Click to return to the home page. Click to see my bio. Click to see where I'll be racing next! Click to read about how I've been doing lately. Click to see my sponsors and friends. Click to read about dirt tracks in Florida. Click to see my photo album.

Firecracker Money Race

Maxville Motor Speedway, Maxville, FL
July 3rd, 2004

Race Report

This is the report I've been waiting all year to write! We had a GREAT weekend!

We got to the track on Friday and wanted to get some practice in my new kart with the gold motor. As usual, the track was muddy and never came in at all so I drove around and got the kart and tires real dirty but never got any practice.

On Saturday things really didn't start off too good. First, we had the adult practice with the Jr. Restricted kart and I went out about 15 minutes after practice started and had a problem with the kart wanting to come around on me in the center of the turn. We have a remedy for that so we decided to put the kart on the scales to adjust the camber and check the other numbers while we were at it. My scale stand has a set of pads on it where we can roll the kart off the scales and zero them and then roll the kart back on. When my crew chief tried to roll the kart back it wouldn't move! We spent the next 1/2 hour taking out the axle and finally found what was binding up. It turned out that the brake caliper was packed with slime from the calcium and wouldn't allow the rotor to turn. We got the kart back together for one more round of practice but never really got time to set the gear or play around with tires much.

Then it was time to go out in the Jr. Sportsman II kart for a 45 minute practice session before qualifying started. We figured that what we missed in the first practice we would pick up in the second practice but then we had another problem. During the last race my oil plug fell out just as I was going over the scales after the last race. All my oil ran out on the ramp. Usually we leave the oil in the motor and change it after the first practice session of the next race. The problem was that we didn't have any oil in the motor to change! I made it around the track 2 times before the motor seized up. To complicate things a little bit more. We only had the one motor with us. Our other motors are up at Twister being rebuild.

We ran to the trailer of a very good friend that we have been racing with for about 4 years and started to beg him to loan us a motor but we didn't have to beg much before he pulled a motor off the shelf, put the oil in it, and handed it over to us for the rest of the day. We spent the next 20 minutes changing motors and then made it out for about 6 laps before practice was over. Everything felt fine so we went back to the pits and got the first kart ready to qualify.

The first class out was Jr. Sportsman II light. The tires were great and the kart felt fine and I got in some pretty good laps. When we came off the track they said I had to go to tech so I knew we were pretty fast. It took a while to get the fuel checked and a few other things that they always look at and then we headed back to the pits for the Jr. Restricted kart. By the time we got there they were already calling us to the grid! We swapped the tires off the first kart and headed to the grid but we didn't have any time to compare the tach reading and make any last minutes adjustments or even clean the tires. Before I knew it I was qualifying the Jr. Restricted kart but everything felt pretty good. Like before, when I got off the track they sent me to tech, and like before, we barely made it back to the pits in time to change tires let alone make any changes to the kart other than add the weight for the heavy class. They even had to hold my group for a few minutes to wait for me to get there! When I got off the track, they sent me to tech again. I knew we were pretty fast in all three classes but I had no idea what had actually happened.

It turns out that I had the pole for the first class over Travis Carter who I borrowed the motor from. That was sort of funny! Then, I'm standing in tech after the 3rd class and we compared lap times from out tachs and I was faster then him again so I figured I had the pole for that class too. On the way back to my pit I stopped and checked the results for Jr. Restricted and got the biggest surprise of all. I had the pole for that class too!

The first race was pretty good for a while. Travis and I swapped the lead a couple times but then something happened to my kart and I fell back and lost his draft finishing the race in second. I noticed that one of the weights bolted to my kart didn't have a nut on it but I didn't know it wasn't supposed to be there. Turns out that my crew chief took off the nuts but got so busy with the tires and other stuff that he never came back and too off the weight. The bolt had dropped down and was dragging the ground for most of the race! No wonder I was a little slow!

The second race was the big one for me. I have only raced the Jr. Restricted class a few times on a Saturday night let alone sat on the pole for a money race but things were going so quickly that I really didn't have time to stress out about it. I was a little too fast on the start and the karts in back of me got wadded up. So after, 2 try's, they made us line up single file. On that start the karts about half way back really got together and 3 of them were basically destroyed. After they got the drivers settled down and the karts taken off the track we finally got underway. I just focused as hard as I could and the kart was really fast and before long it came down to me and this one other kart. We ran nose to tail for about 8 laps but I didn't give him an inch and he couldn't really get up all the way on me to make a pass. With about 3 laps to go he over drove the kart into turn one and wound up in the hay bails and I was alone out front by about a 1/4 of a lap. I ran the last 2 laps like there were 20 karts on my bumper though and I won the race!

The third race was just like the first and Travis and I got to running together and swapping the lead again. Then, all of a sudden, a 3rd kart got into the mix. I went back to 3rd and then up to second and then around to first again. It was a blast! I was a little tight and Travis was a little lose and Matthew, the 3rd kart. was a little tight like me. Travis got up on the edge of the groove and lost the rear end and slid off the track into the hay bails. He got back going again pretty fast but we were about a half a track ahead of him by then. Matthew and I ran the next several laps nose to tail but he couldn't get under me because I was blocking him with everything I had. Meanwhile, Travis was making pretty good progress catching back us because the more I blocked the tighter my kart got but I held on to win the race with Matthew and Travis close behind.

What a race! It seems like once every year we have a weekend where, despite our best attempts to mess things up, everything works out anyway. I know this race wasn't like a national or anything but there was some pretty competitive karts there so I'm pretty pumped!

What was really interesting was that we had been wondering if our motors were a little off and now we know! That motor I borrowed from Travis was a PEC motor and it was a lot stronger than the ones I have. The Jr. Restricted motor I was using was loaned to me by Twister while they are going through my gold plate motor and it was like night and day too. It's a shame that we waited for 6 months before we started to look for more horsepower because now I'm pretty much out of the running for a championship this year but horsepower hasn't ever been a problem for us before. I guess if your motors don't come back a little better than they were the last time you had them freshened up than it's time to start looking for a new motor builder. The builders who are on top of what's going on are always finding out new ways to make more power and that's just what we plan to have with us at Aynor next weekend!

 

Copyright © 2005 - Berbranon Marketing - All Rights Reserved