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CFK Race #2 Dirt Devils Speedway, Land-O-Lakes, FL
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Race Report
Once again we're back at Dirt Devils!
As always, we went over for Friday night practice. My crew chief had been working on the tires for 3 days. He resized almost every tire we had. The plan was to take some of the stagger out of the karts and see if that would tighten them up in the corner and help me get off the corners better. We unloaded and went out for practice and the karts felt a lot better so we decided to put things away and have diner.
On Saturday morning we put on race tires with a lite coat of prep for practice instead of heavily prepped tires as we usually do. In the past we never really knew when to get off the prepped tires and put on race tires. Sometimes we would wait too long and the prep would lock the karts down. Besides we don't learn anything about the kart when the tires are doing all the work. We didn't look real good but we could see that the kart was coming in with the track. It was a struggle to get around but I think it helped us make the right changes to work with the race tires when the track did come in. In our last practice we were just a tick loose and that's just where we wanted to be.
In qualifying things got a little messed up. My crew chief has been trying to get me to turn the wheel a little bit more coming off the corners to protect my inside during the race. For some reason I thought he meant in qualifying too. I went out and pretty much killed the momentum of the kart and what made things worse was that they only give you 3 laps to qualify so I really never got the kart up to full speed. We missed the gear a bit too because we thought that the track would come in enough to give us a few 100 more RPM but it didn't. I qualified 4th in the Champ and 10th in heavy before I realized that I was supposed to let the kart come up off the corners. In light I was able to shave 4 - 10th off my qualifying time but the gear was just too much to pull so I only qualified 7th.
In the champ race things got a little bit more messed up. I got a good start but someone spun and we lined up again single file. They restart the races on the back stretch and I wasn't paying attention because my helmet felt loose and I was trying to tighten the strap. I got passed by two karts before I realized the race had started and then tried to pass back one of the kart on the outside going into turn one. I thought I had cleared him but I hadn't so when I turned down into the turn he hit my bumper and spun me. I got going again without loosing a lap and was settling in when my neck collar blew off. Seems that when I was trying to tighten the helmet strap I accidentally pulled the velcro strap on the collar and it eventually fell off. Consequently, I got black flagged and finished last.
In heavy we had a wild race. I turned the wheel like my crew chief told me to and it worked really good! I wasn't as fast of some of the other karts, especially the one behind me but my kart was about 20 feet wide and I held my position and passed my way up to 5th. The kart behind me hit me really hard a few times trying to go around me but I just concentrated on getting into the corners right and coming off at the bottom of the groove. On the last lap, after we took the white flag and were rounding the first turn, the leaders got wadded up with a lapped kart and I had no place to go. When I hit the kart in front of me I got turned sideways and the kart that had been following me the entire race t-boned me pushing in my side panel and doing all sorts of other damage. The lap kart that caused the problems was up in the tire barriers at the top of the track and they thought that maybe he was hurt so they red flagged the race and we shut off our engines. Now the rule book says that the only thing that can follow a white flag is a checkered flag so they should have called the race right there but they choose to restart it. We came around a half a lap and took the checkered flag and I just barely made it. I either finished in 3rd or 5th but we won't know until they hear the protest. When we got the kart back to the pits the motor was turned sideways on the motor mount, I had a bent spindle, a bent tie rod, and a bent nerf bar.
My crew chief worked on the kart replacing some parts and straightening others while I got the tires cleaned and prepped and filled the gas tank. We got the kart scaled and aligned just in time to head to the grid for the last race. We messed up the first start so we had to go single file but I was paying attention and got a good start. I used the same line as I did in the first race and passed a few karts. It seemed that I would get into it with one kart and drop back while the leaders took off and then in a couple of laps the leaders would get into it and I would catch back up. The whole race was like that, just wild! At the end, I was right there in the bunch with the leaders and could have picked up a few more spots but the yellow came out for a spun kart so we went back to the previous lap on the restart. When the green came back out my engine started to sputter and a lap later I ran out of gas. I had to leave the track and I finished 14th.
I guess I shouldn't have said those things about my crew chief being blind when he didn't fill the tank enough. Funny how stuff like that comes back to haunt you isn't it! I guess we BOTH will have to check the tank before each race from now on! Oh well, I think we have a better understanding of what this new chassis needs, and I have a better understanding of what I need to do to hold my position on the track so, even though the results don't show it yet, we are getting better all the time.
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