National Road Racing Series
Daytona International Speedway
December 27-29, 2002

Right after Christmas Dad and I headed down to Daytona (stoping by DeLand to pick up the body of my new Spec Racer) for the kart nationals. We got there Thursday night and met up with Dave, Clyde and Alex (we missed you Chuck!!).

Friday we were off to the track for a test day. I practiced first since the kart was still set up for me from running at Road Atlanta. I did alright, nothing spectacular, but decided on a gear and was ready to go. So then we switched over to dad's motor and settings so he could practice.

Charles arrived Saturday and he and dad had three practice sessions before their race. Dad, Dave and Charles all three raced in PP Can Heavy. Dad and Charles ran close together for a while. Dad finished 11th, Charles finished 13th.

Sunday was my big day to race. After the first practice session dad talked to me about the clutch and we looked at the MyChron (it saves all of the data from the session). He decided that I had the clutch locking way too low, so we made some adjustments. Out I went in my second session, drafted with a guy in my class and low and behold, dropped five seconds a lap. Boy dad sure does know what he's talking about.

After all of the practice was over we went and talked with Randy Fulks (a many, many time national champ) about my set up. He told us all of the things he would do to make it go faster. So off we went, made a million changes right before the race.

I started 28 out of 36 karts in Yamaha Medium. I was all ready to go on the grid when the motor stopped. Dad cranked me up and I got going. It wasn't a great start, but at least I was still in touch with the other karts, but I started dead last. Exiting turn one going into the kink they call turn two I was able to pass about four karts. I broke late into three and went a little wide, but was able to pull out ahead of them. I stayed in line going through turn five and six up onto the banking. I passed a couple more karts going down the back straight and still had the leaders in sight.

As I got settled in there were two other karts close enough in front of me to set my sights on. They battled back and forth and I steadily caught them. #5 broke away from #25 so I had to run down 25 first. I finally caught him in NASCAR turns three and four and drafted with him down the front straight. At first I thought if we drafted together maybe we could catch #5, but then realized I was much faster and out broke him going into turn 5. From there I slowly left him and gained on #5. I'm not sure if I had time to pass him or not, but that didn't matter.

With about eight minutes to go I exited turn six and went up on the banking and my motor went silent : ( I put my hand in the air and rolled onto the grass. My day was done. I was running in 12th at the time, gaining on 11th. I waited and waited and waited on someone to come get me and they never did. So I walked from NASCAR turn 2 all of the way to turn six and asked the guy if he would be kind enough to send someone to get me. A couple of guys picked me up in their truck and helped me take my broken toy back to tech for weigh in.

I ended up finishing 16th even after all of that. We took the head off of the motor and I had a hole in the top of the piston. It didn't look like there was any damage to the case or anything like that, so hopefully I can have my motor back by our next kart race at Roebling Road Feb. 1-2.

I hope you all had a great Christmas and are ready for the new year. I know we had a blast at Daytona and can't wait for Savannah.