Couple more thoughts….
Last year’s track was popularly criticized for being way too dangerous and a bit boring to drive. I would agree with that. This year’s track, however, was a massive improvement; fun track to drive that promoted great racing. They still used those damndable car barriers, but there were no incidents. There was a lot of runoff engineered to the corners that needed it (as opposed to virtually none last year) and I wouldn’t have felt unsafe racing on it, plus no silly bus stop corner this year. Tom Kutcher pointed out at the end of the weekend that the ambulance didnt roll once, there were only a couple of red flags, and no injuries. That’s worth applauding alone. :clap:
Jansen hit it exactly taking about how good the guys who run up front here are. You can learn a lot just by watching them, if you want to raise your game at home this is the place to do it, even running with the backmarkers would teach you so much. Take the TaG seniors or S3 drivers for example. Only 40 made it into the final, but that doesnt mean the other 40 are slow, probably more unlucky than anything.
This is really what karting is all about. This is such a cool event because it’s a big damn deal, has to be to attract a billionaire to race in it. How cool is it that there was a bit on the SPEED Report and WindTunnel later that night covering a go kart race? Seeing all these superstar drivers free of sponsors and media and obligations is so cool, they’re just there to race. I saw a 7 time world champion working on his own kart, lifting it off the stand, taking tire pressure readings, and chatting it up with his fellow superpro drivers. I watched heat races standing next to an Indy 500 winner. Seeing these guys come back to the place they got started in is very refreshing, and it says a lot about the sport. They’re here because they want to be, not because Home Depot, Red Bull, Old Spice, Budweiser, Kellogs, Marborlo says so. How cool is that?
Anyways, I took about 600 pictures there, here’s a link to about 250 of them.
