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A quick thank you to all who called to wish Greg good luck. In case you didn’t hear, basicaly here’s how it went.
The kids had three rounds of timed practice in Rotax junior karts to determine 30 drivers who would move on to drive the RM1 karts. They then did two rounds of timed practice to pick the final 16 drivers who would actually race for the 5 spots in Florida.
Greg and Dave Chapel made the cut of 30 and Greg made the cut to 16. They then qualified for starting postions and Greg qualifed 6th. They did three pre-finals (four groups with A vs B and so on). In the first pre-final, Greg was pushed wide and off track in the first turn and rejoined the field in around 7th or 8th after starting 4th. In the second pre-final, he started 3rd, moved to second and then slide back a bit to finish 4th.
In the third pre-final, he again started 3rd. There was a big pile up in turn 1 but it was looking to be in his favor as his kart was a bit slow on pick-up compared to the other karts and he dropped back 3 or 4 spots on the start. He was able to avoid the mess by going inside and was just about clear of the pile when a kid came flying in from behide and knocked Greg into the mess. It was unforutnate as Greg would have been in 3rd or 2nd! Instead, Greg’s kart was a mess with a bent axle and a broken wheel.
This left him with a starting postion of 11 for the main. Again, his kart was slow on pick-up and he fell back a postion but he still managed to come off turn 1 in 12th. At that point he put his head down and slowly started picking them off, one at a time. The karts were so even, it is hard to pass in them. But he moved up to 8th and was running hard. He really had the bit between his teeth and was running times as fast or faster than the leaders. Just as he caught the 3 kart fight for 5th, he pushed just a bit too hard and pushed the kart off the track with one lap to go. By the time he got back on track, the field had passed him and he finished last. Most of the time, the karts were never seperated by more than a few kart lengths.
This field was very close. Postions were often decided by thousandths of a second. A single .1 of a second was usually 10 or more postions! Dale Kistler-Collins missed the cut of 30 by .008 of a second. It was some of the best racing I’ve seen this year.
Thanks to Red Bull for working so hard to make the karts equal. We had a great time and wish all the winners best of luck in the next round.
One last thing, they seperated the parents from the kids and paddock. It was great!
yeah greg did really well, i am starting to think that if i never lost my chain in that parctice session and gotten the last 4 laps in that i would have been faster still ( I missed it by .2) We might do it again next year because it was really fun! only then we would head out for a day or so of practice, it means a lot (of the 5 that went on to florida, 4 lived in california) like even one 10 minute session gives you that much more over the drivers that have never been there before. I especially liked when the drivers were separated from the parents… that was nice 🙂
Congratulations guys, even if you guys are not going to Sebring, sounds like everyone went really well. How did all the others from Colorado go?? Go get them next year Chris!
all of colorado’s other drivers had basically the same thing happen to them as happened to me… zach was really close to making it as was dale and nick and peter. basically the whole top 50 was probably separated by about 2 seconds
It was way cool that you guys stayed around on Thursday to watch and support the drivers. Chris, Dave, Dale and Cory all hung out on Thursday to watch and support Greg. That was a class act guys and both Greg and I greatly appreciate it.
hey it was really fun! I only wish that I were racing greg rather than getting sunburned! Oh and if people are wondering who Cory is… he is Corey Dalenberg, he races 80 in the great lakes tour and was the other driver to get chosen by SKUSA for the Red Bull thing, he found out too late so he couldn’t go to the eastern run offs even though he lives in Ohio, I think I might be able to get them to come out for nations cup!
Even better than having the drivers separated from the parents, the parents were separated from the karts! I didn’t touch a wrench all the time we were there! 😀
The Red Bull/SSC team were very, very well organized. An impressive event.
I had a realy good time in California… up until I broke my thumb on the RM1 when the shifter jamed up :cry:. Speaking of RM1’s those things are sweet they dont even feel or drive like a Rotax, they’re so fast. Great job Greg :clap: you where almost there, if only those three guys in front of you would have made a mistake you’d be heading to Sebring.[/i]
oh well… there is always next year right??
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