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

22 - 24 April - The Big Experiment , Part 2: Our First And Probably Last National Race

Dana and Tracy get rain advice from Brian (lower R) while Sean tends to the #13.

There is no way to abbreviate this report.

I'll start off by saying that if it weren't for Brian O'Hara and Sean Dillon working like dogs (cold, wet, malnourished, mangy, feral dogs [Sean even slept on the floor one night]), we would have had virtually no track time at all over the two days we were at the WKA George Kugler Winter Nationals presented by Bridgestone at BeaveRun Motorsports Complex. I can't thank those guys enough and wonder whatever made me think I could tune for two karts at a race like this. In my defense I could say that, being our first national, I had no idea of what was to be expected from us/me. But, we had a lot working against us too. Not the least of which was the weather followed by the organizers and then the track management itself.

Friday - A Confederacy Of Dunces

There are only four events that make up the WKA Kugler Manufacturer's Cup presented by Bridgestone and why one of them was scheduled in the north (NW PA where the weather is unpredictable until mid-May) in April is a mystery that is left to everyone's own speculation. For me, I speculate that BeaveRun Motorsports Complex told the WKA, "April 21-24, take it or leave it". BeaveRun, by many accounts, has earned a reputation of not being very accommodating of kart racers even though they have a world-class kart track design. This reputation was enhanced when they first proposed squeezing Thursday practice in between 4pm and 8pm because of track scheduling conflict (they later relented and moved the conflicting event allowing practice to start several hours earlier). Then, Friday, not only did the track keep the concession stands closed but barred with wire fences and guards 450+ kart racers and their crew members from using any of the flush toilets. Perhaps not a hardship on the male segment of the assembled karters but unpleasant in the least for the females in general and a real inconvenience for the female drivers (of which there are increasing numbers) trying to manage full racing suits in those confined quarters.

One of our crew looking for lunch on Friday at BeaveRun.

I don't suppose it would be fair to accuse BeaveRun of discouraging women in racing but I did have to give the kart retrieval driver a piece of my mind. After Dana had spun off into the mud at Turn 3 in practice, the driver emerged from his (dry, warm) vehicle, and told her to pick up the rear of her kart (the heavier, motor end) to get it on the trailer for the tow back to the pits. When Dana responded that she could pick up the front but not the rear (under doctor's orders due to the back injury at work), she was told "Well, then you shouldn't be racing then". Until her back heals we will have her carry a note from her doctor with her on the track that reads, "Please excuse Dana from lifting the rear of the kart as she is recovering from a back injury. She is fine for lifting the front of the kart and for driving. And if you make any snide comments, her father will be coming through the window of your truck to discuss it further".

Even if the track had welcomed us with open arms, Friday would have still been a disaster due to the WKA being unable to cope with the arrival of rain about 1pm and general disorganization. We arrived at the track at 7:15am and immediately Dana and Tracy set off for registration to pick up their packets and pay for Friday practice. That's all they had to do since we had made the effort to pre-register three weeks in advance. They stood in line for 1 hour and 45 minutes because it was chaos at the tower. There should have been strict enforcement of a "Pre-registered Line" and a "Register Today Line". Instead they had to wait while racer after racer filled out all the paperwork that we did weeks ago. Between that and the long line at tech (although that did go quickly and they even accommodated karts that were to go out in the early practice order) we missed Dana's first practice session.

Fuel was another issue. Shortly after they announced that the Sunoco (the spec fuel for the weekend) gas pumps would be open 24/7 for the duration of the weekend, I headed over to make my purchase. I was offered 4 choices. 94 octane unleaded pump gasoline and 100, 110 & 112 octane racing fuel. Lacking any direction or sign indicating one over another, I purchased 5 gallons of the 100 octane fuel at around $6 per gallon. About half way through practice it was announced that only the 110 fuel was spec'd. Sure enough, Saturday morning when I returned to the pumps (after having to buy another fuel jug at Wal-mart since my other one was full of the wrong fuel) a new large sign was on the pumps indicating the 110 as the official fuel.

There was more bad news when we reported to the J&J Racing trailer in hopes of receiving a replacement starter for our PRD Fireball that has not worked since day one. John Giacomelli had to break the new to me that he was unable to get a replacement from importer Grand Products because Grand Products had shipped every last one they had (all 29 of them ) to MRP, a large kart shop based in Michigan and Texas. The PRD has some obvious widespread starter problems and there was something very uncool about dedicating all there replacements to one customers and telling the rest of us to more or less kiss off.

What seemed like a high & dry place in the morning had rivers running through it by mid-afternoon.

Friday morning we were able to get both ladies out for a couple of sessions under cloudy skies but a dry track. But as we pushed Tracy's kart up for her first session on new tires, the heavens opened up. After and short "holding pattern", it was announced that they were declaring it a wet track and practice would resume on rain tires with the HPV class in 15 minutes. 15 minutes is the typical amount of time officials will give you to change to wet conditions on raceday. But there is so much to change for wet conditions the 15 minutes is always a compromise - you do the most significant things first and just do the best you can in the race. But we had just wheeled back to our pit area and had to make a decision: Do we do a compromise set up for Tracy and send her out for a compromised session, or do we skip Tracy's session, set Dana's kart up for full wet and then do Tracy's HPV after Dana's TaG practice?

We decided to get both our karts in full wet set up because the forecast was calling for 90% chance of precipitation the rest of Friday afternoon and all of Saturday. Why do a compromise set up when we'd have to do the full wet anyway? Just do them both. No sooner had we got Dana's TaG half-way changed over than the announcement came over the PA that instead of doing class-by-class practice, they were throwing the track open for general practice. Not only did this mean that karts of widely varying speeds (65+mph for the shifters, about 55 or so for Yamaha Master) would be on the track at the same time but we then had just a few minutes to finish Dana's kart whereas had the schedule gone as planned we would have had about half an hour. So we finished Dana's kart as quickly as we could and pushed it up tot he grid. The plan was to get Dana out for 10 or so laps in the rain, go back to our pit and get Tracy's HPV converted so she could go out for general practice.

The way it worked out, Dana had one lap at speed before some testosterone-saturated shifter monkey attempted a desperation, three wide pass (remember, this is only practice and the first session in the rain) going into turn one, bounced off another shifter and spun him out. Dana was the third kart, on the outside and had no place to go except off the track and into the quagmire to avoid the driver that had been spun out. She kept it running but had to wait two laps before there was a gap in traffic to get moving out of the grass and back up to speed. And when she did, she came around to a checkered flag. Another wasted session and our first glimpse of National-level drivers that operate off a tiny, little brain between their legs.

The crew thrashes to get Dana's kart switched over to a full rain setup.

As we pushed back to our pit to begin work on Tracy's kart, the announcement came over that the officials had changed their minds again and were going back to class-by-class practice. HPV Heavy and Light were to report to the grid for their session immediately. We couldn't believe it. It was like the officials were watching our dopey little naive team through binoculars from the tower and making decisions just to mess with us. It was unbelievable. Every time they changed their plans and we changed ours to suit them, they changed the plan again. And this was serious. We HAD to get Tracy out for practice in the rain since she had never driven a kart in the rain before. We'd miss her next practice but come hell or high water (the high water had already come) we would have Tracy's kart ready for the next HPV wet session.

But there wasn't another HPV session after that. And you can probably guess why by now. The officials decided to again abandon class-by-class practice and went back to general practice. Now what the **** do we do? We only had one set of rain tires and the inquiries we made found no more to be bought. Do we send Dana out for another session in TaG? Or do we send Tracy out for at least some exposure to rain driving? Had the schedule been class-by-class which is customary and advertised as such, we wouldn't have had to make that choice - the two karts could have shared one set of tires. As it was we had to tell Dana to wait until after we got Tracy out and somewhat comfortable with those conditions. Tracy did okay, she had a spin or two but before she could truly get things flowing, the checkered came out, surprising our team again.

Since we only had to move the tires to Dana's kart we had brought the TaG up to the grid too so that she could go out after Tracy. It was only a little after four and we'd hoped to get both ladies out for a couple of sessions each before the end of the day. But as we prepared to remove the wheels from Tracy's HPV, the announcement came that practice was over. A collective moan of frustration went up from the grid and the clog of people there waiting to go out. Clearly there was serious discontent among the paying customers. And then, as everyone streamed off the grid back to the paddock, out of the PA system came the capper to the whole day and removed any doubt about where the racers ranked in the WKA scheme of things:

Tracy didn't have very many dry laps.

"HEY!!! You people have got to work with us!!! We tried to go class-by-class, but YOU didn't want to practice class-by-class. No! No, you didn't. If you did, you would have been up here on the grid when we called you. But no one came up when we called you class-by-class. So we went to general practice. It was YOUR decision. So DON'T blame us because you didn't get enough practice!!!! You GOT to work with US. If you don't show up when we call you, we got to think you don't want to practice class-by-class. You have to WORK with us..." There was more general berating of the paying customer that just seemed to go on and on but you get the gist. But, what never occurred to this SOB is that if no one is showing up to practice, something is wrong. They were probably scrambling like us to get two or more karts converted over to full wet. If no one is showing up on the grid, they need more time. What is so difficult to understand in that?

And what is so difficult to understand that if you keep changing the plan every half hour you're creating a disaster? It should be noted, especially by new readers, that although this was our first national kart race, this was by no means our first national-level race. In the past 30 years I have raced, crewed, corner-worked, officiated, spectated and otherwise observed at SCCA club races including the June Sprints and Runoffs (where 400+ entrants are common) and 24 hour endurance races; SCCA, IMSA, CART pro races; and hundreds of snowmobile races including five times at the World Championships. The standard I was expecting was not created in my head or based on other WKA events, it was based on the performance of people running races with just as many or more vehicles, more crew members and under distressing weather conditions. I have never spent so much money and put forth so much effort only to be so truly and thoroughly disrespected . And this was only Friday.

I could suddenly see with absolute clarity why Stars of Karting and SuperKarts USA (top-level kart series challengers) had come about. I could also see that complaints about the WKA show were not exaggerated. In fact, by the end of the day the humor of the whole thing had begun to surface in our team. That defeated, resolute humor that emerges to get one through a hopeless situation. We were in the Fawlty Towers of racing where, just as in John Cleese's famous sit-com, the paying customer is a terrible inconvenience to the management. And as we were wandering around the paddock in a stupor of disbelief and amazement, we happened across Conor Daly's pit area. Conor's dad Derek is an ex-Formula One driver, current F1 television commentator and writer for National Kart News. Derek had written a somewhat scathing review of the first WKA national he and his son had attended a couple years ago. It was a privilege to meet him and I was able to introduce myself as a fellow NKN writer (What??? NKN has published two of my pieces, I can call myself an NKN writer if I want to!!) and he seemed genuinely pleased to meet one. I recounted my amusement when I read his article and told him I had a new appreciation for the level of frustration he felt back then. Derek just smiled knowingly and then said, "as bad as today has been, that one (in Daytona) was 10 times worse". Whoa, hang on to your holly-hocks.

Cold, wet, exhausted, abused, disrespected, we packed up our pit space and took our crew to an Italian restaurant down the street. They kinda stuffed us off to the side to keep us from mingling with the patrons in the main dining room that didn't look like they had been raised by wolves. But when ex-Indy car driver Mark Dismore, son Mark Jr., and there crew were diverted to the same room, I didn't feel so bad. In, fact after a couple of beers and some hot, Baked Penne SomethingOrOther, I was feelin' pretty good again.

Saturday - The Winter Of Our Discontent

The ladies try to ward off the cold while waiting for their qualifying rounds.

Saturday was a new day. Unfortunately, that notion never made it to the weather gods. But although it was raining, it was at least warmish in the morning as we were greeted by large standing puddles on the track. The track personnel and WKA officials did a good job of getting what they could off the track and practice started a little late. But as soon as the first class was circulating it became apparent that more work had to be done. Huge lurid spins, the result of apexing in one of the largest puddles at one of the fastest corners of the track took everyone aback and the officials rightly modified the corner with pylons around the puddle and declared the right-left-left-right chicane a no passing zone. But all this resulted in further delays and then the practice rounds were dragged down by having spun-off karts around the circuit to pick up after each session. In order to stay on schedule the second practice session would be cut as well the pre-finals (heat races).

For us the practice round was the most dramatic. There was only one session between HPV Heavy practice and TaG practice. In the five minutes between the sessions we were able to move the wheels from Tracy's kart to Dana's, get Dana's PRD motor warmed up and get onto the grid. It was a little tight but again the teamwork of our damp crew made it happen. We really worked well together.

A thrown chain was an undignified end to an unfulfilling weekend.

Even so, we had WKA officials screaming at us again. With the scolding we received the day before still ringing in our ears, we were sure to be ready to get up to the grid when it came time to qualify. In fact, we were the first kart up to the grid for HPV Heavy practice. Tracy, still not used to the rain, wanted to start in the back of the field so as to not be in anyone's way while they tried to put in their best lap. Seemed like the sportsmanlike thing to do. "Get that kart up here!!!" the grid guy in the army green rain slicker yelled at us. "Well," we responded, "she wants to go out last so she's not in anybody's way". "Get it over here, let's go!!! I've got to get these karts gridded up." This guy was really angry at us and all we did was roll the kart up on the stand. Sean suggested the guy chill out which just enraged him further: "If you're not ready to qualify then get off the grid!!!" "But, sir, yesterday you people were screaming at us because we WEREN'T up here in time." Ultimately we just ignored him because Tracy was still coming to grips with the wet track and we knew having her in front of all the championship contenders would be a disaster. But, another instance in which in addition to our $55 entry fee we are expected to keep the officials happy.

With so little time in the wet Tracy was not on pace with the other drivers in her class when it came time to qualify. Dana, with more experience (but still not a lot) in the wet may have been trying too hard to put in a good performance and found herself looped around twice in the four laps she had time to put in. Both ladies' qualifying performances were disappointing. Our fortunes were not turning this weekend. Meanwhile, temperatures were dropping.

Dana was forced to run in the b-main which was chance to get into the final for those who didn't qualify well enough. While looking for a way past the kart in front of her she threw the chain (James Willis was right - you have to use all six bolts on the plastic gears) and spun off into the mud once again. An undignified end to a unfulfilling weekend. Tracy only made it as far as the fourth turn before trouble found her in the HPV Heavy final. Two karts up from her was a spin in the middle of the track. The kart right in front or her got crossed up in avoidance. For a brief moment it looked as if the track was going to blocked and that's all it took. Tracy got on the brakes a little harder and around she went. By the time she got it pointed the right way, the pack was gone. Even the guy that spun to start the chain reaction. Trying her hardest to catch back up or at least stay on the same lap she spun two other times on the half wet/half dry track. The occasional sleet ball was pelting down as she finally got the checkered and headed for the pits, fingers stinging from the beginnings of frost bite.

The announcement was made on Saturday afternoon that Sunday's races, mercifully, were cancel. Mercifully not only for us, putting an end to a miserable weekend, but for everyone that would have to be on the grid or on the track in those conditions. We packed up everything and headed out to Texas Roadhouse to salvage something of the day.

Epilogue

The right support equipment makes life at national races bearable. Especially when the weather - and the track - doesn't cooperate.

We had been referring to this as The Big Experiment. And it was. And ignoring the fiasco that was Friday, what we found is that we are ill prepared to race at this level. Based on what we saw around us, we need a bigger trailer, a motorhome (since you can't count on the track to provide basic comforts), enclosed canopies to keep wind and rain out of the work area, heaters to keep crews and drivers warm for when races are scheduled for possible winter conditions, new rain tires for each kart every rainy weekend, new dry tires for each kart each raceday and a whole lot more experience racing in big packs of karts (35 in TaG) on fast tracks. With the exception of that last one, we simply don't have the resources for that sort of commitment. We need to challenge ourselves but it will be a while before we can compete at this level. If ever. In the mean time we'll take our lessons from the divisional series. Which start in May. Further south.

But in spite of the disappointments and humiliations, we had a great time when we weren't shivering and hungry. Away from the track there was lots of laughter and good times. So I guess that is why we like these away races. It is reassuring to know that we can have a weekend like this and still enjoy each other's company. These are my favorite people and as we came to appreciate this weekend, a good day at the track doesn't make the day, it just makes it better.

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