2011 Championship Getting Closer

Could there be a Kid Kart Championship in Tyler's near future?  Well, we came a little closer to getting there this weekend as Tyler took his Kid Kart to a strong second place finish.  Last years champion, Luke Howard, took the win this weekend and it's going to take a lot for us to catch him.  He's about 4 seconds quicker per lap than we are but considering the fact that he use to lap us we're making tremendous progress in the right direction.


Go Kart racing is an interesting sport because you have a qualifying session and then you run two races, the "Pre-Final" and "The Main".  I'm still learning how this all works but the "Pre-Final" sets up the race order for "The Main" and qualifying sets up the order for the "Pre-Final".  It can get to be a little confusing but just like anything else, it becomes more clear over time.  Tyler started off at practice on Saturday with a lap time of 1 minute 6 seconds (1:06) which was far slower than his competition.  We found ourselves nearly 6 seconds behind the leaders and in a 12 lap race, with the leaders running lap times of 1 minute, we were looking at the possibility of getting lapped in the race on Sunday.  We needed more speed and we needed it quick.  Air pressure adjustments and some tuning on the carburetor improved our lap times by 2.5 seconds but that's as much as we could do.  The rest of it was going to fall on Tyler's shoulders to run a good solid race.   

Tyler at the Starting Grid with Carissa and Wendy

Tyler did a fantastic job and his lap times were amazingly consistent.  We got our lap times down to 1:04 putting us 4 seconds behind that of the leaders.  That was enough that it would keep us on the lead lap but something else was going to have to happen in order for us to get close to the leaders.  The top two karts, Luke and Henry, battled for much of the race which allowed Tyler to close the gap on the leaders.  Henry was black flagged at the mid way point of the race and was sent to the pits and that allowed Tyler to move into the second position behind Luke Howard.  Despite the fact that Luke won the race and Tyler came in second on Sunday.  Tyler had a more consistent overall performance on Sunday and will end up with more points.  This should move us to within striking distance of the Championship.  We have our new parts on order for the race in July so if all goes well, we'll pick up those extra few seconds and we'll be in contention for the lead in July.


Tyler races a "Rocket" race chassis and It's been said that a "Rocket" will never win a Championship in Kid Karting because they're just too heavy but Tyler is trying to prove that it can be done.  We're up against a "Tornado" chassis with is widely regarded as the best of the best in Kid Karts so we certainly have our work cut out for us but despite the fact that we don't have the best kart I firmly believe we have the best driver!  Three more races left in the Championship battle.  No matter what the end result is, we'll still be winners in the end...