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Tracy |
30 June - Concept Haulers Video
One of our competitors on the 2007 Bridgestone Great Lakes Superkarts! USA Pro Tour this year is Jim Brinkley who drives the #51j Birel/Leopard viewers may have seen in photos here this season. Jim is in his second year of kart racing and hails out of the Detroit area with his wife and 10 month old daughter Amanda, He wears a helmet cam and recently sent us a clip of Dana passing him on the flat out banked "Monza Wall" at Concept Haulers Speedway in Norway, Illinois. The pass gave both of them a thrill because it required trusting each other but both drivers proved to share the same degree of respect and a thrill was all it was. Watch the clip here.
A lot of guys would erase any evidence of being passed by a girl but Jim appreciates what our ladies are doing out there. Jim's wife has also raced karts a bit and there is a Kid Kart in the Brinkley family future at some point, it sounds like. Racing is a great family sport and it was cool to hear that he's looking forward to sharing his passion with his daughter.
It wasn't too long ago, it seems, that some other racing friends of ours were starting a family around racing. 20some years ago Lynn and I spent our weekends traveling around Wisconsin and Minnesota following the World Snowmobile Racing and Southern Wisconsin Snowmobile Racing Association oval racing circuits with a group of friends. One of the last winters we particpated before moving onto sports cars our friends T.J. and Bev Patrick announced they were expecting a baby girl. The were going to name her Danica.
Perhaps one day a racing driver named Amanda Brinkley will be racing for the lead of the Indy 500 - or maybe poking at the chest of a Danny Wheldon, Jr.
28 June - CSS To Continue With GLSKUSA And Some MSOKC
After a particularly disastrous outing earlier in the month which demoted both of our drivers in the Bridgestone Great Lakes Superkarts! USA Pro Tour championship it was necessary to discuss where we wanted to focus our efforts for the balance of the season. First, it was important to separate the unfortunate things that happened to us (a couple of accidents and an officiating error) from the unfortunate things we did to ourselves (prep mistake that should have been detected sooner and poor diagnosis of a new problem). Once that was out of the way it was merely a question of whether we wanted to continue to spend our resources on the double/away-race weekends or race single events closer to home.
In the end it was decided that the long SKUSA weekend, for Dana, was quickly exceeding her budget but Tracy (who, unlike her sister, is not planning for a fall wedding) is still in the top five in points and not ready to abandon the season. Dana still needs to stay in condition for the 200 mile race at the end of the season. Our plans for her will be to race several of our local Mid State Ohio Kart Club events since Conlin SpeedSports attends those as a Biesse Kart parts vendor anyway. This arrangement, while not reducing the team's travel costs much, does stand to reduce race tire, fuel, engine and general wear and tear bills for the rest of the season. With SKUSA we will still continue to log long races in prep for the 200 and the MSOKC sprint races will keep Dana conditioned and competitive.
8-10 June - Injuries, Cannibalism & Gnashing Of Teeth Amid A Few Good Runs
The 4th and 5th rounds of the 2007 Bridgestone Great Lakes Superkarts! USA Pro Tour at Concept Haulers Speedway in Norway, Illinois gave us some of the most satisfying performances we've had at this level of racing but it was mixed with driver and crew injuries, engine problems, a lot of bent pieces and an officiating error that prevented finishing a long, tough weekend on a high note.
The tone for the weekend was set when a pit area accident put Joann Creech's foot under ice on Friday and kept it sore for the balance of the weekend. Later that same day, a clutch failure on Eric's Vortex Rok TT and the inability to find a replacement ended his weekend with only practice to show for it. Then after missing all of Friday practice due to work, carb problems kept Dana (in spite of Eric donating his carb and reed cage to help solve it) from participating in any of Saturday's sessions except the Final. Tracy however had a great Saturday earning a 6th and 7th in the pre-final and final in a 15 kart field on a track she'd never been on until 24 hours earlier. More...
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