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Racing As A Family Since 1999

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Our first race is April 22 at New Castle Motorsports Park

18 - 19 March - Three Tracks In Two Days

Nestled in amongst the tumbleweed, sage brush and mountains of the high desert is a pretty cool kart track

Under the project name "Making The Best Of A Poor Situation" I recently visited three southern California kart tracks in two days while weekending it in San Bernardino during a business trip.

The first track was an hour north of Riverside in the high desert country. As I followed the directions on the Grange Motor Circuit web site I was convinced I had somehow missed a turn or otherwise fallen off the main road. When the road I was following became nothing more than a path in the middle of the desert with not a soul in sight, I began looking for a place to turn around. I found one but that place happened to have a sign reading Grange Motor Circuit with an arrow pointing down a set of ruts and over a hill.

Cresting the hill, I found Grange Motor Circuit with its 14 turn road course surrounded completely by a 4' cinder block wall. I'm not sure if the wall was there to keep the varmints or the off-road bikes out but it gave the compound an interesting country club feel. This was further perpetuated by the regal entrance way and guard house, complete with rows of evergreen trees and lion sculptures set into the wall. Following the paved pit road in, special covered pit areas reserved for the handicapped were on the right and across from them on the left was the bathroom/registration complex which was the architectural center piece of the place.

Clean and aesthetically pleasing, Grange's facilities make road-worn karters feel welcomed.

Those bathrooms were clean, spacious and tastefully decorated. The timing tower at the start finish line wasn't much of a tower but all the track was viewable from there. It too was stylized to match the Spanish aristocrat theme (for any better description - what do I know?). In addition to the facilities that seemed to say "we're glad you're here", there was ample use of asphalt and cement throughout the pit area. Grange had one of the coolest and likely most appreciated little idea I've ever seen at a track. Embedded at each corner of the 10'x10' pit areas were 4 inch steel hoops to be used tie down each team's canopy. Shear genius.

Set in the higher elevation as it was, those hoops are probably used quite often as the mountain breezes whipped across the track. While I was there it was very breezy and downright cold. A WKA 4-cycle divisional was scheduled for the next day but only about 20 karts showed up to brave the 47 degree temps. In between their practice sessions were motorcycle and school kart sessions. The school karts used Biland engines on Azzusa chassis and had about 4 or 5 students running them on this Saturday afternoon.

The track looked challenging. After a fairly long straight, Turn One & Two was a combination of a very slight right followed by fairly tight right, the effect of which, it appeared was one big corner with a severely decreasing radius. It looked fun. The first half of the track was a series of very fast corners followed by a series of slower but technically demanding corners. A hairpin led onto the main straight. The surface had a few good bumps making me wonder what caused them - sudden heavy rain washes or more severe winters than I had imagined. There was no grass in site, only desert sand and rocks. That was a little odd to see and must be hell on the equipment when a driver goes off.

But when I driver goes off and stays off, I guess the sand and rocks are the least of the concerns while waiting for a lift back to the pits. As I was walking around the track perimeter it occurred to me that I should be watching out for rattle snakes. Typical thing for a Midwest flatlander to worry about but I figured if I were a rattle snake, this would be the type of place I would hang out. I mentioned this to Southern California native (and CSS endurance team driver) Lynsey Tilton expecting her to make fun of me but instead she said, "that was probably a good idea". Yikes!

I could only stand the elements there (I, a former snowmobile racer, have turned into such a winter weenie it isn't even funny) for a couple hours and rolled down out of the maintains to back into the "Inland Empire" area and scooted over to Riverside to check out the legendary Adams Kart Track. Adams is one of the longest, if not the longest, continuously operating kart track in the US. Its situated in a sort of hollow allowing folks to watch the action from the hills surrounding the track. I almost missed it completely as I drove along Market Street.

The wide curbs were painted brightly and palm trees added a nice touch but I was expecting more from this facility. There wasn't much happening when I showed up late in the day, just a kid karter running a few laps and then a group of friends taking the concession karts out but even if the track busy I suspect it would have struck me as underwhelming. The kid kart got to use the whole track but the concession karts only used the front half of the circuit. The track seemed bumpy, narrow and worn. The grid area seemed a long way from the pit area - at least the pit area I could see from where I was which, in my opinion, was overgrown and unkempt. Only port-a-pots seemed to be available to the racers.

Raceday chow looked interesting as the concession stand was Somebody's Bar-B-Q. The building looked greasy and tinged, guaranteeing it to be good! Behind it was a clean building with fresh paint that looked like it could have been registration. Not only was it registration but also a full blown kart shop. Not just a store with parts, supplies and new chassis on display - a full service shop. They even had used $3k 125cc shifters on the floor race to gas up and push start the moment the authorization code comes up on the card swipe terminal.

If I had more time, there would have been much more to learn and first impressions can be misleading. But I was expecting Saint Peter's Cathedral and all I found was another corner church. But as least I didn't have to worry about something slithering up my pant leg.

In the shadow of California Speedway is a temporary parking lot under a kart track.

Next stop was Fontana on Sunday. The Los Angeles Kart Club was having their 3rd race (yes, third race) of the 2006 season at the Calspeed Kart Track in the parking lot of the California Speedway. I know what you're thinking: parking lot kart tracks are lame. Not this one.

This on had some elevation change and curbs and the actual competition surface sealed darker than the rest of the asphalt making it easy to distinguish. The circuit offered 14 corners with 3 or four definite passing zones. And rather than temporary fencing and buildings put up when the LAKC wants to race, it's more like the LAKC structures are temporarily taken down when the Speedway needs the parking space. Being a parking lot, the entire place was paved which was really came in handy when at the end of the pre-finals the skies opened up big time. Not a single trailer sank into a mud bog.

The PA booth wasn't big but when the rain started it kept 4 friendly officials dry.

The PA system reached to every corner of the event and was manned by a pro. Well he could have been a pro. Timing was with AMB transponders. There were about 100 entries, about 20 short of normal due to the weather conditions. Between heats the karting set was entertained (and I use that term loosely here) by the drifting competition being conducted in the parking lot across the road. Actually, at first I wasn't sure if what was happening over there was an Autocross with really bad drivers or a Drifting competition complicated by a field of pylons. I decided it was the latter. I just don't get the whole drifting thing and after observing them all day, I was no more enlightened. Not that I can't understand the appeal of a long high-speed powerslide but when the trade-off of a sustained drift is time and speed, what's the point?

Anyway, the SoCal karters put on a good show. There were about four women and girls racing and from what I saw, they held there own against all their opponents. And I've never seen so many HPVs - HPV1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, Jrs, Heavies. The Yamaha Can class had four karts. And after it rained, only one reported to the grid. And it was after it rained that it became apparent that not many of the drivers or tuners had a lot of experience in the rain. There would be one or two karts in each race that were set up properly and whose driver knew that the fast way around was off the racing line.

I wish I could have stayed until the end but I had to catch a flight to Nevada. Still, it was good to see how karting was done in another part of the country, in this case a "karting hotbed" area.

 

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