Monday, May 23, 2011

Race Report: Route 66 Sprint Series @ Norway

May 13th I made the pull over to Jet Karting in Norway, Illinois for the Route 66 Sprint Series, for my first race this year.
The plan was to practice all day Friday. Didn’t happen. The first practice session I went out to bed in new brake pads, feel the engine out, and tried to pick up the line. This was only my second time ever racing at this track. Basically I wasn’t pushing it anyway near the limit. Success! Nothing fell off and the kart sounded good after firing in anger for the first time. The second practice session I picked up the pace feeling the kart and track out. And then it started dumping rain. It was only 1 o’clock but the day was over. It kept raining on and off the rest of the afternoon and the track never really dried out. After cleaning and putting everything away I grabbed some supper and retreated to my hotel room.
I woke up Saturday morning to dark skies, rain, wind, and it was freaking cold. Hey I like racing, but I’m not hardcore enough to put up with this crap. Total buzz kill. Reluctantly I went to the track to hang out and stare at the radar all morning. At least I was surrounded by familiar faces; misery loves company right? People put on rain tires and practice went on without me and many others. Screw that, racing in the rain sucks! Conditions at the track were just sloppy. Our final practice session came up and by this time the rain had stopped so I went out on the damp track. No grip and it was a pretty useless exercise.
Back in the pits I threw on new tires for qualifying. I wasn’t expecting much after being on track for only 3 sessions of which only 1 I was really driving at 10/10ths. And then to add insult to injury it started pissing rain during our qualifying session. Fuck. Qualified 14th out of 18. For the pre-final I moved it up to 12th. And for the final I finished in 10th place. 4 or 5 of us had a pretty good mid-pack battle going on throughout the race. Woulda, coulda, shoulda...not bad all things considered I guess, I was just glad the weekend was over.
Trying to race during those days where the track changes from wet to dry is just frustrating. Part of me wishes it had just rained all weekend. Chasing the track searching for the setup is tough. Tracks change enough through the day without adding rain into the mix...
The new HD Go Pro camera worked great. Except I mounted it on the radiator cap. And the radiator is mounted to the engine. So...it looks like I’m doing my best impression of Bubba Stewart flying over woops on a motocross track. Video sucks thanks to so much vibration, back to the drawing board...

The next Route 66 race is a month away. In the meantime I’ll do some club racing at 61 Kartway if the weather doesn’t suck.

Your friend and my favorite,
Morgan

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