MSOKC Race No. 11 – September 26, 2010 – Down to the Wire

NEWS – Race No. 11 was the penultimate race of the 2010 MSOKC season last Sunday at Circleville Raceway Park. Peter’s position in the championship in his class is pretty well fixed, but Conor is embroiled in a battle for second place in his class. Conor entered Race No. 11, which was another qualifying format event, trailing by the slimmest of margins, but managed to improve by the end of the day.

PRACTICE – We had a belated birthday celebration for Conor’s 18th birthday at Japanese Steak House in the Short North area of Columbus the Friday before Race No. 11. All five of us (including Laura’s sister Kathy who was visiting from Kansas City) eventually succumbed to a healthy dose of food poisoning, but it hit each of us at different times. Laura was sick right away. It didn’t hit Kathy and me until the next day. Fortunately, both boys still felt reasonably well on Sunday morning. They practiced well with both recording reasonable lap times. They had to do much of the work required to get two karts on the track themselves as I spent time lying down in the back seat of the truck. Both Peter and Conor succumbed early the following week.

YAMAHA JUNIOR – The 2006 Margay Brava 1.6 chassis that Peter uses seems to like cooler conditions, which is what we had for Race No. 11. After qualifying sixth during the previous race, he improved to fourth in qualifying for Race No. 11. In his heat race, he improved his position by one at the start and held on all the way to the finish while keeping the leaders in his sights. The first lap of Peter’s feature race didn’t go so well. He didn’t quite time the start right and lost a position going into Turn 1. He lost another position in Turn 5 on the first lap. He had the speed to regain the position going in to Turn 10, but left the door open on the inside and lost another position. His qualifying position and heat race result took possible points away from his closest rival, so his feature race result – a respectable sixth – did not make much of a difference. Peter has to do little more than show up for Race No. 12 to claim fourth place in the championship.

80cc SHIFTER – I’m thinking about starting to call Conor “Mr. Excitement”. He easily posted the second fastest time during his qualifying session, two places ahead of his closest rival. Qualifying events tend to be processional affairs – if everyone gets a good start – which would have had him finishing second all day. Well, Conor bogged the engine down at the start of his heat race and lost two places. He pulled off an excellent pass on his rival in Turn 5 on Lap 5. He pulled out a gap but ran out of laps before he could further improve his position. From the third starting position in his feature race, Conor held his position at the start, but missed a shift in Turn 4, which caused him to loose a position to his rival in Turn 5. After several attempts, he regained the position on Lap 7. On Lap 9, the second place kart retired with a mechanical problem, which resulted in a second place finish for Conor.

NEXT RACE – Conor’s results gained him some valuable points and put him back in second place in the championship, but by a slim margins. While Peter can relax a bit at Race No. 12, as his points position is relatively secure, Conor has to at lease finish ahead of his rival in one race and be right behind in the others. Conor’s 2002 Trackmagic Dragon chassis seems to like cooler conditions more so than that of his rival, and cooler conditions are just what we are expecting for the season finale on Sunday, October 3, 2010, at CRP. We’re going to stay away from the Japanese Steak House between now and then…

Bill

p.s., Lap times, lap charts, and results can be found at http://www.mylaps.com/results/showevent.jsp?id=600458.