I Can’t Drive 55
Those of you that have been following my adventures or misadventures as it turns out to be know that I have a penchant for high performance kart racing. I’m going to blog this season, however abbreviated if nothing else for my own enjoyment. These aren’t the karts found at Putt-Putt or powered by tater digger engines enjoying use as a yard kart. These are finely tuned race machines capable of speeds in excess of 115 mph. Even with a middle aged fat guy like me at the wheel.
Karting for me started in 2001 at the Champ Car race at Portland International Raceway. I’d been a race fan for years, since elementry school when during the weekly book club session, I bought Thirty Days in May, The Indy 500 Story. For the better part of the last decade and a half or so I’ve been attending at least a couple of Champ Car races a season. That year in Portland they were running karts as an exhibition class as a support race. I’d been wanting to start karting for a few years but didn’t realize there was a significant karting community in the Northwest. As I toured the karting paddock at the race I was instantly hooked. Being entrenched at the time comfortably as a faux dot com weenie boy, the next Monday I called the karting school and set out to find out as much about karting as I could. Within a month I had a coach and had ordered my first kart. I jumped right into the deep end with a 125 cc two cycle shifter kart. Within two months, I was racing in my first race, sucessfully completing several days of driver training and miles of learning and testing. I was still sans clue.
Front view of the Team Roaddog/Carlson Audio KGB SpyMax Swedetech Honda CR125.
A season and a half later I was named Most Improved road racer of 2002 at the Portland Karting Club. Road race is a style of karting done on big car tracks. I’ve raced Portland, California Speedway, Thunderhill Park, Mid Ohio Sports Car Course and Las Vegas Motor Speedway, to name a few. My first two and a half seasons I logged more than 60,000 tow miles pulling to and from testing and events. In 2002 I logged several wins in the Formula 125 Ltd Heavy class, though the competition that season was light. We ran in the back of the Formula 125 class which is basically the pro level class for this style of kart. In 2003 I moved to Formula 125. In 2002 I logged as much track time as I could. From Oct 2001 until Nov 2002 I was at the track nearly every weekend, traveling to any race I could. Most weekends I logged a 100 miles or so testing in the kart, which is a great deal. The 2003 season was abbreviated due to my return to touring but I still managed a trio of top five finishes in the Northwest Gold Cup Series for 11th in the series with only three races, a 19th and a 23rd (out of 68 and 64 respectively) at the World Karting Dunlop Tires Road Race Nationals at Mid Ohio after experiencing mechanical failure about 3/4 of the way through each race.
From the seat. Notice the dash and comprehensive data logging facilities.
I had a bitterly miserable experience at the inaugural California Karting Festival at California Speedway suffering a pair of substantial engine failures, repairing them in haste for the final heat only to suffer brake failure in the first turn of the first lap. I’d passed about 30 karts on the start, went to brake into turn one, a sharp left coming off the tri oval and found I had no brakes. I’d developed a leak on the parade lap, air had gotten into the system causing front brake failure. Fortunately, the guy in front of me loaned me his brakes as I barrelled into him at about 60 mph and spun off course stalling the kart and ending what at the time was my most frustrating race weekend. I didn’t fare any better in Las Vegas a couple of months prior. In third place during my best run to date, I spun on the exit of turn one, traveling backwards at high speed while about 20 other karts passed me at race speed, finally flipping the kart and sustaining a concusion after landing on my head. Instead of the mandatory trip to the emergency room, I signed the waiver and loaded up, pointing the Escape and trailer back to Seattle. A promising season was heading into the crapper.
My Fontana or Vegas experience paled in comparision to my appearance at the International Karting Federation Grand Nationals in Sept 2003. An event I’d looked forward to for the better part of two years. Due to my rookie status the previous year, I was not able to compete in the Grand National, arguably the most pretigious event of it’s kind for this type of karting. It’s a five day karting lovefest that determines the National Champions for the IKF sanction. For someone like me a top 10 is fantasic, a top 5 monumental, a podium nearly unheard of. On the first practice day, I was turning some pretty competitive times and felt good for my first couple of sessions, about a dozen laps total on the 2.6 mile course at Thunderhill Park in Willows CA. I then changed to the mandatory spec fuel and oil after lunch. At this type of event it’s not typical for the promoter to dictate the fuel mixture, but this promoter seemed to think it necessary. I had lodged a formal protest two weeks prior to the event and had been very vocal about it on eKartingnews.com, the primary karting forum on the Web. It didn’t win me any friends and IKF HQ didn’t even consider the protest.
Highly customized Swedetech Honda CR125. A 44 horsepower monster.
About a lap and a half into my first afternoon session, I seized an engine in a high speed part of the track. The internal damage was substaintial. I rebuilt the engine, missing several sessions. In my haste to get back up to speed, I didn’t properly break in the new engine and imploded it as well. On the second turn of my first lap. I forgot I needed to break in and gunned it. I was out of spares. Normally, I would have had to call it a week. I use perhaps the most respected engine builder in the biz, Swedetech Racing. The Swedetech crew provides most of the front runners in the pro class with outstanding packages and trackside support. This is one series and style they don’t do trackside support. Fortunately for me, they are located in Elk Grove, about an hour and a half south of the track. The next morning I spent in the Swedetech shop, gaining pointers and getting my engine fixed. Had they not had World Finals the next weekend, one of the mechanics would have been able to be at the track on race day. They confirmed what I thought that the fuel/oil mixture wasn’t right and lead to the failures. I was pissed and decided to run my own oil anyway, though it passed the fuel test I was still obligated to use the spec oil. I already had spent a couple grand at that point in tires, travel and entry fees, not counting the three pistons and two cylinder and head combos. My woes were nothing though, compared to what I would witness that afternoon.
The first two event days are practice, with the final session on the second day being the first class to run at around 3:00 pm. The last race had just started as I was feverishly working on my fresh parts from the engine shop. On the first lap of the first race the race was red flagged, meaning a serious incident on track. I didn’t think much of it until I heard a low flying helicopter. It was a Life Flight chopper. I went to the track crossing bridge some 200 feet or so from the wreck. I saw the body of a racer, laying motionless on the pavement, his helmet about 50 feet from his body. He was with the paramedics and EMTs that are present at the track for the events, as well as the wife of a racer who happened to be a trauma surgeon. I couldn’t watch anymore. I left the track and decided to finish my work in the morning. I still had one full day until my event. The racer, a well respected local named Jeff Edwards would die two days later as a result of injuries sustained in the crash. He never came out of the coma. I wouldn’t find this out until three days later when I returned to Seattle.
I thrashed until just before engine curfew time on Day 3 and was able to rebuild and start it. I went back to the hotel to rest for my race the following morning. The morning of my race, Day 4, I warmed the kart up and headed to the pre grid. I had 30 mins to do a break in and get up to speed, making sure everything was good and tight. As I rolled off the pre grid, I stalled. It seemed to be flooding. Fine under light load, then when throttle applied, it started missing and died. I almost got it started a few times as others that I raced with in the club took time to help me get it right. They knew I had a bad week and wanted to help. That’s one of the great things about karting, the people. As the session clock ticked down, I saw my season disappear before my eyes. I almost gave up at the ten minute mark, but worked until they checkered the session. I was done, angry and dejected. The others could see it as I stared at the kart, not saying a word. They offered assistance and condolences. I’d already tanked two engines and didn’t want to risk a third. I was way over budget and way under on fun factor. I returned to my pit, wiped down the kart and went to the hotel to make an 11:00 check out so I wasn’t charged another day. I returned a bit later, packed the kart and said my goodbyes. Others were well into the race day and it hurt to see them still in the hunt and me sidelined. I had to fight to hold back the tears. I couldn’t remember the last time I was this disappointed. I contemplated selling the kart during my 12 hour ride back to Seattle. When I returned and checked my mail, I got word Jeff had died. They announced it about an hour after I left. I knew if nothing else I needed to take a break and my nearly month long tour of Mexico would allow just that.
First test of the 2004 season. Looking forward to racing again after a miserable 2003.
Here it is, January and I’d been craving some track time, but between the intermittent dates, a couple of one offs and bad weather, I couldn’t make it happen. It had been nearly 14 weeks since I’d been in the kart. The longest since I started. It took me only a short while to decide not to quit. The shock of Jeff’s death and the frustration of the season disappeared and my love for racing was again apparent. This season I’m hoping that Jamie Harris, an audio compadre and now my tuner will be able to assist me throughout the season. He’d helped a few times the previous season and I’m pleased he’ll be helping this year. We did a full teardown in the shop the second week in January, prior to our first test session of the year.
Jamie hard at work in the shop.
We took advantage of the third round of the Seattle Karting Club winter series to do some testing. It was raining and cold, but we made the trek to Evergreen Fairgrounds race track for a dose of much needed seat time and to find the elusive gremlin that haunted me at Grand Nationals. There were some fuel delivery issues due to a pump rebuild I botched a few days before, but this time we also had no spark. Some testing revealed the issue a broken electrical harness. The harness was intermittent and seemed to be open circuit under revs or when it was bumped. My problem in Willows was that I wasn’t getting good spark after the rebuild. We set up, did a break in and a light rain set up. We did some fuel testing, confirming that there were fuel issues as well at Willows, and tested the rebuilt brake system. Even with missing most of the morning session, we logged nearly 40 miles of testing. Pretty good for fixing so many things. I was able to gather a ton of data. We log water temp, exhaust gas temp, rpm and speed, and lateral and vertical Gs, as well as ambient temp and through another gauge, relative air density.
Race trailer and paddock at Monroe.
We’re hitting the track again this weekend for some dry testing. We’ll primarily do tires and handling. The program is on a limited budget this year and there are also some conflicts with planned races. The season opener for the Northwest Gold Cup is March 20, with Grand Nationals this year in Portland in July. I just missed Fontana due to gigs but plan on making more larger races. We haven’t invested into a sponsor program yet and will work on that through the season.
Hope to see you at the track!
’til next time…
Dave
January 31st, 2005 at 5:43 pm
Cool stuff. I haven’t found much information about karting on the net. I hope you have a better season next year.