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We just got back from Florida and let me tell you, it was great! Bill Wright runs a great program. There were racers from all over the place. Many from Canada and as far away as England.
If you think it might be fun to get out of the winter weather for a few days, give me a call. We may be able to work something out to go back down. We intend to do the next event at Moroso. The junior fields are incrediably strong and the Mini-Max was the biggest field ever assembled in North America! The other thing that is very good, everyone seems to be there for a good time. I didn’t see any of the usual whinning and crying going on. Tech was very good and Chris wasn’t shy about using the black flag and putting people back for rough driving.
The Rotax senior field was incredibly strong. 45 cars on Saturday! Greg was running 6th, pushing for 5th when the guy in 5th hit a tire and spun, giving Greg no where to go but into him. On Sunday, he worked hard to get his 10th spot. The car was great but the motor was a little flat. We’ll do better next time with jetting.
In Stock moto, Greg controlled Saturday. After missing qualifying with a blown piston, Greg started in the back of a 30 kart field. In 10 laps, he passed 21 cars to finish 9th overall and 1st in class. In the main, he drove away for the win. On Sunday, Greg was awarded the pole in qualifying as the fastest kart was dq’ed due to a carb that was oversize. Greg won the pre-final and in the main, was leading easily until a slight bobble due to a brake problem let the 2nd place guy slip through. Unfortunatly, he still hadn’t fixed his engine issues and was dq’ed again. This time for head volumn. So Greg was awarded the first place trophy.
In general, our Mike Wilson/Shockwave karts did very well. In additon to Greg, we had karts in Rotax Junior and Mini-Max. All of our karts ran in the top half of the field with several top 3 positions including pole in MiniMax on Sunday. It was unfurtunate and in some cases, just bad racing luck that these kids didn’t win their repective classes.
Congratulations to you guys. Sounds like Greg did very well down there.
One question: How do you blow up a piston in this class? We tried like heck last year to hurt the two stock motos on our team, along with myself behind the wheel and countless newbees thrashing the same kart Jim raced every weekend on, and nobody was able to inflict any motor damage. I thought that was a great testimony to the motor package. Especially when we did replace top ends, the piston and ring looked like new much to our surprise.
Are you allowed to profile your piston in this class? Sounds like head volumn is monitored. Was it jetting? The elevation? ….???Just wondering as usual.
Thanks,
CurtJust to emphasize Doug’s point, there was 512 entries!!!! Let me tell you, there were some karts there! I can’t wait for Moroso, hopefully there will be just as many!
Taylor,
How did Team RBI do down there? We’re spreading the word about the stolen equipment around here and else where (my Dad lives in Lake Havasu, Arizona)Anyway, hope you guy’s had fun.
AJ and Alan didn’t race?
Good job both of you guys. I was thinking about coming out to Moroso if I could get away for a few days.
Curt
The failure was very weird. A piece of the piston, about 3/4 inch, came out just above the ring on the exhaust port side. It looked like it was cut out. The top of the dome had excellent color so it wasn’t running lean. There was no damage at all, not a scratch in the cylinder, port or head. It was like a chuck just dissapeared! I showed it to several moto engine builders and they all said it was really weird, never seen anything like it. Just my luck!
Tech was good and thorough. Don was ready to head for the bottom end as the other guy’s motor seemed to be just a bit too good. Head volumn is supposed to be 11cc. The other engine’s head was covered in oil after only 9cc went in! A little undersize. (Our’s was well over the 11cc limit.)
I’m making tools to check head profile and port height. Once made, a builder won’t be able to touch any of the surfaces without getting caught. We already have orders from all over asking for them. We had the prototypes in Florida, ready to go if needed. For Moroso, we’ll have the finished ones.
I stopped in on Friday to see the event, and it was good to see Bill and his team jumping thru all the hoops to get tires and fuel in for everyone, always with a smile on his face. You can tell he knows how to work his event.
Here is a partial list of how Birel faired with the new line-up:
Saturday:
Mini-Max – 1,2
Rotax Jr. – 1,5
Tag Heavy – 1
Masters Shifter – 1 + Fast Lap
Stock Moto – 3,4
Expert Shifter – 1
Expert Heavy Shifter – 1,2,4 + Fast Lap
Pro Shifter – 3,4,6,8,10Sunday:
Mini-Max – 1,2
TaG Heavy – 1 + Fast lap
Masters shifter – 1,3
Stock Moto – 2
Expert Shifter – 1,2,4
Expert Heavy Shifter – 2,3,4 + Fast lap
Pro Shifter – 2,3,5,6,79 wins for the weekend.
I will post the Club race schedule for The Track this week.
Jim
Hopefully you got all the bad luck out of your system. Greg will have his hands full in that class at CSC events. Sounds like there will be 6-10 of them locally.
It’s going to be fun watching spec shifters racing side by side.
Doug,
What class or classes ran with the stock moto? What other classes ran together? Any problems with the classes that ran together?Bill
Bill
They ran what SKUSA would call G1 (Expert masters) and G2 (Expert heavy) with stock moto. There was a total of 31 karts on the track at once. There were a couple of guys who were just nuts and managed to hit just about everything out there. We ended the first main with a bent steering column and a bent tie rod after a maasters drove over the front of us. (He was docked a position) However, after Chris penalized a couple and gave a tongue lashing to a couple more, they were much better behaved on Sunday. Greg finished 5th and 8th overall I think.
On Mylaps, Greg’s best times were close to the best times of the top Masters running built ICC packages. The rest of the non-cheating stockers (we had one “stock” moto with a 9cc head and a 40mm carb!) were about 1 to 2 seconds back from Greg. Based on the skill levels I saw, that seemed about right.
If we are looking for classes here to double up with, it could be interesting. In testing so far here at our tracks, Greg has already run within a half second of the best Pro times from the last CSC at Bandimere. At IMI, I think it will be about 1 second off. GJM should be about the same as IMI. (The reason in Florida we were 2+ seconds off the pro class can be traced to three things, much better tires on the Pros, lighter weight and the built motors. The tires alone were worth over 1 second.)
Since Pro and stock both run the same tire, the differences here will be less. Locally, as many of the pros can’t get within a second of the best local pros, Greg could run his stocker in the pro class and not get in anyone’s way. However, I think that most stockers will be off 1 to 2 seconds and that could be a problem in lapped traffic and a better fit maybe the heavy/old class. But since stock moto and heavy/old will most likely be two of the larger classes, it could be a problem combining them from a numbers standpoint. And nobody wants to run with the novices!
It all depends on numbers. The big question is, where will the guys who ran S1 and S2 last year go? If they keep the same engine packages, they will have to go Pro or Masters. Last year, by the time we got to the end of the season, there were only 5 pro’s and 5 S1s. If they all come back, that’s only 10 total if we combine them. At the same race, there were 10 masters and 7 S2. Where will the S2 guys go? Novice? Their engines fit Pro specs. Is novice going to be a run what-ya-brung type class? Do we run 4 seperate shifter groups? Seems a bit overkill to me.
I think we can all agree that novice should be by themselves. The Pro guys usually want to run by themselves. That means combining Masters and stockers. From a time standpoint, it could work, but if things go like it it appears they might, we could end up with 30+ karts on the track while the other two groups have less than 10. Not a good use of the very limited time we will have this year.
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