March 20th, WKA Speedway Pavement National Race #1-Lowe's Motor Speedway
Results
This week-end we attended our first WKA National event in the shadows of the historic Lowe's Motor
Speedway in Concord, NC. The track we raced on is the 1/5th mile asphalt oval located just off the
back-stretch of the 1.5 mile NASCAR track. We arrived in Concord on a rather foggy Thurs. night.
After picking-up our extra motor from our motor builder (Dover Power), who's a short distance from the
track, we headed to the track early Friday morning to get registered and get ready for practice. The
weather on Friday was great with sun all day, and hi's in the low 70's. We weren't exactly sure where
to start on set-up or anything since no one was giving up any info on the internet before-hand. Having
never been on or even seen the track before, it took us a few practice rounds to get in the ball-park,
but by the end of the day Friday we were confident with a few changes we would pick-up a lot of speed.
However, we did lose a few parts throughout the day, like a sprocket holder and some weights, which
did cost us some set-up time. Before leaving the track though, we looked at all our data and made the
changes we wanted for Saturday's first practice. Saturday we arrived back at the track bright and
early because I had to be at the 7:30am driver's meeting. Before the driver's meeting though we found
out it just wasn't gonna be our day. The morning temperature was around 39 degrees, and I guess we
didn't let enough air out of tires before leaving Friday night. The big temperature change caused the
right rear tire to grow about 1/2", changing our stagger drastically. No big deal though, we would
just put a different tire on the rim. Well, in the process of doing that, we broke our paper towel
holder. Then, the lenses fell out off dad's glasses. No big deal though right? The first practice
didn't go so well though. We made about 5 laps and the motor started to feel a little sour. I pulled
off before really diagnosing the probelm though. For the second round of practice, we put on some new
tires to scuff them in for qualifying. The tires were just breaking in when the motor started to die
at end of the stretches, basically choking itself out. After about 3 laps, I pulled it off again
while alcohol was just pouring out of the bowl. It appeared that the float was stuck. So, not
knowing how involved a carb change would be, we decided to switch motors since we did have a fresh
one. We put oil in it and warmed it up for qualifying. We got one lap warm-up for qualifying with
two timed laps. I took the green for the first timed lapped, ready to put in a solid time. As I came
of the 4th turn, the motor started to loose power. I finished the lap, but the motor kept loosing
power, and by the 2nd turn it blew up! There was about a fist-sized hole in the front of the block and
the bottom of the rod was completely gone. So needless to say, we didn't qualify very well. No
matter what though, we had to start 10th because we switched motors back to first one, but this time
swapped the carbs. We made a couple more changes to the kart, and just let it sit. In the meantime,
we broke a spray-bottle handle. Anyway, with the abundance of classes and karts at the National races
we ended up waiting quite awhile until our race. Our class took the track around 7pm, and we got to
race under the lights. I tried my best to get a little jump on the start, but only succeeded in
staying with everyone. The field made it through 1 and 2 clean. I moved to the outside of the 9th
place starter, Rebecca Head, going into 3 to make a pass. As I passed, she spun on the low side
bringing out the caution. WKA displayed the signs, "Original line-up, single-file." So, we were
regulated to the tail again. On the restart, I tried to get pass we I did before. I wasn't able to
though, and battled hard for the next 18 laps trying to get by. At one point, I did get by but was
shown the "move over flag" since the leader was coming. I gave the leader room, but she also took
advantage and passed me back. Throughout the race though our kart was much faster, but she was
running the line I wanted to be in from the center of the corner off. I don't know how I didn't hit
her some of the times. Finally, coming out of 4, I had enough of a run, and was able to pull on
outside of her and make the pass down the front-stretch. Some other karts had dropped out during the
race, so we ended up finishing in the 6th position. We were very happy with that considering
everything that had happened throughout the day. The kart made it to the end, and we actually got to
race for 20 laps! I'd also like to congratulate Seth for coming home with a podium finish in 5th.
So right now, we're sitting 6th in the National points standings. The next National race will be the
May 1st and 2nd at BeaveRun in PA, and that will probably be the next time we'll be on the track. We
had a very good run last year there in the divisionals, but we'll have to see how things go this year.
Pic from Nationals!!
Back to 2004 Kart Reports