 
|
  |
|  |
|
|
|
| |
07 August - A Good Day Nonetheless
Usually, when one of your drivers flies off the fastest point of the track backwards, you're having a bad day. All things considered, the team had a very good outing despite Dana losing another rear wheel at 60+ mph in the TaG Senior feature race and going for a wild ride. But before that Dana was able to rack up our third win of the season with a great run in the second heat race, Tracy also had a great day finishing a strong second in the 2nd Spec 100 heat and scoring a third in the feature.
Retiring on three wheels for the second TaG Senior feature in a row was a huge surprise since, after the July 30 indignation, we had put new procedures in place to keep it from happening again. Back then I had honed up to the possibility that I had overlooked tightening the right rear wheel after swapping tires between the two karts but this week we had agreed that neither kart would go out onto the track without at least two team members putting a wrench on the wheel nuts. And we did that.
So when Dana came by the front straight at the end of lap 1 pointing frantically to the right rear corner of her kart I figured she was signaling an engine problem. As she passed by our observation position I still thought the unusual sound coming from her kart was motor related and was still trying to deduct what it could be when the RR wheel separated from the hub in a puff of smoke just as she turned into Turn 2. And as readers that are familiar with Circleville Raceway Park will know, Turn 2 is the fastest point on the track, a mph faster than the end of the back straight. So besides the immediate disappointment of spinning out of 2nd place, came the second or two of concern as she slid backwards at 60+mph across the grass and towards a light stanchion As soon as it was apparent she would grind to a safe halt, we then tracked the errant wheel, still at unabated speed, following a trajectory that would take it across the track and possible traffic in two places. It made it all the way to the backstraight fence never really coming close to other drivers, much to our relief. We learned later that Dana knew exactly what was happening and that it was the tire she was indicating. So no one can say that she doesn't have huge (what she's not supposed to have at all)'s to keep her foot down defiantly to retain much-needed second-place points.
That episode was definitely an anticlimax to what had been a pretty good day for Dana. Having started on the pole for the first TaG Senior heat, she got a good start with a little help from Tim Bussen's front bumper and then held him off for the entire six laps. In her second heat, she started 4th and found that a new starting technique worked and for the first time all season got a start she was proud of. She was able to move ahead of Jim Martin immediately and then had to keep him from taking the position back in the early laps. When Jim's challenge faded she set out on our old friend Mike Unger, who was subbing for injured Championship leader Chris Tatman. As is her custom, she gained on Mike in the second half of the race and I was beginning to hope she'd have a chance to humiliate him before the checkered but Mike is fast too and there weren't enough laps. Chris suited up for the feature to get the day's points but his lap times were way off due to pain coming from his broken hand. Of course, this just underlined what might have been (again) had we be able to keep all four wheels on the kart.
Tracy did keep all her wheels on her kart and had a great day. She too has been working on her starts and has been getting pretty good ones as of late. She put it to use in the first Spec 100 heat where she started 11th and finished 7th, a great finish from that starting position in that class. In heat 2 she started from pole and got the jump on Eric Creech with another dynamite start. But when Eric is on, he's really on and on their first pass down the backstraight he just motored by and kept on going. Tracy then took some heat from Jason Stukey for a few laps until he faded. She finished a strong second.
Those two finished earned Tracy the fourth starting position for the Feature. A good start defended the position and, again as evidence of how closely matched the Spec 100 class is at CRP, she had no advantage on third place and neither did fifth place on her. That is until tech inspection for an irregularity in one of the carburetors in front of her and a DQ moved her up a position. This year, more than other, we're happy to get a position anyway we can.
We'll have a new solution for retaining the wheels on Dana's kart before the August 20 race. After all, we've proven now, without fear of contradiction, that a three-wheeled go kart just isn't competitive.
© Copyright 2005 Conlin SpeedSports. All rights reserved.
Server space for this website graciously provided by Infonetics, Inc.