Central Ohio Welding 253 E. Spring St., Col

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

MacNealy Performance Services

30 November - FINALLY, The Whole Story: The TaG 200

In The Beginning

200 Miles of racing required doing our homework

When New Castle Motorsports Park announced they would be holding a 200 Mile endurance race at the end of the year, it got our attention. In my 30+ years of racing, some of my fondest memories had been crewing for 6, 12 and 24 hour sportscar races. Long distance racing involves more of the team aspect than sprint racing and that appealed to me. Secondly, we had just entered the TaG ranks with the purchase of a PRD Fireball so we had the required equipment. But when we realized a three-driver team would give us a reason to have our friend Melissa Court fly down from Vancouver to join us, it got added to our schedule.

But if we were going to do this, we wanted us to do it right. I knew from experience in long distance sport car racing that there are many variables involved in endurance racing: tire wear, brake wear, fuel consumption, driver fatigue, component failure, and a hundred other things that can end your day early. Asking around got many different answers because so many factors go into the results - weight, engine, chassis, even driving style. We would have do a lot of testing. We'd have to condition the drivers. And we'd have to get some good people to help us.

Building A Team

My experience with successful endurance teams demonstrated the needed for a strong crew. One of the first calls I made was to Brian O'Hara to tap his talents as an engineer and kart tuner. His November wedding was going to make him pretty scarce around race day, we knew that, but his expertise and advice early on got us off to a great start. Sean Dillon, who has crewed for us in the past, jumped at his invite too (although he and I had to remind ourselves that we'd have to be careful not to go on any joyrides during the race weekend leaving the ladies stranded at the hotel without their clothes, shower supplies and whatever else is essential to an evening away from home - it had been known to happen in the past). Julie accepted the important position of team scorer and recruited her long-time friend Hilary Miller to help her. Also eager to help out was my brother-in-law, John Davis, and while he wasn't as familiar with karting as the rest of us, I was familiar with his work ethic and knew he would give us 110%. Our core team was a good one.

We couldn't have done it without a little help from our friends

A Little Help From Our Friends

We hadn't put the 200 mile race in our 2005 budget so to do it right we were going to need some extra help. Fortunately, the concept of and all-female driving team competing against a predominantly male field in a particularly grueling race had wide appeal. Long time supporter INFONETICS, Inc., was first to step up followed by BW Tire/Goodyear in Grove City. The guys at BW Tire had been looking after our road cars and tow vehicles for years and we were happy to have an excuse to get them involved with the team. KAM Karting of Rhome, Texas, helped us out on our tire and parts bill and MacNealy Performance Services lent their expertise to some brake work. Bill Willis at POWERsports was relentless in his determination to get our motor on pace and J&J Racing also extended a little more support leading up to the race. Last but not least, Central Ohio Welding in Columbus was eager to set us up with nitrogen to keep our our tire pressures consistent for long sessions. Without their support we wouldn't have been able to do all the testing we needed or run the race they way we wanted to.

Testing & Preparation

Looking at the lap charts from the 2004 race indicated that the top teams were making 2 and 3 stops in a three hour race. The 2005 version, at 200 miles, would be almost an hour longer. One of the first things we needed to find out was if we could get the fuel economy to make only two stops. For that we'd have to be able to get 67 laps on a tank of fuel, and yes, the fuel tank capacity was limited to 9 liters, the European standard.

Testing and its documentation prepared us for 200 miles

Our testing began on a 98 degree July afternoon. There we learned a couple important points: A tank of fuel would not quite take us 67 laps, not without taking three huge risks during the race; and that our drivers could go 50 laps without coming unglued. From that day's sessions we knew what our pit strategy would have to be. From subsequent testing sessions we discovered other weaknesses in the total package; components that would not last 200 miles of constant use or 50 miles without maintenance.

We got every penny of our practice fees, out lasting the sun several times

We learned very quickly that our Achilles Heal was going to be brakes. Not that we were using up the pads completely, just using up the stroke of the pedal. The Biesse Kart brakes are very good but they are designed for sprint races and do not self-adjust. In our initial testing we were using up the effective stroke of the brake pedal in 50 - 60 laps. Manual adjustment is at least a 5 minute operation so we had to come up with a solution or all of our pit stops were going to be marathons. But since we had surrounded ourselves with some very clever and experienced people, namely Brian and Sean MacNealy, advances were made in brake durability each time we went back to NCMP. We were very fortunate to have Sean's MacNealy Performance Services take in interest in what we were doing. Sean is a seasoned racing professional with fab shop and has done race prep for top teams like Truesports, Tasman and Forsythe Indy Car teams and had some great ideas and the expertise and connections to make them happen.

The new PRD Fireball engine was also a challenge. All season we had been working through the teething problems that are typical to a engine in its first year of competition but running it for long distances brought new areas to improve on. And NCMP, with its tight corners and long wide-open straights, had us working with the PRD to fit these extremes.

In September we had Bill Willis of POWERsports do a complete rebuild of the Fireball in preparation for final tests and the race. We were immediately impressed and encouraged by the work Bill had done on both the Fireball and our HPV as the very first club race out with them at Circleville Raceway Park, both ladies won their Feature races. That performance served us well at NCMP everywhere except the slow, tight corners where we continued to be eaten up by other TaGs. The PRD had impressed and, being a new engine, intrigued Bill and that worked in our favor. With his help we systematically tested various solutions to the low speed bog but, as often happens, found way more stuff that wouldn't work than did.

Spreading the Excitement

As word got out about our effort, we began to realize that the excitement was contagious for four young women taking on 40 teams of men in an unusually grueling race. It dawned on us in July that we might be able to share the fruits of this excitement with a local charity. We contacted and were later approved by Children's Hospital to conduct a fund raiser based on the amount of completed laps. But when Hurricane Katrina scoured the gulf states and meted out the widespread destruction in New Orleans at the end of August, we knew we'd have to switch beneficiaries. Because the race would be a couple months into the disaster and at the onset of winter we selected Habitat For Humanity as the receipient of the funds we'd raise. We figured they'd be struggling to get new homes built for the displaced people of the gulf region as the seasons turned. Tracy agreed to handle pledges and collection and we were all set to give something back, as they say.

Lynsey Tilton

Driver Line Up Changes

Kaitlin Mangham

Meanwhile, in August, we received word from Melissa that some old crash injuries had flared up and was being advised by her doctor not to do the endurance race. We knew Dana and Tracy could do the race on their own but we liked the idea of having a "guest" driver join the team. We had a short list of female drivers that we'd been impressed by and wanted to contact but we didn't have all the contact information. Kaitlin Mangham, the 2004 Easykart 125 National Champion was one of those. It was only about a month before the event that I finally found an email address and sent off an invite. Later that week Kaitlin's dad James called me and we worked things out.

That same weekend we happened to cross paths with Roger Tilton and daughter Lynsey. We met Lynsey Tilton at the Lyn St. James Driver Development Program in December of 2004 and she also had come to mind early in the recruitment process. She had been a 3 time HPV karting champion and had moved on to big cars. But last we heard she was living in southern California and traveling 2000 miles just for a kart race seemed unlikely. We were certainly surprised to see her at NCMP on a Saturday afternoon in late September. We talked a bit and Lynsey took the kart out for a couple sessions. A few days later we decided to make it a four driver team and invited Lynsey to join us. So in a matter of days we went from being a two driver team to a four driver team with impressive credentials.

Dana and Tracy on air live with Brian Casey and Bill Riley of NASCAR Now

One Week To Go

With one week to go we had a lot of the problems under control and were feeling pretty good. But we still had to find a remedy for the lack of low-end power and needed a serious tire wear run to give us give us the confidence that the Bridgestone YHCs would last 200 miles so off to NCMP we went for a final time before race weekend.

Roger (R) lends a hand getting everything pointed in the right direction after a practice crash

On the way though we stopped off in Dayton to support the SICSA Red Dog Racers Charity Auction, our second year in a row to do so. Held at the Quaker Steak & Lube in Beavercreek, we joined old friend Jeri Unser and seven other midwest racers for an autograph session and radio interview. SICSA is the Society for the Improvement of Conditions for Stray Animals and for several years now Paula DiGennaro has organized and delivered a top notch racing memorabilia auction to benefit SICSA's spay and neuter program. As part of the excitement, promotion and festive atmosphere of the event, ESPN Radio's NASCAR Now was again broadcasting live. Hosts Brian Casey and Bill Riley interviewed Dana and Tracy about their year and plans for next year. In addition to all this, there was an impressive race-car show going on in the parking lot. We didn't even unload, however, as the racing season had taken its toll on the appearance of our kart and no time was available leading up to the auction to spiff it up. Too bad as a racing go kart was all that was needed to complete the range or racing vehicles on display.

As soon as the autograph session was over, we shot over to NCMP to do a couple hours of testing. We dialed the kart in for the conditions and ran a couple experiments that Bill Willis entrusted us to try. At the end of the day we had gained a little on the low-end but nothing was the magic wand we were hoping for. We called it a day and the New Castle Holiday Inn Express "home" for the night.

Lynsey practiced well, but must have wondered what she got herself into

We were warmed up and ready to go when NCMP went green Sunday morning. We had done about 50 laps on fresh tires on Saturday and intended on doing another 150 on them on Sunday to get a good read on the wear. We would put Tracy out, put Dana out and with Lynsey arriving about noon, get her out for a 50 lap session too.

It was a good plan but we hadn't counted on a Yamaha Pipe driver looping his kart right in front of Tracy early in her session. It was a big hit, tearing up a lot of stuff: bent tie rod (really bent); cracked kingpin bearing; smashed sidepod; bent steering column and bent axle. A lot of damage with the kart having to be ready to race in 4 days not to mention Lynsey's familiarization run looming in the afternoon. But with Roger's help we fixed what we could and got the kart back out for Lynsey and later Dana. But we were fresh out of straight axles and decided to leave the bent one in as our spares weren't much better if at all. But it was noticeable inside the kart in all the left hand turns and outside the kart as it went by - the wobble was audibly obvious.

Nevertheless, we accomplished a lot, Lynsey got a little more comfortable in the kart despite the wobble, nothing broke or fell off (a good sign that we'd found everything that would during earlier tests) and gained the confidence that we could go the 200 laps without a tire change. The one things that we still hadn't gotten a handle on was the most worrisome thing. The low-end performance. There were only five days before the race and we were still being eaten up by Leopards and Soniks and Comers (oh my!). Lynsey must have left wondering if she ever should have accepted our invitation.

5, 4 & 3 Days To Go

Hilliard Northwest News gave us a little publicity

In the days between we went about ordering replacement parts, getting everything taken apart and ready for those parts' arrival and prepping the things we could before they did. Although t he race wasn't until Saturday, we were determined to have the kart ready to go Wednesday night. That plan would then give us Thursday to do all the last minute running around and packing with Thursday night reserved for a little entertainment.

Also in there was some final, desperate consultation with Bill about the low rpm trouble. Bill was busy recovering from recent surgery and it was with some reluctance that we quizzed him further. But, Bill is a racer through and through, and not only did he think of some more drastic things we could try but even called me after going though our file again. He had reviewed port height and other magical numbers and offered a few more ideas. Adding to general final prep, crash repair, continued engine development (requiring some expedited fabrication) and staging every spare part, tool and support implement we already had, we had our own sort of Karting Scavenger Hunt to do. Because of the unusual and demanding nature of the long distance race our list carried a wide assortment of items. But everyone we contacted leaped at the chance to help us. Steve Tatman at Circleville Raceway Park lent us some old, but perfectly usable radios. Don Wilbur, brought over his starter that would be a back-up to ours. Bob McConnell let us borrow some hubs so we'd only have to deal with one nut per wheel instead of three if we did have to change tires. We also had Butch McCall doing some last minutes graphics so we could have the desired appearance.

Then on Wednesday our hometown paper, Hilliard Northwest News graced us with a few column inches previewing our race and Habitat For Humanity fundraising efforts. Always nice to get a little local recognition. The piece can be examined here.

Tracy (L) and Kaitlin look over their 200 mile kart

2 Days To Go

James & Jim make final preps

Thursday dawned without the kart being ready. No surprise there. With Kaitlin and James Mangham due in at 12:45, the morning was a flurry of tying up loose ends, smoothing out a few unexpected wrinkles and final work getting done on the kart.

A little after noon we interrupted our thrashing in the garage to leave on schedule to pick up James and Kaitlin at Port Columbus. At 12:15 I received a call from James asking where he could find us. Somehow I managed to confuse the arrival times and the flight I thought would arrive at 12:45 was actually due at 12:15 - and was early too! Not the professional first impression I intended to make on our new teammates. And as Kaitlin and James, long time Jacksonville, Florida, residents stood in the chill and damp of our first foretaste of winter, they must have thought they made a terrible mistake. With my repeated apologies we headed for a warm restaurant to have lunch and start get to know each other.

Back at the garage the Manghams got their first opportunity to check out the team's kart. Kaitlin seemed delighted by the purple color scheme and James seemed pleased by the overall setup of the kart. James and I put the finishing touches on the kart while the gals decided to all go to pick Julie up from Ashland U. With the kart pronounced ready to go and the ladies due back at any moment we moved onto the evening's entertainment.

It was purely by coincidence that a singer-songwriter I've enjoyed for almost 15 years and who the rest of the clan has grown fond of of late was coming to Little Bothers Thursday night. We tried to make James McMurtry's stop in Columbus a team party, inviting everyone that had worked to help us get ready for this race. But it's tough to get people with jobs and mortgages and car payments to come out on a weeknight to listen to music until the wee hours. As it was, it was a small party but fun all the same.

Friday morning downpours just had to be waited out

Friday

Wee hours on High Street notwithstanding, we were rolling toward New Castle, Indiana, by 8:30am. With the hour picked up by driving into the central time zone we were at NCMP by 9:30. It was monsoon season at NCMP and we were Donna Dismore's first customers of the day at the track restaurant. But if you're going to wait out thunderstorms at a track there is no better track to do it at than New Castle Motorsports Park. Half the crew had been through the absolutely miserable experience that was racing in the rain at BeaveRun Motorsports Complex back in April and we couldn't help but make comparisons as we sat in the warm, dry, spacious NCMP restaurant with warm, dry indoor bathrooms and warm, dry food to eat. The general consensus was that compared to all our other rough weather outings, we we're in Nirvana.

Getting Lynsey a little wet practice was a priority. It led her to be voted "Most Spectacular" of the weekend

Lynsey was the hero of the weekend before it ever started by arranging to borrow Larry Lynn's garage space for the 200 mile race weekend. But when it became obvious that the weekend was going to be cold and wet she became our savior. Had we not had that garage and our kerosene heater it would have been one long, miserable weekend with the Floridians certainly losing a few extremities along the way. Our huge thanks to Lynsey for thinking of the garage and Larry for accommodating us. Lynsey also provided our final crew member. Her friend Trent Brown, who also had a deep racing background came out to watch her a bit and said he'd be happy to help out if we needed another hand. We did and he was immediately signed up.

By 11amCT the rain had lightened up enough to unload the trailer and move into "our" garage. Once in and settled, we discussed the merits of testing in the rain. The forecast called for a much lower chance of rain on raceday but there was still a chance. We decided to send the gals out on a wet set-up to learn the NCMP wet driving lines. This was valuable for Lynsey in particular as karting in southern California doesn't provide much damp track driving experience. Lynsey got up to speed quickly but along the way put in two spins at the end of the long straight. The first happened as she was finding the wet braking limits and that one was a lazy half spin backwards off the track. The second one earned her our team's Most Spectacular Incident Of The Weekend Award when, trying to find the tape to pull off the radiator as the engine gained heat, she completely missed the braking point for the last turn and as she fought to find a way through the corner the kart did a snap spin, tried to do a wheelie, got a little air as it left the track and just barely stopped before the cushions along pit lane. No harm was done (thanks to NCMP having adequate run-off there) and watching from pit lane, we were amused more than anything. Lynsey was able to carry on but it sure was exciting there for a few seconds.

National Kart News Investigative Reporter Mike Unger (back to camera) crashes our team meeting

Kaitlin, Tracy and Dana all got runs in the wet with Dana's session getting cut short by the nerf bar breaking, a lingering legacy of the crash the week before. I soon had reason to be angry with myself as I realized I hadn't brought spare nerf bars though we had two spare sets. A quick call to Lynn had one set of spares coming out on raceday but we also sent John over to Comet Kart Sales to get the broken one welded up as well. It was fortunate that we decided to do the rain sessions because if we hadn't, the nerf bar would have broken sometime during the race. On the other hand, the wet did nothing for carrying out the final low-end power tests Bill had assigned to us. If Saturday was to be wet, it wouldn't matter - the lack of traction would make our lack of bottom end insignificant. But if raceday would be dry, we'd have one last chance to find the solution.

We wrapped up the day at the track with our team meeting in the warmth and dry of the Lynn Racing garage. It was here that the team really became a team as we worked out strategy, signals, procedures and protocols. With as much racing experience as was in that garage, some very good ideas surfaced and merged. Duties were assigned, pit board communication was rehearsed, "what if"s were proposed. When the meeting was suddenly interrupted by "the press", we felt pretty Big Time. Okay, it was only Mike Unger but he was at the event on official business for National Kart News. But even though he was posing as an investigative reporter, we knew better: he and James Willis were entered in the race as well so we're pretty sure he was looking for out speed secrets. But we kept all our best secrets under wrap and finished up the meeting undeterred. When we locked up the garage and headed out everyone knew what was coming and what would be expected of them the following day.

After getting out of our damp clothes at the Holiday Inn Express, the team kicked back at the New Castle Applebee's where we bumped into 2/3s of the Uno Testicali team of 2005 MSOKC TaG Senior champ Chris Tatman, with Todd Mees and Ryan Estepp. We did our best to make Chris and Todd feel insecure and foolish expecting to learn, tune and last in the 200 mile race when they had never even been on the track before. We recounted all the testing we'd done and alluded to all the little things we'd discovered would fail in a long distance race. We sent them off with a patronizing "good luck", expecting them to surely reconsider their entry.

7:15am Saturday morning - every crew member was busy

Race Day

Morning light fell on dry ground Saturday and the crew swarmed the kart to get it over to the dry setup. Practice started a little late and a little later for us as we crammed to switch over to a dry setup There was a lot of work and every crew member had an assignment. Our plan was to get each of the ladies out for some dry practice but then with 45 minutes left in the session put Kaitlin in to do the final handling set up, carb tuning and flex length testing. That went according to plan and with just about 15 minutes of track time left before qualifying we found the silver bullet for our low-end evils. I, for one, breathed huge sigh of relief and, yes, while it does make good story, that was playing it a little too close.

Practice & Qualifying

Qualifying and the first race session were handled by Kaitlin

The practice session was to also determine our qualifying driver based on who was clearly fastest. As you might have guessed by now, nothing is ever as easy as it is supposed to be. Kaitlin and Lynsey certainly didn't make my job as team manager any easier by putting in nearly identical times in practice. With the decision then subjective, I selected Kaitlin as our qualifying driver simply because she'd had more experience in qualifying a TaG-type kart under pressure in big fields.

There was a lot of final work to be done before qualifying and it was all hands on deck getting it done in the time between sessions. We got everything done shortly before the last TaG group was sent out to qualify. So close was it that Kaitlin went out with the engine not up to temperature and drove her first three of five qualifying laps below 12,000 rpm and with her left arm laying across the radiator to block air flow. When the engine finally came up to temp she made the most of her two laps putting in a 69.475 on the second one putting us in 16th place. 16th out of 41 teams. I was very pleased with that performance but I couldn't help think that had Kaitlin had her full five laps she would have been able to find a few more tenths. Even another .225 would have put us in 12th place. At the scales we picked up another position when a competitor was found to be light so we'd start from 15th.

Outside our team (not that we were aware of anything going on outside our team) the top qualifiers were the Loniewski Racing team with newly crowned TaGUSA World Champion Caleb Loniewski clicking off a 67.9, over a half second faster than second place qualifier Mathewson Racing with Matt Jaskol at the wheel. The Comet Kart Sales with Mark Dismore, Jr. and 2005 Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon were mired back in 8th, almost a second behind. As for our friends from Central Ohio, Team NKN with Mike Unger and James Willis, who were having a go with a donated Sonik engine, broke the engine big time late in practice or early in qualifying. As for Uno Testicali, not only did Chris, Todd and Ryan not pull out of the race after our Applebee's encounter, they were out in every session taking great chunks out of their lap times with each turn. They qualified a respectable 28th after only a couple hours on the track.

It was a scramble making the final prep. (Photo courtesy of Mike Unger)

It was either between practice and qualifying or qualifying and the race that I realized I'd screwed up. My plan was to replace the brake pads and make the final prep to the all-important brake system in the time between sessions. It soon became obvious that there was no time between sessions. We barely got everything done before qualifying and after qualifying we spent nearly all our time waiting in the scales line to have our qualifying weight verified and our racing weight and number of weights recorded. We did our final prep - refueling, clutch spring replacement (damn PRD springs), final handling adjustments - in this line and there was no time left to do the brake work. I thought this was destined to change our race pace and strategy. As we were to find out a few minutes later, this would pale compared to what was waiting for us on the starting grid.

Green Flag

Since it took so long to warm the engine for qualifying, we started putting heat into it as soon as we had the clutch back together and kept it running all the way up to the starting grid. Once there we discovered, to our acute disbelief and moderate horror, water leaking out from around the head studs nuts and washers. We had a similar problem in testing the weekend before and thought a new set of head gaskets/stud O-ring had cured it. Obviously we were wrong (later we'd find out how wrong) or we had a reoccurring problem. With only the time it takes to play the national anthem left before the green, all we could do is put a little more torque in the head and hope for the best. Mark Dismore, Sr., saw our furry of activity and came by to see what was going on. He'd see all the testing and practice we'd done leading up to the race and he was just as disbelieving and horrified as the rest of us. He suggested that we try using old-fashioned Stop-Leak in it, pointing our that many of his race cars though the years had more Stop-Leak in them than water. Beyond that we could do nothing more than tell the ladies they'd have to watch the water temp closely.

2005 Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon (L) and IRL regular Scott Dixon (R) discuss how to deal with the inverted start before taking to the grid (Photo courtesy Mike Unger).

As Roger made a Stop-Leak run over to the Flying-J Truck Stop next door, Kaitlin settled down into the kart and readied herself for the first stint. I chose the order of the drivers based on their strengths: Kaitlin would go out first based on her experience in fast starts in big fields. Lynsey would go out second, when there would still be a high portion of karts in the race, some of them running wounded, and use her miles of midget racing in tight traffic and lapped cars to slice us through traffic. Dana would go out third employing her ability to lap consistently during the part of the race in which I expected many other teams to begin tiring (some teams had only two drivers). Tracy would drive clean-up and pace herself as she'd demonstrated in testing to finish strong in just case there would be a position to chase down in the closing laps.

The start promised excitement if everyone used their heads and absolute chaos if they didn't. NCMP has an extraordinarily short "main" straight where the karts get their flags. What that means is that there's not a whole lot of time to get everything sorted out between the green flag and the first turn. To add another little dastardly element into the start, the official rules called for a segment of the field to be inverted, determined by a pill pull by the fastest qualifier, in this case, the first five rows.

If that last paragraph seemed like a setup, extra points for Comprehension, it was (actually, extra, Bonus Points just for reading this far - I'm tired of this report already and its my report). Naturally (it is so dang perfectible), we had somebody in row three or four try to win the 4 hour race in the first 4 seconds. The result was a first turn with karts in the air, karts on karts, karts on two wheels, karts in the grass, parts in the air, etc. Of course, all this happened directly in front of Kaitlin. From my vantage point, all I saw was a moment of our kart perpendicular to the racing line as a gap in the stream of karts gave me a fleeting glimpse. At the next gap, our kart was gone. I'm not sure how Kaitlin got the thing pointed the right way but she did and we had only lost three positions in the pandemonium. Right there she rewarded my confidence in her. As we studied the kart as it zinged by us through Turn 2 it looked like the only damage was cosmetic to the nose. The POWERsports and Cha-Cha decals took a beating but everything else looked straight. The next thing to worry about was the water temperature. The number of laps we could go before the water loss would raise engine temp would dictate our new pit stop strategy. Rather than planning on stops for filling the fuel tank every 50 laps, we'd have to base our pit stops around filling the radiator.

Lynsey was ready to take over when Kaitlin was forced in early

Kaitlin had worked us back up to about 16th when around 15 laps in we were off the track again. I was told by crew members that saw it that Kaitlin was taken off by another kart somewhere out around the turn 4-6 area. Again Kaitlin got us back on the track loosing only a few positions and again the kart looked okay.

We didn't get a read on how far the kart would go on the water supply during Kaitlin's run however as about 21 laps into her session she started to look uncomfortable in the kart, changing her driving position, tugging on her neck collar and helmet. In the team meeting the night before we had all agreed on a signal for needing relief and Katy wasn't giving it to us. Nevertheless, we watched her very closely and even had Lynsey suit up just in case. It turned out to be a good instinct. Kaitlin's determination to stay out in spite of her discomfort crumbed under some sudden, severe back pain. By the time she surrendered to it she could only finish the lap she signaled on.

First Stop

Lynsey looked set to put in 50 fast laps until a loose kingpin brought her in early

Because of the pain she was in, Katy struggled to get out of the kart but other than that the stop went smoothly. As soon as the kart skidded to a stop it was yanked backwards into our pit stall and its rear bumper set on a box to keep the rear wheels off the ground. Sean and James topped off the fuel; I topped off the radiator then checked the brakes; Roger dumped the Stop-Leak in; Trent lubed the chain liberally and then restarted the motor with the external starter as soon as Lynsey was in the seat. The get-away was slow though - the notorious PRD clutch had broken at least one spring in the opening laps and so we were direct drive. After one engine stall, we put the kart back up on the box and restarted it. The only way of getting away from a standing start with a direct drive kart was by keeping the kart on the box leaving the rear wheels elevated, starting the engine, revving it, then dumping it off the box and doing an impressive burn-out out of our pit stall.

Lynsey charged out and was on the same pace as Kaitlin immediately. In fact, in her session Lynsey set our fastest lap of the race, besting Katy's fastest lap in her session by barely a tenth. She looked set to do her full 50 laps flat out. At about 27 laps though she came by pointing at the left front corner. Next time by we cold see why she was concerned - something was setting up a vibration in the front end. Another lap by and I could see the plastic nose shaking violently. This was serious. As race engineer my choices were to bring her in early to find out what was going on or keep her out to try to stay on our pit strategy, letting her drive around the problem and hoping that it wouldn't get worse.

I checked with Julie to get an exact lap count since our last stop. Conferring with Roger, who was timing every lap, times weren't suffering making the decision even harder. Next time by though it looked liked the nose was shuddering worse. I couldn't chance something failing and getting Lynsey hurt. I immediately radioed to John to give Lynsey the "IN" sign which she immediately obeyed.

Second Stop

Dana had to cope with fading brakes

Lynsey put the kart smack on the marks and leapt out. As Sean and Trent pulled the kart backwards into our pit she explained the front wheel hop she was feeling and suggested the left front corner. Roger quickly diagnosed a loose LF kingpin and set about tightening it back up. Sean & James affected the refueling, Trent oiled the chain and readied the starter. I refilled the radiator and checked the brake pedal stroke which was down but not out. In the 3 second debriefing when Lynsey got out of the kart she also mentioned the temperature just starting to creep up before she came in so at that point we knew we could only go about 35 laps on our water supply. I decided to roll the dice and wait until our next stop to make the brake adjustment.

Dana pealed out of the pits and began clicking off her laps. With the water situation we knew she wouldn't be able to go 50 laps so we adjusted our race strategy to 35 lap pit intervals. But at about 22 laps into her session she began signaling towards her left foot. We wondered if that kingpin had come loose again but on subsequent passes we didn't see the vibration in the nose like we did when Lynsey was having that problem. I began to suspect I misjudged the brake wear and asked John to display "BRAKES?" on the pit board to her. When he did, she shook her head to the affirmative. But Dana had done a lot of laps at NCMP with a long pedal so if any of our drivers would be able to cope she would.

I checked the times with Roger and watched her entry into corners and found that we're weren't giving up much. I called Julie on the radio and learned not only that Dana was more than halfway through her shift but that she was running in 11th place. I had John give Dana a board with "STAY" on it, our predetermined word for "We want you to stay out if you can". A few laps later, I had John tell her why: "P 11". She did stay out and was encouraged by our position but you could see it was a struggle, having to brake earlier and earlier, catching some other, faster karts by surprise. In one case a driver took a ride through the grass after avoiding running into the rear of our kart. But in a long distance race, the very nature of which is designed to wear down or break the machine or driver, nothing can be assumed about the performance of the vehicles around you.

Tracy got into a kart that didn't have enough brakes to go the distance

Third Stop

Dana received the "L3", "L2" & then "IN" right on schedule with brakes almost nonexistent and water temp at the top end. Knowing we had some big brake work to do this time we put the kart up on the kart stand as soon as Dana was out of the seat. Sean & James refueled. Roger re-watered. Trent re-oiled. And I made what I thought would be adequate brake adjustment. It took longer than we had anticipated (about ten minutes stationary) We got a lot of pedal back but not like what we had at the beginning of the race. Tracy climbed in once the kart was down on the ground again, Trent started her and when we dumped her off the box she was gone.

It took a few laps for Tracy to get a handle on the condition of the brakes and tires but then started cranking off solid, consistent laps. But at lap 17 of her stint she started to lose confidence in the brakes and was making the same gestures as Dana did earlier. This was much sooner after the brake adjustment than I expected. Again we had John ask her to stay out and try to make do. She soldiered on but soon was a couple seconds off her earlier pace. Still, 20 laps at 2 seconds off the was only a loss of 40 seconds overall whereas an extra pit stop would penalize us at least 3 or 4 minutes. From Julie I got the number of laps the leaders had completed and then did the math in my head. Provided her laps times didn't drop off any more and could complete her 35 laps, we could finish the race with only one more stop after she came in. We'd put Lynsey out for 35 and then Kaitlin - who had recovered - would have to do about 30 - 32 laps. We watched her times stay pretty even until her 34th lap when she ran off the road but right back on. She had already received her "L5", "L4", "L3" and "L2" pit boards.

Tracy helped John work the pit board when she wasn't "on call'

Disaster

Right after she got her "IN" board she drilled an opponent heading into a corner despite lifting off the throttle way early. The brake pedal was bottoming out against the front bumper and she had no brakes at all. The same thing happened a couple corners later, punting another guy off the track, an innocent victim. Tracy made the corner since that other guy was her brakes and very cautiously headed down the long straight towards the far "Interstate corner". She was on her in-lap and only had to negotiate that corner to get to pit lane. It didn't happen. Again she let off early but it wasn't early enough and she slid off the outside of the turn and down a slight embankment. The grass was long and wet and she couldn't get the kart back up to the pavement. We watched the tiny speck that was Tracy way off in the distance struggle to pull the kart out of the grass for an agonizingly long time. She had been keeping the engine running but by time the corner worker arrived to help her push the kart back up to the edge of the track, it had died and wouldn't restart. To make matters worse, NCMP only had one utility vehicle for retrieving disabled karts and we were third in line (if I have any suggestions for next year's race, a second fetch cart would be it).

The team is reassured that they all did a spectacular job working to overcome setback after setback until the race dealt us a fatal blow

About 15 minutes after it left the track our kart was back in our pits. The leaders were on lap 157 when we began working on getting our kart back out there. Our plan for the rest of the race would be simple: Adjust the brakes back up, refuel, fill the radiator and send Lynsey out to finish the race. Since the brake adjustment would take several minutes we decided to put fresh tires on since we had that luxury of time. When Lynsey hit the track the leaders were on lap 165, exactly 35 laps (our magic number) to go. All things considered, we felt like we had recovered the best we could. We had fallen back to 23rd place during the time we were off track but Lynsey went out and looked like she was going to lower our best race lap again, getting to within .2 of it at one point. We were also expecting a lot of karts to drop out with mechanical problems in the last 50 laps.

Unfortunately, we weren't counting on being one of those. With 24 laps left in the race and Lynsey just flying, we noticed her come by with steam trailing off the head. Never a good sign. Next lap she came by signaling to Roger that the engine temp was up to 150 degrees (Roger interpreted for us) with a cloud of steam still following her. We knew we were in big trouble and got ready to have John call her in but before he could Lynsey dove for the pits with the temp soaring to 160 (PRD says to shut it off when the temp gets to 145). Once we filled the radiator the problem made itself obvious - a 3 inch hairline crack across the water jacket on top of the head. It was also obvious we were done.

Okay, I was wrong. Dan Wheldon was fast.

Out But Not Down

We called Julie and Hilary and told them to pack everything up and come to the pits. Called John and asked him to come in from his pit board location. I didn't have any sense of regret or disappointment and once everyone was back in our pits I felt compelled to tell them that. We hadn't made it to the checkered flag but, man, we had problem after problem come at us and, as a team, handled them all. I reminded them that when the kart was on the grid leaking water off the head, I didn't think we'd get Kaitlin's session in. But by working together and using the collective knowledge in our pits each lady got a turn to drive and each lady drove well, - very professionally, watching the gauges, traffic, brake wear, pit board. I pointed out that this was endurance racing a type of racing that is all about survival. What ultimately put us out was not something we overlooked or a silly mistake on anyone's part. It was a weird, unforeseeable problem and that we had done everything else right.

Tracy and Hilary all smiles during the team dinner

And, finishing 20th, we had survived longer than over half the field. We ran as high as 11th and if we had not had the final, fatal problem I was sure we would have made it into the top ten. A top ten would have been like a victory for us racing against the likes of Dan Wheldon, Scott Dixon, Caleb Loniewski, Matt Jaskol, Arie Luyendyk Jr. and Senior and Junior Dismores who own the track for cryin' out loud.

The fact that you can bring people who had never met previously but share a passion for racing together and have everything just seamlessly mesh together is the special thing about amateur endurance racing. To have 13 people all pulling together towards one common goal, in this case making our kart go as far as fast as we could, is becoming a novelty in this age of individualism. I was proud of everyone that was gathered there and I wanted to be sure they new that. I didn't really know it until we were all there standing around the steaming, ticking kart but this had been a realization of a dream for me. And for the rest, our three days as a team would be a source of great stories and fond memories for years to come.

As it turned out, we were the last kart to stop running. Dan Wheldon and Mark Jr. won. And get this: Wheldom set the race's fastest lap, an astounding 66.292. So much for my prediction that a big time IRL racer wouldn't necessarily be a hot shoe in a TaG. I always have to be reminded why these guys are at the top: They're fast in whatever they drive. I was wrong on another prediction. Not only did Uno Testicali finish the race, THEY FINISHED AHEAD OF US! Through steady driving and some real persistence Chris, Todd and Ryan moved around us as we licked our cracked head wounds in the pits in the closing laps of the race. All props, kudos and other credits to those guys for putting in a great performance with limited track time.

Mark Dismore, Sr recognizes our effort

Another notable performance was put in by a team we really know nothing about. Pruitt Armstrong qualified 24th and ran mediocre laps all race long but had incredible pit stops and NO problems on their way to finishing 7th. They stopped on laps 38, 73 and 137 and were never off the track for more than 2:06. Just goes to show with the right prep and sharply choreographed pit stops, 68 & 67 second laps aren't really necessary.

Post Race Celebration

We had planned on celebrating our race, regardless of where we finished, with a team dinner right there at the NCMP restaurant. But when Mark Sr. won the bonus $500 for being the best-finishing driver over the age of 40, he very graciously threw open the bar until that $500 was used up. Really a class act. And of course that made it even more festive. I really enjoyed seeing all our team members still talking about the day and sharing drinks and breaking bread together.

After the dinner came the awards ceremony presented by track owner Mark Sr. Even though we finished way, WAY, out of the money spots, Mr. Dismore called us up for special recognition. He pointed out that our team was not only the only all-female driving team but the only female drivers in the race. He recounted all the testing he'd seen us do and described the problems we had on the grid and acknowledged our perservance. It was a very nice moment.

With the awards doled out, trailer packed up and the day's stories exchanged, we pointed the rig east. And began plans for the 2006 race.

Epilogue

2005 Conlin SpeedSports endurance driving team

During the dinner we concluded that the crack was in the head on the grid but was so small that the water seeping from it was only apparent once it accumulated around the stud nuts/washers. In fact, Roger and I speculated that the crack was there the previous weekend causing the leak that I thought was a gasket/O-ring problem. Short of Magnafluxing the head, there was no way we would have discovered the crack earlier. We reviewed if there was anything we may have done to cause the failure like allowing it to get too hot or adding cold water to a hot motor. Roger, who has extensive engine building experience, thought not. Too hot would damage the head from the inside and since we were adding water to the radiator, the cold water had plenty of time to mix with the hot water before getting to the head. Bill Willis concurred and once he saw the head itself, stated quite confidently that a failure like that would likely have been caused by a casting problem. Apparently Grand Products and PRD agreed because they sent us a new head at no charge,

The kingpin problem that brought Lynsey in early was simply not acceptable. Bolts and nuts coming loose during the race are preventable and in that respect our preparation was lacking. It will be our team's policy to replace all lock nuts before an endurance race. We'll not be caught out short on time and with some prep not done next year. We'll either dedicate the day before the race to brake system and other prep or at least schedule a solid block of time in the afternoon and evening prior to the race. Our pit stops will be better rehearsed as well.

Thanks go out to everyone that has taken an interest in this project and supported us and to everyone at New Castle Motorsports Park. The entire staff there works very hard to make everything happen the way they say it will. They've made all of their visions realities and us kart racers are the beneficiaries. This really was the most fun we've had in karting since we've started ...and we've had a lot of fun in karting. We'll be making NCMP's endurance races and especially this one in October a priority on our racing schedules from now on. And Conlin SpeedSports will always field an all-female driving team. As we've done throughout our team's history we'll learn each time out and apply what we've learned until our ladies are on the top step of the podium.

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