NEWS – While Peter stayed home with as stiff neck a week ago Sunday, Conor had an excellent but abbreviated day for Mid-State of Ohio Kart Club Race No. 5 at Circleville Raceway Park. Peter’s stiff neck was the result of having ridden one too many roller coasters at Cedar Point amusement park earlier in the week.
PRACTICE – It was cloudy but dry for most of the morning. After his first practice session, Conor reported that the new spindle/stub axle assemblies we installed on his kart made the steering feel quicker but heavier, but that the handling was fine. Just before the second practice session was about to start, it started to rain. The second practice session was replaced by a track-drying session – first by anyone who wanted to go out on the track in their road car and then by whoever wanted to go out in one of the rental karts. The driver’s meeting got underway about an hour late at 1:00 PM. Because there was more rain forecast for the afternoon, the format was shortened from a normal 8-8-10 lap heat race/feature format to a 3 lap qualifying session, a six lap heat race, and an eight lap feature.
80cc SHIFTER – There were nine karts in Conor’s class again for Race No. 5. We were feeling pretty good about Conor’s chances when we saw that he was the only one who was on new tires – we had taken his two-race-old tires off to use on Peter’s kart, which performs better on slightly used tires than on new ones. Lap times were down because of rain earlier in the day, but Conor managed a 45.817 second lap, which was the fastest of the qualifying session. From pole position in his heat race, he almost bogged down at the start but managed to get away cleanly. He led easily through the first corner, pulled away by three or four tenths of a second per lap, and won by just over three seconds. He recorded a 45.526 second lap in the process. As the other classes were concluding their heat races, the wind picked up, the temperature dropped by about 10 degrees, and the skies drew darker. It began to sprinkle during the mandatory break to allow the corner workers a lunch break. In the event of rain before the feature races are concluded, which ended up being the case on Sunday, points are awarded based on earned starting positions for the feature. Since Conor would have started on the pole, he collected maximum points for the day.
NEXT RACE – The early conclusion to the day was a welcome development in what had been predicted to be an uncomfortably hot Father’s Day. Peter was feeling better a day or so later, so he’ll be ready for MSOKC Race No. 6 on Sunday, July 1, 2012, which is a reverse-direction (clockwise) event at CRP. This event features qualifying again, which suits us just fine.
Bill
p.s., Lap times, lap charts, and results can be found here http://www.mylaps.com/results/showevent.jsp?id=795904.
PRACTICE – It was cloudy but dry for most of the morning. After his first practice session, Conor reported that the new spindle/stub axle assemblies we installed on his kart made the steering feel quicker but heavier, but that the handling was fine. Just before the second practice session was about to start, it started to rain. The second practice session was replaced by a track-drying session – first by anyone who wanted to go out on the track in their road car and then by whoever wanted to go out in one of the rental karts. The driver’s meeting got underway about an hour late at 1:00 PM. Because there was more rain forecast for the afternoon, the format was shortened from a normal 8-8-10 lap heat race/feature format to a 3 lap qualifying session, a six lap heat race, and an eight lap feature.
80cc SHIFTER – There were nine karts in Conor’s class again for Race No. 5. We were feeling pretty good about Conor’s chances when we saw that he was the only one who was on new tires – we had taken his two-race-old tires off to use on Peter’s kart, which performs better on slightly used tires than on new ones. Lap times were down because of rain earlier in the day, but Conor managed a 45.817 second lap, which was the fastest of the qualifying session. From pole position in his heat race, he almost bogged down at the start but managed to get away cleanly. He led easily through the first corner, pulled away by three or four tenths of a second per lap, and won by just over three seconds. He recorded a 45.526 second lap in the process. As the other classes were concluding their heat races, the wind picked up, the temperature dropped by about 10 degrees, and the skies drew darker. It began to sprinkle during the mandatory break to allow the corner workers a lunch break. In the event of rain before the feature races are concluded, which ended up being the case on Sunday, points are awarded based on earned starting positions for the feature. Since Conor would have started on the pole, he collected maximum points for the day.
NEXT RACE – The early conclusion to the day was a welcome development in what had been predicted to be an uncomfortably hot Father’s Day. Peter was feeling better a day or so later, so he’ll be ready for MSOKC Race No. 6 on Sunday, July 1, 2012, which is a reverse-direction (clockwise) event at CRP. This event features qualifying again, which suits us just fine.
Bill
p.s., Lap times, lap charts, and results can be found here http://www.mylaps.com/results/showevent.jsp?id=795904.
Posts
