Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Race Report: Route 66 Sprint Series @ Badger

Been slackin getting this up...last month the Route 66 Sprint Series went up to Badger Kart Club in Dousman, WI. I had never been there, so Friday would be the first time ever seeing the track.
Dave was hitching a ride with me so Friday morn I picked him up in Dubuque before blasting on to WI. We were impressed when we first saw the track. It really is fun and everything was going great until mid-late afternoon. And then, my Rotax engine started puking oil out of the oil fill/breather cap. What the crap...in 3 years I’ve never seen this happen. Practice was done for me; I spent the next couple of hours on the phone calling everyone I knew who had any experience with Rotax’s.
One bad thing about racing the Rotax: I’m usually only 1 of 2 or 3 guys in the entire class using this engine. There just isn’t any track side support when you have problems. The diagnosis by phone? Either I filled the crankcase with too much oil (I didn’t) or the crank seal was blown. No one had really seen or heard of this problem. Fuck, here we go again. I tore the motor off the chassis in preparation to have Jim look at it Saturday morning.
Saturday we were back at the track by 7:30 and I waited to have my motor looked at. We tore the motor apart and seeing nothing obviously wrong made plans to put it back on the kart to go out for practice. We decided not to replace the crank seal. Nobody at the track had any oil so I had to run around BFE Wisconsin looking for some. By the time I got back I absolutely thrashed putting everything back together but ended up missing all of the practice sessions. After blowing up last year’s engine I was hesitant to put an untested, don’t really know what’s wrong with the freaking thing, out on track for balls out qualifying. So I didn’t. Day done, no racing. Sweet. I invited everyone to my pity party. Instead, I was Dave’s pit bitch, helping him start his Yamaha for his races and pushing his kart stand around. I was glad when the day finally came to an end.
Sunday we woke up to dark skies. As we pulled into the track it started raining. Are you kidding me? I planned to go out for the only practice session. If everything looked ok I would race...so much for that plan. The track was wet requiring rain tires. So again I missed practice. They ended up running a couple more practice sessions trying to dry the track. Pissed off, I about said F it, what’s the point. But the rain stopped and the sun came out. We drove all the way up there, I might as well get some more track time right? Screw it, I’ll just take it easy for qualifying and go from there.
Qualified 13th out of 19. I put a hose on the breather leading to a catch can before going out and it was empty when I came in from qualifying. Game on! I got a horrible start in the heat race and was getting trucked going down the straightaway. With hardly any practice time, the chassis tune wasn’t where it should have been. Finished the heat race in 15th. Made some changes for the feature race and got a better start. Being in the back of the pack sucks, it’s the kill zone. People make desperate moves to advance positions and I was ready for it. Sure enough, the 3rd corner 2 or 3 karts got together and spun out. Suckers! And then in the next corner more drivers ahead of me created an even bigger pile up. Top 10 here I come! But at the last second the door closed on me. I had nowhere to go and to avoid the douche nozzle in front me, who caused it all, I had to spin myself out. We were just backmarkers at that point as the leaders had really checked out. Came across the finish line in 13th position. 
So another weekend with no luck and the racing gods laughing at me. Just paying my dues in a new series. The entire 61 Kartway crew struggled but Dave did bring home some hardware. We’re still not sure what exactly is wrong with the motor, if anything. Hopefully it doesn’t keep barfing oil.

Sorry dudes, no helmet cam video. Totally forgot about it in all the chaos. The wreck in front of me would have been pretty epic to see!

Your friend and my favorite,
Morgan