MSOKC Race No. 9 – August 22, 2010 – Ping-Pong Peter

NEWS – For the third time this season, Bruce Brothers Racing had only one kart to look after during a race day. For Mid State of Ohio Kart Club Race No 9 on August 22, 2010, Conor was at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah where he was a member of a student-based team from The Ohio State University's Center for Automotive Research that succeeded in breaking the International Land Speed Record for electric-powered vehicles (see related posts below). Peter had just returned from a trip to Chicago with Laura and Henry where they spent time seeing the sights with Laura’s mom and her brother and his family. Since Race No. 9 was a reverse direction event at Circleville Raceway Park, Peter really didn’t want to miss this one as he tends to do well in this direction. Laura agreed to drive through the night from Chicago to get him to the track on time.

PRACTICE – Peter decided to re-acclimate to the reverse direction by running some practice laps during the early-morning open practice session. I’m glad that he did, too, because during his second (and final) class practice session, the throttle return spring on his carburetor broke which left him stranded on the track. Without the early-morning session, the spring may have broken during his first heat race, which would have been much worse. During the practice laps that he did manage to complete, his lap times were some of the fastest in his class.

YAMAHA JUNIOR – The random draw for starting positions had Peter starting from near the rear in his first heat race (sixth of nine) and from pole position in the second. In his first heat race, Peter made a great start and made his way up to fourth on the first lap, but dropped a position on Lap 3 (of eight). Peter was getting out of Turn 5 leading onto the long back straightaway well. He was also managing to late-brake into the following corner (Turn 4 going in the reverse direction). He used this to his advantage on Lap 5, diving to the inside at the approach to Turn 4, but the other kart moved over on Peter even though Peter had earned the position. These two tangled which dropped Peter to sixth position, which is where he finished. Peter made another great start from pole position in his second heat race and led easily for the first two laps. He lost some ground to the second place kart on Lap 3. The second place kart proceeded to punt Peter off the track with an optimistic passing attempt in Turn 6. This would definitely have earned the other kart a black flag – if the corner worker had been looking in that direction. The result of this tangle dropped Peter to fourth. He dropped another position on Lap 4 but made up a position on Lap 6 for a fourth place finish. Both of Peter’s heat race incidents resulted in either Peter’s kart on top of the other kart or the other kart on top of Peters, which can be very dangerous. I had a discussion about rough driving with the Race Director during the intermission. The Race Director in turn summoned all of the participants in Peter’s class for a stern talking to prior to the start of the feature races. This seemed to have the desired effect, as there was much less action in Peter’s feature race. Peter started fifth and ran in fifth to the finish. This could have been a very productive day for Peter if he had not been batted around like a ping-pong ball during his heat races. I’m hoping that the effect of the Race Director’s message will follow through for the remainder of the season.

NEXT RACE – MSOKC race No. 10, which is another qualifying format event, is this Saturday, September 4, 2010, at CRP. This event will follow the normal Sunday (day race) schedule to allow time in the evening for the annual MSOKC Hog Roast, which will involve plenty of food for everyone and a variety of games. In the mean time, Conor is back from Utah and all three boys are back in school – Henry for his Junior year at Brown University and Conor and Peter for their Senior and Freshman years, respectfully, at Upper Arlington High School.

Bill

p.s., Lap times, lap charts, and results can be found at http://www.mylaps.com/results/showevent.jsp?id=583487.