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Tracy |
08 July - More Crashing, More Broken Stuff, Vortex Abuse... Good Warm Up For SKUSA
We used the Mid State Of Ohio Kart Club race as a sort of test session for the 2007 Bridgestone Great Lakes Superkarts! USA Pro Tour stop at Circleville Raceway Park the following week. Among other things we tried a radically different set up on Tracy's kart and were disappointed in the results in the conditions we had. Both ladies were on the SKUSA spec'd Bridgestones which are harder (and less grippy) than the MSOKC Vega Nord Ams and this contributed to a nasty accident involving them both and series point leader Jason Stukey.
At the green flag Tracy managed to get the jump from the outside of the first row and led Jason through Turn Two. But leery of the cold Bridgestones and the loose set up, Tracy braked early - earlier than Jason was used to from his usual Vega-shod opponents - going into Turn Three and caught Jason by surprise. From where we were standing it looked like Jason did everything he could to miss the #99 kart but at the last moment the nose of his kart climbed over Tracy's right rear tire and got launched over Tracy. Fortunately Jason landed wheels down and Tracy only took a shot to the shoulder. As he went over her though Jason's kart pulled the spark plug lead off the spark plug and Tracy's kart was dead. But in a very sportsmanlike gesture, Jason stopped to point out the problem before rejoining the race. With the lead pushed back on the plug Tracy was able to resume and that was a relief to Julie and I back at Turn One because from our vantage point I couldn't really determine is the kart had stopped because it was damaged or because Tracy was hurt.
While all this was going on, Dana, Eric and Andy Stevenson were looking for a path through. Dana was convinced that Jason was going over and did a hard left to get away. The left took her into a hay bale which knocked the alignment out of whack although she was able to finish the race. Jason's was so out of whack from his wild ride that he had to retire after a lap or two. Tracy carried on but what we couldn't have known was that the crash also broke the hose clamp off the top water return hose and after a couple laps the hose worked free. On lap three MSOKC flagman Bo Strawser felt a mist coming off her kart as she went by and on the next lap black flagged. Bo may have saved our engine because by the time Tracy reported to the pits her Vortex Rok TT was out of water and too hot to touch with the bare hand. Eric went on to win, Dana hung on for second.
We cooled the motor off gradually and pulled the head and the header off to see if anything awful had happened inside. It looked good but a second opinion would make us feel better so we summoned Mike Dillon or Dillon Speed Specialists over to the pits and had him train his trained eye on it. He couldn't find any damage and thankful to have dodged an expensive bullet, we put everything back together, repaired all the crash damage and got ready for the second heat. But, as soon as we fired up Dana's kart to warm it up we had a new problem. Well, an old problem rehaunting us. Sometime between the cool off lap and the warm-up Dana's Rok broke another reed. With no time to change it out, Dana was sidelined.
Tracy did the best she could with the setup she was stuck with but she was was farther off the pace than she should have been. When she came off the track we found out a why: a brake problem had a brake pad dragging fairly solidly on the rotor. For the final we thought we corrected Tracy's brake problem but found we hadn't. We managed to get Dana's kart balanced but were surprised to find her kart having a similar brake problem.
Another big crash, a valiant attempt to blow up one of our new Roks, more broken reeds, a hopelessly ill-handling kart and new brake problems. Not bad for a day's work. Hopefully all our weird problems have surfaced and will be beaten into submission for the Great Lakes SKUSA race July 14. We'll know in a week's time.
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