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John,
Tell Jack that was a great run in the LCQ. He had Debbi and I yelling at our dumb computer for 20 minutes like Jack could hear us. :bangYou all did a great job, and you are correct when you say, The Competition is Incredible!
+1
We were stoked listening to the call on the live streaming. Watching the timing was good, but hearing the call was fantastic! Glad you had fun and glad everyone made it home safe.
If you want to race the best and deepest fields, it sure seems to bring them.
And yes, Utah whipped some a$$, it will be good to race you guys in a regional atmosphere once again, it makes us all better.
Rick
Okay Gang:
I’m taking my old school camera with film (remember film? the stuff that used to go in the back of the camera and you didn’t know if your photos were the bomb or you sucked and missed the “special shot”)
That said, I’m going to get the commentary done tonight along with photos from my digital camera. In the meantime here’s some thoughts for you to chew on:
1) I’m getting old! Mr. Natural stayed up 24 hours and no one wanted to play after 4am. Pansies! Otto and I went over to the Palms and they were shutting it down there too. So we headed back and had what I call the time management breakfast special. Don’t know that one? You eat biscuits & gravy; omelette and fruit and then you head to bed because you know you’ll not have time to eat when you get up at 7am.
2) Intense is the only word I can use to describe things. It starts when the visors go down and the aggressive way people drive. I didn’t say idiotic, just aggressive. You leave 60″ of room between you and the barrier in a shifter class and you will see someone in that spot passing you, period! I called the guys who didn’t do this DOORKNOB. As in everyone got a turn passing them!
3) If Picasso can paint and Hemingway can write then the super pros, TaG Senior, and stock shifter pilots are in the same category. Watching Schuey, Thonon, Carlton, Gidley and others straightline a corner vs. carve the corner was pure poetry. Majority of the field went outside apex of the corner by 16-20″ and these pilots were 1″ CONSISTENTLY from the apex. Amazing. They do this by a quick flick of the wrists (2″ max on the wheel of deflection), hold and then on the gas. Nothing is wasted in energy. None. TaG drivers did the same in the Red Bull corner. Hard brakes, quick flick of the wrist (same amount of deflection) and on the gas. No and I mean No Colorado driver did that but then again, how long has Dan Wheldon Indy 500 winner driven a kart?
4) You want to talk about dedication/money/dedication? I watched the first TaG Junior heat and met a very nice french lady (I know, an oxymoron and I was honoured to have met her and she’s going to change my thoughts of the french if this keeps up) who’s son was racing for Sodi Kart. Her son lives in England to be near the team and track. She sees him 5-6 times a year when he’s NOT racing or studying in school. She and her husband want him to race against the best and be immersed around the best. Pierre Gasley was his name and he kept a cool head. Reminds me of Alain Prost. Started P8 and moved up to P2 and did this a few times in his heat races. Cool headed kid and showed ME how to settle down then get in a groove and then when the kart comes in ATTACK and Attack smartly. Not once did I see him make a “dive bomb” move that meant he nor his competitor would be both knocked out.
5) Everyone has engine stories to tell. I found out that a zip tie around the spark plug base attached to another zip tie around the spark plug boot does NOT mean they’re afraid of the boot coming off in the race. It meant the engine builder lets you USE his engine but not LOOK in the engine. That education experience was worth admission alone.
6) Schuey is a pretty cool guy. Lauren Holleran got an autograph and I’ll let Rob tell that story. Michael was humble and he tolerated all the fans who go gaga over him and he put up with the people who want his autograph only to sell it on Ebay. Yes, you could tell the difference. He had the best move IMO in the main. Coming out of T1 he was right behind the racer in P9. At the last millisecond prior to T2 he passed left (inside), stood on the brakes and caused a cloud of debris and tire smoke (seen that in F1 but NEVER in a kart) bumped the guy ahead of him (sidepod to sidepod) but not enough to cause him to wreck and passed him CLEANLY. Best pass all weekend. The stands collectively held their breath, then let it out when the pass was made. Same thing happened to Memo Gidley in his S1 race but the guy behind Memo came in too hot and wrecked Gidley. Game over for Memo and I had him as the favourite in that race. The difference between idiot’s move and Schuey’s move? About a foot would be my guess.
7) Women with talent at the races. I don’t know how I’m going to explain to Sandi the photos of the NICELY DRESSED WOMEN there. 8)
8.) I was in America, right? I’m in the stands and I’m hearing French, Portugese, Spanish (Spain), Spanish (mexico), and of course, Italian. Talk about the melting pot of nations. This race is it my friends! The funny thing about this race is we as American racers ARE progressing. But when you consider the European Karting championships being televised and broadcast live on Eurosport TV with roughly 10-20 THOUSAND spectators; we’ve got a long way to go baby to paraphrase a cigarrette advertisement.
9) How many kids are taught manners nowadays? 8 year old kid pushes his way into the stands where the Runkles and myself are sitting. I almost get in a fight with his dad because I have the kid go back to where he and his team are sitting, we’d worked for over an hour to get our seats. You think if he’d have said PLEASE can I stand here we’d have had the same results? Then dad or his adult teammate are going to try to guilt me into feeling bad because the little kids upset and in tears and Dad’s throwing F-bombs. I just played the ugly American card (which I’m not proud of mind you) but like I said, MANNERS GO A LONG way. The adult was an Aussie and shut his trap when he realized how big I was and not standing on the top of the stands. Set a nice example to kids. And they let these kind breed????
Here’s a few lessons for me and all of us to glean from this experience:
1) Agressive braking! Learn to reduce your braking zone to next to nothing. You wanna pass someone? Learn to outbrake someone VIOLENTLY and IN CONTROL when the back end wants to come out from under you. Doug sells billetted gas and brake pedals in case you feel like you’ll break your existing pedals. AND DO IT CONSISTENTLY.
2) Exit speeds out of the corners. How many times have we heard that one?
3) Clean your kart! A clean kart is a fast kart. Clean karts don’t break down.
4) Paranioa! One karter in Stock Honda was the favourite. Twice he lost his carb when it feel off. Tap your kart for vibration to locate loose parts. Redundancy systems are a good thing. I looked at a Tony Kart and their redundancy of the rear bumper from coming off even after a hard hit was a thing of beauty. There was no way that kart was going to get a meat ball flag for a hanging chad, err, bumper! Larry Frasier in TaG Masters was favoured in my eyes and he forgot to tighten up the engine mount and the chain came off in P1 less than 5 laps from the end. How much $$$ was spent and time taken away from home to have this happen? It’s always good to have a second set of eyes on stuff.Well, that’s all for now.
I’ll get on the photos ASAP.
I’ve got a captured turkey that’s not talking and it obviously needs to be waterboarded in brown sugar salt water for a few hours till it talks.
If it doesn’t talk it goes in the oven tomorrow.Happy Thanksgiving all. Think & pray for our soldiers who’ll be eating MRE’s in the field so that we can talk any sort of junk we want because they give us all the freedom to sprout our so called knowledge.
PS I know why Rick wasn’t there. His reputation is mud amonst the Chippendales guys. But I’ll let him tell that story since they were all asking about Rickee.
By the way, the RIO rocks. Nice wholesome cocktail waitresses who’ll keep the martinis coming from 6pm till 2am without hesitation. And, service with a smile.
Go Keenan! Takes 2nd in one of the toughest classes. Thats his 2nd time on the Supernats podium. He is going to win one soon…
if you go you have to watch the distance from apex (inside) to the line. The difference between greatness vs. average is about 12-24″. Then, look at the hands and see a deflection of 2″ and commit to that amount of feedback, there isn’t ANY correctoin from that point on. Again, the braking is the primary thing you’ll notice. VIOLENT braking at the Nth degree with a 1 foot margin of error. You honestly have to see it to appreciate it.
Photos done tomorrow, I’ll get them posted as quikly as I can.
If you’ve ever seen the movie RIDING GIANTS about surfing and they interview Pat Curren about Laird Hamilton’s epic ride on TeaPuh that was on the cover of SURFER magazine. Anyway Curren says with A LOT OF HUMILITY, “even in my best, i couldn’t pull that off.” That is exactly how I felt when I watched some of them come around certain corners.
Y’all have a great night.
Good job on your post Mike. It is always good watch and learn from the best, we should take note on what a good job SKUSA does. This is what we can expect to see in our region. You all should make it down there next year, I don’t know how it could be any better but knowing Tom he will do all he can to try. I got to see alot of friends that I have made throughout my years in karting and made a few new ones, it was great.
Long interviews but very interesting what the drivers from the other side of the pond thinks about the supernats. http://www.karting1.co.uk/news/news/skusa-supernationals-mega-podcast/
@Jay Jacobellis wrote:
Good job on your post Mike. It is always good watch and learn from the best, we should take note on what a good job SKUSA does. This is what we can expect to see in our region. You all should make it down there next year, I don’t know how it could be any better but knowing Tom he will do all he can to try. I got to see alot of friends that I have made throughout my years in karting and made a few new ones, it was great.
SKUSA didn’t do a good job…
They did a FANTASTIC job. I heard a lot of complaining all year long about the track and the danger of the high barrriers and the street canyon feel to it. SKUSA said nothing about it they let their actions speak louder than their words and made a track where you could see past the corners (due to lower barriers) and a track that was relatively safe IMO. The track flowed and worked. Hopefully they’ll do the same here in Colorado!
Nice avatar Jay. Who’s the guy next to you in british racing green? 8)
Alll I have to say is WOW! I went to last years race and was blown away, but this year’s running made ’08 seem like a club race. I was fortunate enough to spend a lot of time on the superpro grid and I had to keep pinching myself…the level of talent standing around me was just Insane. Schmacher and company not excluded, the fastest karters in the world were there. Multiple world champions and some Guys I’ve never heard of mixing it up with Schumacher, Thonon, Matos, kozlinski, Ardigo, Fore…wow! The superpro guys are truly something amazing to watch, they seem like they’re in a perpetual state of sliding, yet they’re so fast! Awesome racing all around, not just the superpros.
If you’re a karting fan you HAVE to make it out to the SuperNats one year, even if you don’t race. Though, after watching from the sidelines for 2 years I have an itch I need to scratch…
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.
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