Southern Road Racing Series
Roebling Road Raceway
February 1-2, 2003

The weather was beautiful this weekend for the first race of the Southern Road Racing Series. This is a four-race enduro kart series that races at Roebling Road Raceway, which happens to only be 10 minutes from my house.

Friday dad arrived with the karts and we parked at the track and then went for dinner. Saturday morning we were up bright and early for Dad and Charles' race day. They both had a good race. As a matter of fact, dad only beat Charles by .2 seconds!!

Sunday was finally my turn to play. I had a rebuilt engine to break in, so I went out in the open practice session and rode around at half throttle. In our first real session of the day I finished breaking in the motor and then started trying to dial in the kart.

After a long debate on which gear to use I went with a 73, hoping for more straight away speed. Since I entered ahead of time I started second and Charles started third. This is the first time I have ever raced in the Piston Port Can class. I was not only racing against Charles, but also against Dave and Chuck...I knew it would be interesting.

I got a great start and moved into first in my class. Charles pulled into second and away we went. I stayed in first for most of the first lap until we came up the hill to go on the back stretch and that's when #1 passed me for first place. I tried to stay with him but he was much faster than me. I stayed steady and tried to keep my lap times down. On lap three Dave came around and passed me at the end of the straight away. I was able to hang with him in the turns, but as soon as we started up the hill he would pull me. The longer the race went, the more distance he put between us. I had to quit worrying about catching him when I started to feel that there was another kart behind me.

On about lap 14 or 15 Charlie Fox and Bobby Moore drafted by me at the end of the straight. I knew someone was there, but didn't know there were two of them. I was happy to see other karts and thought this would be a good opportunity to draft and maybe run Dave down. I was tucked in behind them when we came around turn five and I saw the red flag. I slowed up but they kept on, then I saw Dave as he was slowing up and we rode around turn seven only to find a kart upside down in the dirt on the outside of the track. I did a quick check and it wasn't Charles, but it was Chuck Jones, another guy we hang out with. I pointed and Dave and I both stopped. We ran over and helped one of the officials pull the kart off of him. He was really dirty, but everything else was fine!!

Since the race was over half way they called it. I figured I finished fifth since Charlie and Bobby passed me. We got back up to the scales and Charlie told me to go to tech. Since they passed me after the start/finish line I was still in third when the race was called!! So #1 won, followed by Dave and then me. Charles had carburetor problems and didn't finish.

One great thing we learned this weekend was how to use our Michron system better. I never thought I would be plugging my laptop into my go kart and downloading data, but I did. Then went home and analyzed lap after lap after lap. We're able to overlap different people's laps and everything.