WKA Briggs & Stratton / Precision Cams Nationals Thunder Valley Speedway, Neeces, SC August 16th and 17th, 2003     Photos load one after the other. Depending on your modem speed, there maybe a short delay between images.

Race Report

I guess you could say that this wasn't the way I would have liked to end the year but it was still a great race. The track was really nice and if the weather would have cooperated a little bit more I think I would have finished better than I did. Well, let me tell you about it...

My crew chief was still a little anxious about driving the new truck and trailer so we left early and stayed just out side of Neeces on Thursday night getting to the track Friday morning with plenty of time to set up for practice. The track is pretty new and the facilities were great. They even had grass growing everywhere in the pits that looked sort of like the greens on a golf course! This track was not as long or as wide as some of the others we have raced at nor is it banked very much either. The corners were a little tight so I'm glad that we had Friday afternoon to practice and work on the set up of the karts.

This track sort of had the look and feel of Dirt Devils in Tampa, Florida (if you have ever been there) so we looked at our set up notes and used them as a starting place. Both the karts felt good but we played around with air pressure and left side weight a little trying to get the tires to stick a little better coming off the turns. On the last practice session with the champ I was the ham in a 4 kart submarine sandwich and tore up a nerf bar and right rear tire. Time to put things up and get some rest for the races.

On Saturday they were predicting a 40% chance of rain. During the first round of practice the track was so slick that it seemed that everything we had learned the day before went out the window. Then, just after qualifying started, the clouds burst and it must have rained 4 inches. We figured that they would call the race for sure but it stopped raining and around 5 pm they called a driver's meeting and said that they were going to call off first round qualifying and set the first 20 starting positions based on the attendance of the top 30 karts in points. That gave me a starting position of 17th. There were only a couple classes that needed to go to 2nd round qualifying so it wasn't long and the races were underway.

Just before my race started my crew chief told me that there wasn't any grip outside of the groove so I shouldn't even think about doing any of those outside passes I am known for. I wonder if sometimes when he says stuff like that I hear it backwards because we no more than got the race started and I came up on turn one with a full head of steam and the only place there was to go was on the outside. Before I had time to think I was up out of the groove and doing a slow, easy loop on the top of turn 2. I got it going again just after everybody passed me and then ran 19 more laps with out incident finishing in the 25th position.

On Sunday we keep everything the same as Saturday, and as it was on Saturday, the track was slick all through practice. In fact we were off over 2 seconds from the day before and we were as fast as everybody else! Both the karts needed over 800 RPM more to be where they needed to be so we were looking at a major gear change but what if the race track came in at the last minute? Just before qualifying started the sun tried to come out and it was just enough to bring the track around. We made a gear change anticipating that the track would give us 600 RPM and we hit it pretty close on the sprint kart but missed it by about 250 RPM on the champ. Still, we qualified within 2 tenths of a second of the pole in both classes and I started the sprint race in 17th and the champ race in 9th.

The sprint race started as it always does, with a spin on the double file start, so we went single file and this time I kept it down in the turn and was turning under the kart in front of me coming off turn 2 when I got popped from behind and spun down through the infield. I kept it going but lost about 10 positions. Rats! I settled in and got my rhythm going and started to pass karts. With 2 laps to go I was in 14th and one of the karts ahead of me in 3rd place tried to block the kart behind him coming off of turn 4 and spun himself and almost everybody behind him. I don't know how but I made it through the wreck and wound up going into turn one in 3rd place! But, you know, it was too good to be true. One of the karters involved in the spin got banged pretty good and was laying on the track so they red flagged the race. Since it was only 2 laps to go they called the race as of the running positions on the last completed lap. The race was immediately put under protest so the actual finishing order is unknown but I probably finished about 14th or so.

In the champ things started out pretty good. I got a good start and came out of turn 2 in 4th. Then, after a few laps, I got shuffled out and went back to 7th. I was moving along nicely and thought maybe I would get a top 5 finish when I came up on 2 lapped karts that were racing each other side by side. Just as we went into turn one they touched and it looked like they would spin low into the cones so I went high to go around them. I was was wrong. The bottom kart drove the outside kart up the track into me and we all spun off the track. I stopped at a weird angle to the track and couldn't get my kart to go forward so I had to roll back and then go along the run off area around turns 1 and 2 to get back on the track. Once I was back under way I was in 15th place where I finished the race.

Well, I can't believe it's over! The season went so fast. I would have liked to have had a better year but I think we achieved what we set out to do. We still have one more race in the state series and if I do well in the champ race I can finish in 2nd place for the season. That second place finish will transfer to the national points so it may even work out that I'll finish in the top 5 in the nationals as well. Now it's all about getting ready for next year. See you in Daytona!