track and off. This too was a difficult decision because it would have been a chance for family back in Chicago to come out and spend a racing day with us.

Our off-track schedule is bursting at the seams with a busy year of milestone anniversaries, vacations and Julie going off to Ashland University. Add to that several new karting projects we're working on and we'll have our hands full just contending the Mid State Ohio Kart Club Vega Tire Championship. We hope to return to the Great Lakes Sprint Series in 2005.

10 April - Just About Ready

Another full day of testing made more full by another clutch failure but we accomplished a lot and we're pretty close to being ready for that first race.

The identical clutch failure as two weeks ago - spring tensioner snapping - is discouraging and a cause for some concern because this time I know I wasn't a bonehead. Francis of PKP Yellow Fin (who had been maintaining this engine prior to us purchasing it) happened to be at Circleville Raceway Park and said it had been a while since he'd seen that type of failure. He put it down to metal fatigue and supplied us with replacement parts. If it wasn't for him and his dealer truck full of spares, Tracy's kart would have been on the trailer early again. But I was able to make the necessary repairs using the grid bleachers as my workbench, suffering only about four heart attacks when people came along and sat on the lower benches causing the whole structure shift suddenly and violently. More...

06 April - Encore Presentation of Chassis Setup 101 Scheduled

May 22, 2004

May 22 is the date for the encore presentation of the the National Kart News Chassis Setup 101 seminar. NKN technical writer Mike Unger will again be leading the class on chassis handling basics including, alignment, scaling, component and handling terms, trackside tuning and kart dynamics. The seminar is scheduled for the Holiday Inn Express in Circleville and attendees are encouraged to bring their karts for practice at Circleville Raceway Park after lunch. Mike and I will be on hand there to help students apply what they learned in class.

Registration is $30 and $20 for each additional team member on the same registration form. A continental breakfast is included as well as study materials from which Mike has based the class. The four hour seminar will start on Saturday, May 22 at 8:00 a.m. and registration fees need to be in by May 20. Preregistration to reserve seats is available on-line here.

03 April - Picking Up Speed

Our day at the track started early and nowhere near the track. It was 7:45am or thereabouts when we sat down at the Bob Evens at I270 and Rt161 with a few of our NW side co-racers. It's always nice to trade stories with your fellow racers and in this case it was Roberto Zayas, Chris Putman, Karl Hans, Tom Hickey, Jed Aston, Tracy, Dana and I.

On the way out to the track we stopped off at McCall Motorsports to scale out Tracy's '01 Biesse Viper. What should have been fairly routine and done in about an hour quickly digressed into a fairly sustantial repair. More...

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