2003 & 2004 MSOKC HPV Champions
2004 MSOKC Super Can Runner Up

03 April - First Laps Of The Year (And Not A Moment Too Soon)

Finally out on the track

With only a week before the first race of the season we were finally able to get out to Circleville Raceway Park and get some laps in. Heavy business travel and personal obligations cut the available days in the off-months for rebuilding and preparing Dana's and Tracy's karts by over half leaving us the less ready for a new season then ever before. So it was with a great deal of relief that we were able to do the break-in sessions for both motors without drama. Towards the end of the day the ladies were able to lap as quickly as they wanted to and got back into the rhythm of driving fast at CRP in no time.

Unlike the day before which punished Central Ohio with wet, sideways-blowing snow, Sunday featured clear skies and reasonable temperatures although the high winds remained making anything in the pits that wasn't held down a projectile.

The track was still very "green", having very little grip, after the long winter. To further handicap the grip situation, both gals were running on very old Vega SL5s as we, like everyone else in the club, await the new Vega NordAm spec tires. Tracy and her HPV seemed right on the pace immediately, turning the revs we wanted to see exactly where we like to see them and attaining the top speed we're used to seeing from the HPV. Dana quickly came to grips with the additional acceleration and speed of her new TaG PRD Fireball although we were down on revs quite a bit. The PRD Fireball is a new engine to compete in the USA and not much information is available from the North American karting community yet so we're having to fill in many of the blanks ourselves rather than just find someone to ask. We have a lot of things to learn and try on this new motor. Still, compared to other MSOKC TaG entrants that were there testing too, we weren't too far off the pace.

With this session we're plunging into an hellacious schedule racing every weekend for the next 7 weekends including the national at BeaveRun in Pennsylvania April 22-24. Watch this space to see how things go.

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