The best of times, the worst of times

JULY 20th Race

Well race fans, this Tuesday nite could have been awesome. Could being the operative word!
It started off a little tense. Last week we were racing well in the feature race. Caleb was passing and moving up when he started to lose power and speed falling back in the ranks. When we were cleaning the kart we noticed that we had blown the gasket AGAIN by the restricter plate. We started removing the gas tank with much difficulty becasue it is a very tight space to work in. You only can turn the allan key 1/8th of a turn at a time. It was taking forever to remove. Then just as it finally came off the @#$% gasket feel into the engine. So we started to take the side plate off to get at the thing out. By the time we went to the track we were in bits and pieces. We borrowed some better tools and got some parts from Chris Long and in no time we were back together. The warm up heat the kart was running good so we thought AWESOME we finally have everything dialed in and we are going to kick some butt. The second heat Caleb actually finished 3rd and got to scale. YEAH! we were all set for the feature race. Caleb started 8th out of 15 so I was hoping he could move up and finish in the top 5 for the nite. UNFORTUNATELY Fate had other ideas. He was racing well and moving up when he got bumped and ended up turned around in the tires. Everyone else avoided the problem and kept racing. The yellow flag did NOT come out. Caleb waited for the race to go to caution because he was backwards but NOOO. So he pushed himself and got back onto the track. The problem was now he was 3/4 of the way around the track and he was so far behind he had not a chance in hell of finishing anywhere but last. I don't know whether to be mad at the flagmen for not stopping the race or Caleb for getting back onto the track! OH WELL that is something I am just going to have to suck it up over. It just really hurts the point standings when every place you finish is 2 points. 8th to 15th is 14 points lost. What a nite! we went from running great to sitting backwards in the tires while the race passes it us by! So much like life I guess just when you think you have it all figured out life throws you a curve. So race fans, keep your head up and watch out for the curves!

Tuesday July 6th Stuck in the Middle

The first item of business is to say thank you to our new sponsor HARTZEL AUTO AND MARINE on Ormond Street in Thorold. If you need a reasonable priced oil change or someone to work on your car or boat give him a call. Dave is great and will give you awesome freindly service.
Well after a quick clean up after Sundays AWESOME race we are ready for another nite of racing. Monday after work we quickly cleaned and prepared the kart. I hate to say it was very hot and we may have missed a few important things. Caleb called me at 5 pm on my way home from work to inform me we forgot to clean the air filters. Not good since most nites we switch after all 3 races. He quickly cleaned them and left them outside in the oven that is called summer to dry. And guess what....they were dry by the time we needed them. Wow eh!
The nite started off ok but we were not running as well as Sunday. We were keeping up with the other karts but we were not able to pass as well as i would have liked. For whatever reason we just did not seem to have the power tonite. The engine i thought would have been hot enough considering the hot weather but maybe we should have taped it up. The first heat we started 4 out of 6 and finished 5th. the second heat we started 3rd out of 6 and finished 4th. That put us in 9th to start the feature. Crap! As soon as the race started he was lagging and battling with kart #37 but just could not move up. We went around in a circle and finished where we started in 9th BLAH! No money tonight and so much for trying to gain extra points. We are about in the middle of the point standings and I was hoping that we would have a good nite to move up a bit more. It would be nice to be in the top 5. Oh well. I am going to clean the clutch really good and not rush things this time so we can do better next week. oh well heres to being stuck in the middle!

Sunday July 4th

To day is the BIG day of the annual Burris money races! For Caleb to win this race would mean $200 for a payout. WOW!! We were all psyched for the day and headed out to the track for 5 PM. Let me tell you it was a hot one. The track was as dry as the brownies SOMEBODY who we will not meantion, no not me, made the other day. Everyone was having a rough time trying to stay on the track. Everyone was sliding everywhere. After the first heat we went over to our freindly track guy Chris Long that we buy stuff from and had him scale and reset up out kart. It made a bit of a different in the next heat. Caleb was overdriving the course which lead to most of the slipping. Chris and i both talked him into letting up on the gas going into the corners and got him all pep talked for his feature race. Due to our so so first and second heats we started 9th out of 12 racers. hmmm i thought. This could be a problem since you needed to finish 7th or better to get any money. Off they go racing and WOW Caleb must have listened to our pep talk cuz he was actually doing what we said. He drove awesome battling him way thru the pack all the way up to 4th then after an accident and restart ended back near the end of the pack again. He faught his way back up to the front and finished 5th! YEAHHH so he got to take home some money after all. What a great night!