Rookie no more!

Well the race on June 24 had some important differences from our typical experience.  First, it was called the Charity Grand Prix and raised money for a nearby children's hospital.  Second, we learned from the race officials that Lian and her group of rookies would not run in their own group but would run with the rest of Junior Sportsman class!

This news brought both excitement and worry about how the competition would go.  This particular day, there were 13 competitors that were entered in the class.  To reduce the number of karts on the track at once, they were split into two heats.  The top 4 in each heat raced in the feature.  The rest were in a "conci" race and the top two in that race were put in the back of the feature.

This plan further raised our concerns but I did my best not to let Lian see me worry.  I had no idea what kind of lap times these Junior Sportsman kids had been running so I really didn't know what to expect.  When they went out to practice though, all the rookies seemed competitive.

During the short week off leading up to this race, I asked what our max rpm should be with the class restrictor plate.  When I heard that we should see between 5700 and 5800, I knew I needed to make a change.  We never saw any higher than 5350 on Lian's memory tachometer so I ordered up a new rear axle sprocket.  Here is a picture of the old one after I swapped them out.

This sprocket has 62 teeth, the new one 64.  I hoped that it would get the engine operating a little deeper into it's power band and allow her to accelerate more quickly.  You can see that these gears are in two pieces, this allow a quick change without completely disassembling the rear axle.

During the practice, I was focused on getting the initial air pressures right and with most of the class on the track at once, I don't think that she was going 100 percent.  The highest rpm we saw was 5400.

Lian drew the 7th starting position of 7 for the first heat and passed two that got tangled together to finish 5th.  In the second heat, she started on the pole.  Lian came full circle at this juncture.  In this picture, you can see her next to the kart she drove last fall as an introduction to the sport.  All three of the girls in this picture are in the Junior Sportsman class.

When the green flag flew, Lian was jumped by two experienced drivers at the start settling into 3rd at the first turn.  One more passed her before the end so she finished 4th.  Because her average finish was below 4th, she wasn't in the Feature race.  Instead, she was in the race to get in the Feature.

So in the "conci" race (or the "B Main" as some would call it), Lian's heat performance had her starting second.  She preferred this to the pole start because she felt strongly that going into the first left-hand turn on the outside was much better.  This turned out to be very true.  Although she didn't beat the pole-sitter into the turn, she stayed well ahead of the 3rd place racer and settled-in to defend the last transfer spot for 12 laps.  I was pretty wound-up watching this going on!

Lian held on to finish 2nd and transferred to the Feature!  A race official ran over to me as she was shutting off her engine.  He told me that I could make adjustments after weigh-in but that the Feature was taking the starting grid after the Restricted Junior class finished their race.  Only about 8 minutes!  I didn't even listen to the weigh-in official read our weight.  At this point I was a mess but Lian was very excited and we were all excited for her.  By the way, top rpm for that race was 5510.

Lian started 10th of 10 in the Feature but she was in.  Incredibly, 3 of the 4 Rookies were in the field for the race.  Not too shabby.  Here she is in the back of the grid getting a high-5 from one of the race officials before they started the Feature.

Most of the race, Lian just followed the field.  In the waning laps, one of the racers slid off the track and continued at a slower pace.  When the racer in front of her was trying to pass this kart, he slowed greatly allowing Lian to close-in on both of them.  Lian didn't slow down and gained an inside position for a pass but was cut-off by the 9th place racer who apparently didn't see her.  Instead of backing off, Lian turned harder to the left an passed both the 9th and 8th place karts - through the grass!  Ahhh if only I had the camera ready!

Wow, what a race!  The excitement was great and Lian had a blast.  Her top rpm was 5520 and she set a new personal best lap time of 22.51 sec.  I was brought down a little during the post-race weigh-in when I found out that she was 0.4 lbs too light.  I had failed to add fuel between the races and she was getting low.  This combined with loosing lots of sweat that hot afternoon got me our first DQ.  Oh well, it didn't let the air out of her balloon at all.

I could get used to this racing stuff!