MSOKC Race No. 3 – Sunday, May 16, 2004

Originally sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 9:40 AM

Bruce Brothers Racing had a bit of a rough day at Circleville Raceway park on Sunday, although there were some highlights. Conor and Henry both practiced well and there was a good turn-out for both of their classes.

Conor started on pole for his first heat race with most of his main competition starting from the rear. He timed his start well, went through the first two corners side-by-side with his fellow front-row-starter, and claimed the lead in Turn 3. He then began to pull away at quite a rate while the remainder of his competitors were bottled up behind his fellow front-row-starter, who is strong on the straights but less so in the corners. By lap 3, Conor had amassed a huge lead – so much so that Henry and I tried to give him the ‘ease up’ signal from the observation tower. Our signals went unheeded, however, and in Turn 8 on the fourth lap (out of six), he got two wheels up on the curb and spun into the grass. His lead was such that he had plenty of time to get back on track and headed in the right direction without loosing the lead, but his engine sputtered and died. He sat there for quite some time with his head in his steering wheel, obviously feeling dejected. It was heartbreaking… Starting on pole in his first heat race meant that he would start from the rear in Heat 2 with most of his main competition starting up front. He managed to work his way through the pack, but by the time he had done so, his two main competitors had amassed a healthy lead and he had to settle for third. His heat race finishes earned him the fourth starting position (out of seven) for the feature. He quickly dispensed with the third place starter and latched on to the tail end of his two main competitors. The trio circulated nose-to-tail for lap after lap. Conor lost several kart lengths at one point trying a different line through Turn 4, but recorded a new personal best lap time (50.75 seconds) catching back up. He got along side the second place kart in Turn 9 on the final lap and tried his now-familiar dive-to-the-inside move out of Turn 10, but missed second place by about two feet. After an inauspicious start to the day, Conor maintained his record of never having finished outside of the top three in a feature.

Henry’s class was quite a bit bigger than it had been the week before – eight karts as opposed to four. Two of his competitors on Sunday were ‘big guns’ (if you can say that about 12 to 15 year-olds) who travel the country on the World Karting Association ‘National’ circuit. We had a peek in one of their trailers between heats – this kid had two kart chassis and eight engines to choose from! Henry started on the outside of the front row in the first heat and was able to maintain his position for the first lap or so. One of the big guns worked his way up to the back of Henry and gave him a bump as he approached his turn-in point for Turn 2. This caused him to miss his apex and the big gun got by along with Henry’s main competition from the week before. He then began to try a bit too hard, had a small spin in Turn 6, and eventually finished sixth. Starting from the seventh position in Heat 2, Henry worked his way to fourth at the finish while recording several laps in the mid 49 second range. His heat race finishes earned him the fifth starting position for the feature. We had made a tire pressure change for the feature, and this combined with another dose of trying too hard resulted in two small spins. He did manage to record several low 49 second laps (including a personal best of 49.19), but ended up finishing sixth. The two big guns were both running on non-club-spec tires, so they were both excluded from the results, which moved Henry up two positions in each of his races. Henry has been running on an old set of last season’s club-spec tire (Dunlop SL4). This race was the last for which that tire will be allowed, so we have a brand new set of the new club-spec tire (Vega SL5) that we will be installing this week. When we changed Conor over to Vega tires before the beginning of this season, he immediately improved his lap times by about a second.

Conor learned an important lesson about when to push hard and when not to, and Henry learned a bit about how the big guns play. We are hoping that Conor will soon have another opportunity to put his lesson into practice. We are also hoping that the Vega tires will have the same effect on Henry's kart as they did on Conor's. The next race is Sunday, May 30, 2004.

Bill