Sept 8, 2009 Racing

It was a Gorgeous nite for racing! Our results were consistent for the season. We started at the end of the pack and we finished there. We had a good nite thought for my last night as Caleb's Pit Crew Chief. Next week I am back to school and he will need to find someone else. Hopefully he will do already. We made some changes to the height adjuster on the axel and played around with the rear tire width and stagger. We had a guest pit crew assistant last nite as well. Little Miss Sarah helped with the tire washing, tool holding and upkeep of pit moral. She was a great help and Caleb was the ONLY boy with an all female pit crew this year! What more can a boy ask for except that the girls were more his age and not his mother i guess.
Caleb had a bit of an attitude problem last week but was much more receptive to his pit crews assistance this week. Sponsorship threats to pull funding may have contributed to this but my resignation could also have been a factor. Depending on how he does next week without me maybe this will have been my last race. The best results i managed to help him towards were 4th last. If he places better next week maybe i should just accept defeat and step aside. Take my gold watch and go home.
This could be my last blog of the season depending on situations. September 27th and October 4th there is potential racing in Tillsonburg. It is a different type of track being an arena filled with dirt and has walls. The track is smaller and we will need to change our gears around and hopefully not roll and kill ourselves on the walls. Caleb is the king of crashes! I don't need to find out where the hospital is in Tillsonburg let me tell you. Anyways THANKS TO ALL OUR FANS! That have been checking out our blog this year. All your support is greatly appreciated and I love you for that. Caleb is already planning his graphics for next years kart. I will have to post information after the banquet on November 29th to let you know how that went. Until next time that we blog again remember -It is not just about the torque of your engine but how you handle the curves and obstacles!

Did You Miss Me Race Fans!?

Sorry to all my faithful followers who MAY have been looking for updates on Caleb's racing. I have not updated for the last 2 weeks due to various reasons that i will not go into. First off for anyone that i did not talk to last nite, Caleb is fine from last weeks horrible ordeal. All the x-rays came back fine and there were no lasting effects. Thanks goes out to the quickness of the Welland Hospital in assessing him and getting him looked after. He was none to happy about being strapped to a backboard with tape across his forehead and hair for a few hours because he had to not move his neck. Caleb claimed he felt fine and wanted to get back in his kart and race. The fact that he had potentially 280 pounds of kart and driver sitting on top of him on his head was irrelatant. Safety first so he had to endure not racing, missing Bob Davidson's annual BBQ and Corn Roast and miss out on points for the nite. VERY UPSETTING. I am just glad I don't have a quad in a wheelchair.
OK back on topic. Racing Tues August 26th!
Being the excitement of last week and our visit to the hospital, bill yet to come, Caleb was a little OK a huge amount nervous to race again. Pit Crew Chief said " RElax we are here to have fun. Just go around the track and cross the finish line. I have no problem with you finishing last just get yourself out there!" Yes we started last and finished last. Good Phase 1 complete. Next huddle was Heat 2 when he starts in first position because they flip there starting order. Just the look on Caleb's face told me he was wreastling a herd of wild butterflies. Pit Crew Cheif said " Take it easy, do your best let the faster cars by and don't worry about being aggressive just yet. Go around the track I don't expect you to finish first." The race started, bumping Caleb drops back then someone is off the track, restart. Repeat above. The third time they started single fill and i was beginning to wonder if we would run out of fuel if we keep restarting. Single fill worked and the race was on. Yes Caleb dropped back but then there was a space so he slid infornt of 2 karts. He raced a bit and ended up last again but that is OK. He was slowly getting his grove back. Feature race he started in last place which suited him just fine. Now the sponsor bibes come out. Every place above second last that you finish i will pay you $5. I have $70 in my hand let me see what you can do! He raced well considering everything. The leader did lap him but we finished 3rd last! WooHoo! Caleb pocketed $5 from 2 of his sponsors and got a bit smile on his face! Next week we will have to see how things work out but not bad in my books. My driver is happy so I am a happy pit crew cheif. hopefully next year we will be more competative and get money from the track for our place in the race not just sponsor incentive bucks.

Wed Aug 5th Racing

Welcome fans to another episode of "As My Axil Turns!" or "As the Track Turns". Maybe we should vote which one is better. Anyways good nite for racing. We used Grandpa's truck. He had to do some repairs and now it seems to be working OK. We got to the track about 6:15 and had already missed the driver's meeting. The boys from Tillsonburg were visiting again and so they upped the meeting and we were behind schedule. Which if anyone out there knows me is VERY UNUSUAL! On the good side the starting order was different with visitors and we were bumped to the end part of the list with only 2 groups racing after us. We get the kart looked over and racing began OK. The track was wet and slippery so we started the nite with the SS11 on the right rear and just played with our air pressure to try to get more grip. No matter what the changes were though it did not seem to help Caleb race much better. We seemed to be slower and sliding more than everyone else out there. Frustrating cause I made changes to the axel height adjuster 2x, we figured out why the engine was shaking the other week and fixed that, moved the back gear sprocket to line up better with the engine for smoother chain movement. Blahhh! Every race same story. 1st heat he started 5 out of 7 and finished last. 2nd heat he started 3 out of 7 and finished 6th. Then for the feature he started last in tail and finished 11 out of 13 karts! The crazy thing was he raced better in the last feature race where he was side by side with his freind #20 and #87. All 3 were jockeying around each other verging on passing the other at any point. Exciting for me to watch but everyone elase was watching the leaders because the rest of the group were 3/4 of a track ahead and almost lapped "our group" of 3. Here is the funny part. When Caleb came off the track and we go to lift him back into the truck we noticed he has a flat left front tire! here i spent all nite playing with pressure and i should have left them flat because he raced better! Go figure! Maybe it happened as he came off the track who knows at what point it occured because he slide off the track on 2 different occasions. So in light of this.... If Life is leaving you flat just think again because it actually might be better!
Till next week race fans! :-)

Tuesday July 21st Racing a wash out!

Hey Race Fans. Due to the weather Racing was cancelled tonite. Oh well! Probably for the better because the kids and i just got back from a family camping trip and smell of sweet campfire smoke, covered in mosquito bits ( anyone up for a game of connect the dots! Hee Hee) and feel a little tired to be honest. On the good side, our motor has been rebuilt and we pick it up tomorrow nite! Yeah!! Now we can return all of our loaner parts and mount our new engine. Caleb & I are excited to see if it will purr like a new kitten or roar like a lion. Oh wait, we are racing with a flathead not an animal engine. Silly me! Hopefully it has some power anyways so we can move up some in our standings. Until next week remember racing is cancelled if there is a risk of wetting yourself!

We got Tanked Racing!

Welcome to the trial and tribulations of Team Chaos Racing! Another race night is behind us YEAH! More problems but that is why we are team chaos because that seems to be par for couse for us. Last week we discovered that the mount that holds the fuel tank onto the engine was cracked and so as a quick fix we wired it onto the engine to get us thru the nite. Well aparantly with working and kids and life in general I did not get it welded before racing this week. OPPS! Caleb ran his first warm-up and said the kart was sliding and not idling properly. I adjusted the air in the tires and went to adjust the idle when I noticed that the carberator was loose again so had to tighten that up. After our 1st heat I was talking to Dan Wilder who is trying to get our engine rebuilt when I told him about our fuel mount problem. He was less than impressed that I had forgotten to get the mount welded last week and stressed that i was risking recking Chris's carb on the engine we had been lent. I then proceeded to "find" another gas tank that we could borrow for the nite. Thank god i am cute or we would have a problem. The wonderful Bob Davidson let us borrow one for our last race !! Now I just need to remove it to give back to him for next week but I watched closely and it seems pretty straight forward.
Anyways racing! Caleb was a little cautious again tonite. He does not seem to have the killer attitude. He started at the back of the pack and finished there all nite again. We seem to just pay our money and go around in an oval. At least he is having fun but boy does he get uptight about things. Bossy is an understatement i think was the common consences. Yes my spelling sucks! It is 12:10 am here so I am not looking for a dictionary OK. Ok so for Caleb's feature race we adjusted the air pressure again, lowered the back left axel half a turn. He started 4th last and gave up 2 spots to finish 2nd last with his friend #20 behind us due to a spin out that threw him in tail or #20 would have been ahead of us. Hopefully next week we will get our rebuild engine. Until then we have "the turd" at least so we can go around the track with something right. So in parting,just remember to be nice to your neighbours and freinds because you never know when you will need to get tanked and need their help!

SUNDAY JULY 5TH SPECIAL RACE

ATTENTION ALL RACE FANS. THERE WILL BE NO RACE ON TUESDAY DUE TO THE SPECIAL RACE WE HAD ON SUNDAY JULY 5TH. I am not slacking again this week if you look for an update on Wed and there is not one. OK down to our exciting racing on Sunday. We were all excited last week to see how our new clutch was going to work out and that did not happen due to our oil transportation system malfunction. Today we still have "The Turd" loner engine on our kart. After an exciting birthday pool party, we rushed up to the track for 3pm with my sister-in-law in tow to get our half ass kart looked at to see if it was still OK to race. We checked air pressure, methanol levels, OIL LEVELS!!! then scaled it up and Chris made a rear axel adjustment. Things looked OK. Caleb did the warm up lap and was sliding a little so we switched over from SS11 to SS22. So far so good right. No not for Team Chaos, Hence the name. We are in the hot pits to start our first heat when Caleb's kart won't ideal right and stalls twice. Tim Tallman said Oh your gas tank is loose, he can't race this one pull him out of the line-up. We put him on the kart stand and notice the carb has loosened from the engine and tighten the screws at the restrictor plate. Done right. Wrong. Apparently this loner motor has a crack in the mount where the fuel tank attaches to the engine and is leaking methanol. Great. We coat hanger and wire the thing back together and carry our fire extinguisher with us, just kidding Mom. Methanol leaks are not a big deal I guess. Heat 2 he starts in the back of the pack and was still sliding around so finished last. We decide to change the air pressure again and Chris Long recommended we adjust the rear axel some more. For his feature race we are all prepped and ready to go! He actually had a good race. He started near the back but after 25 laps he moved up, had a bad point where the kid in front slowed down and Caleb ended up on top of him but got back off. He finished 10 out of 14 karts right behind his friend #20. No money again but we still have a kart to race next week and hopefully our engine will be back new and improved! So our tip of this week is make sure you do not have a screw loose and lubrication is the key to keeping everyone happy!

Team Chaos Welcomes Tillsonburg Outlaws to Merritville

Hello Race Fans! Sorry I am a little late in updating you on all of the crazy news but first I have to tell you about these cool karts i have pictured. Sunday July 5th was a special Burris race and the group from Tillsonburg who races these karts made a special appearance at our track. Noramally I am told they race inside in an arena type build with banks around the sides then the boards. If they get to far up the banks they can roll over, hence the roll cages. Their rules are a little different from us since their track is smaller so they race harder with more accidents. They pass each other more as well compared to the straight out racing on our track. The people i talked to were super nice and seemed to be having a good time visiting our track. Some problems were that at nite we got a bit cool and some of the engines in the last race kept stalling out. With there track inside, it probably stays pretty warm. That and whenever we have a car stall we yellow flag to slow the race down. I lost count how many yellow flags were waved and then the cars would slow down and eventually a few would stall out. If anyone has more information they would like to share please comment on this blog so all my fans will get the full scoop on this different style of cool kart!

JUNE 30TH EXPLOSIVE RACE

For those of you who looked on Wed July 1st I am sure that you noticed i did not update this blog after our race. First but not probably the reason, it was a day off with a BBQ to host for my freinds and family with lots of things to get done around the house. Second and the obvious reason I was deeply depressed. The reason all you caring people may ask, well apparently I am an idiot ( but not the only person in the world to do this ) and forgot to put enough oil in poor Caleb's engine for Tuesday and i dun blod er up real gud! BLAM KABLEWE! I having chick issues competing with the boys felt SOOO stupid that I missed a vital part of your kart maintenance. My excuse was Mon I worked, rushed home to clean his kart, make supper and get my daughter to soccer all on schedule. In the rush OPPS. As it turns out, it is amazing how many guys have done this same thing long before little ole me. In fact, Sunday #4 beside Beckett Racing race 2 laps and blew up their $1400 animal motor. Do I feel better, maybe a little but not really. Oh well I will be paranoid careful in the future. So for now Dan Wilder is going to get some parts and but this thing back together for us. We need a piston, crank shaft, connecting rod some rings and gasket for the rebuild. Good Times. I just wish my money tree was in bloom or at least a bit more green! Hee Hee. Thanks goes out to Chris Long from RCM RAcing for letting us borrow a spare engine called "The Turd" and Tim Tallman for helping mount it. Also thanks to Jeff Riley for letting me borrow his spare engine if I needed that one for next week.