SCCA OVR Points Event No. 5 – July 10, 2005

Originally sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2005 1:54 PM

Conor and Henry participated in another SCCA Solo II event (timed runs through a parking lot course full of pylons) this past Sunday. The event was held in the OSU parking lot just south of Ackerman Road.

On his first run, Conor pushed too hard too quickly and had a lazy spin about one third of the way through the course. He also made a mistake by cutting short a later part of the course, resulting in a DNF (did not finish). Both boys had walked the course only twice, preferring to sit in the shade of our E-Z-Up tent and read the Sunday comics instead. Henry seemed to have taken notice of Conor's spin and recorded a safe 49.448 sec on his first run. The course on Sunday was relatively tight, and after reviewing the data from the first runs, I decided to change the gearing on both karts. On their second runs, Conor recorded a 50.498 and Henry improved to 48.400. I made another gear change on Conor's kart for his third run, which was a 48.201. Henry regained the advantage on his third run by improving to 48.084. Both boys improved on their fourth runs, this time with Conor holding a slight advantage (47.452 to 47.548). Conor had to abort his fifth and final run when the kart in front of him came to a stop on the course, which gave him an opportunity for a re-run on warm tires. Henry, knowing he would have to improve on his final run to regain the advantage, did just that, recording a 47.113. Conor was able to watch Henry's run from where he was waiting to take his re-run, but could not see the timing display. I wasn't sure if should tell Conor that Henry had improved or not - but I did. I could tell that Conor's first attempt at his final run was going to be a good one and I wondered if he could do it again. Henry sometimes refers to Conor as "The Iceman" (the nick-name of Conor's favorite Formula 1 driver, Kimi Raikkonen) because of his ability to respond under pressure, which is exactly what he did. Conor's final run was a 46.570 - almost a second faster that his previous run and nearly half a second faster than Henry's best effort. As in the past, both boys were several seconds faster than the next fastest kart in their class.

We loaded up and made the short trip home with the intent of returning for the trophy presentation. When we did, Conor and Henry received trophies for first and second place in their class, respectively. Henry had been feeling badly about being beaten by his younger brother. I tried to consul him by reminding him that, because of his size, he is nearly 35 lbs over the minimum-required weight, whereas Conor is right at the minimum-required weight. Henry's mood would improve later in the trophy presentation. SCCA has a handicapping system called PAX for comparing times of entries which are not in the same class. The index is intended to take the cars out of the equation and compare only the drivers. SCCA changed the PAX index for karts from last year to make it more difficult for drivers in their class. In spite of this, Conor and Henry received trophies for the top two PAX scores of the day out of 160 or so entries. Henry may have gotten beat by his brother, but finding out that he had bested everyone but his brother in PAX was not a bad way to end the day.

There was a photographer at the event on Sunday. There are a couple of great pictures of Henry and Conor on his website:

Henry - http://www.pbase.com/hemlepp/image/46129717
Conor - http://www.pbase.com/hemlepp/image/46129713

Our next race is MSOKC Race No. 7 at Circleville Raceway Park on Sunday, July 17, 2005.

Bill