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Dana |
24 September - Two More Wins In A Night Of Excitement
Tracy had a comfortable lead on the way to racking up another win
In the penultimate round of the Mid State Ohio Kart Club 2005 Championship season both ladies each scored decisive victories but both also had their share of frustration and excitement in other races. But while their results were similar, Spec 100 and TaG Senior races were in other ways extreme opposites. With the Ohio Valley Kart Association racing at Circleville Raceway Park the next day we were expecting higher entries in both classes and while that was true of Tracy's class, Dana's class was almost a no-show.
After the Sunday, September 18 race I was on a plane for Maui (no, it was a working trip - not much fun at all) and with this race the following Saturday, the karts never even come out of the trailer, very rare for us. After heavy rains earlier in the week the track was washed pretty clean of rubber and so we decided to sit out the first round of practice. When we learned that there would only be two rounds, we wondered if we made the right decision. Predictably, handling changes were requested on the green track. More...
18 September - Another Good Outing
The Conlin SpeedSports ladies didn't rack up any Feature Race wins this time (although Dana came awfully close) but both Dana and Tracy had good results earning good points as the Championship winds down. Tracy posted a strong 2nd in a heat race and a very respectable 4th in the feature while Dana picked up two 2nds and a heat race win.
Practice revealed an unsettling problem - the front tires had gone off again after only one race. This could indicate that our set up was off but I have to think if we were off that far, in this case understeering enough to consume the front tires, we wouldn't have been able to do so well in both classes the week before. The track has undoubtedly gotten grippier as the year has wore on but I'm disappointed to see that they now only last a day for us at most. Not sure if other racers are getting better mileage from theirs, I haven't really asked. But we've spent about 3 times as much on tires this year and to have the need for fresh rubber increase late in the season makes things tough. I was never one of those complaining about the SL5s - I was not bothered by the odd wear pattern on the tires and had accepted that the SL5s needed a moderate heat cycle before being used in anger once we realized that. And when heat cycled like that they would last 4 or 5 racedays. I think the MSOKC Board of Directors will have to consider staying with these NordAm tires through the second half of the contract with Grand Prix Distributing, accommodating the same wear rates as we saw this year or go to the SL6 tire which should give greater life but will also force our racers to learn yet another compound, making it the third in three years. Going back to the SL5 is not an option, unfortunately, because it is no longer available. A case of "be careful what you wish (whine) for", I guess. More...
11 September - A CSS First: Two Feature Wins In The Same Day
We did a lot of homework in the three weeks between races and it paid off. Both ladies were able to post Feature Race wins at the end of a long day of hard, exciting racing. Dana was able to hold off the championship leader Chris Tatman in TaG Senior - but just barely - to get her most gratifying win of the season. Tracy was able to stalk the 7 time Spec 100 champ Mike Yoerger until he made a mistake and took the lead 3 laps from the checkered flag. The two feature wins on the same day was a first for our team in three years of fielding two karts.
The first thing that helped was 8 new tires! We really got caught out on August 20th when we ran out of rubber and the club (the sole dealer for these tires) were out of stock on our fronts. We made use of the long break between race dates to do some general maintenance on the karts, move some weight around, get our flaky MyChrons sorted out by Aim Sports and even got a new laptop to download the data the MyChrons were collecting. We had a long spell of no data collection this year for technical reasons and that hurt us in getting to understand the new PRD and let us lose track of what the HPV was doing. We also got our motors freshened up by Bill Willis at Powersports. Central Ohio racers had been recommending Bill to us for sometime and we decided to give him a go this time - mainly because he was local and that mattered since I'm so short of time this year. But I have to say after talking with Bill for just a short time I was mighty impressed and was quickly convinced that he is the Patron Saint of Horsepower. In fact, when I picked the motors up, they sort of gave off a kind of incandescent glow, almost like an aura. I considered carrying them home in a specially built ark. But there really wasn't time to build an ark and in the end just threw them in the back of the van. More...
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