Chonda Endurace Race2012.10.13
The big race weekend is here.
Squirrels Racing
Racing results, updates, and information for Squirrels!
Summer Update!
Posted by on 2012.08.22
This weekend will be the last race of the Summer series, Summer Race 6 and I think it’s time for an update to what’s been happening this summer.
I was race director for the Spring Series Race 6, so while I was unable to race, there was lots of heated battle on the track and Spring Series Points Championship to decide. With the points calculated, I sadly finished the Spring series in 5th place. 😦
Oh well, on to the Summer series! Summer 1 was a hot race (temperature wise) and the sun was beating down on us. There was close racing between Mitch Mckie and myself, but in the end he won out and I had to settle for 2nd place. Not a bad start for the Summer Series though! Summer Race 2 was rained out and I was again Race Director for the Summer 3 Race. Summer 4 saw me finish in 3rd place while Summer 5 was once again rained out. With the points totals as they stand, I’m holding down 2nd place for the Summer series and have moved up to 2nd place for the 2012 Championship Series! Here’s to a good race this weekend!
Mat Souza and I took a detour during the summer and went to go run at the Waco H.O.T. track for one of their club races. That is a small, tight, and twisty track that is fun as hell! We’re hoping to setup an IKF race series between NTK, Waco, and HCKC, so hopefully I’ll be traveling to more tracks soon.
Thanks for reading!
TPKC Rounds 3 & 4
Posted by on 2012.06.01
The Texas Pro Kart Challenge rounds 3 and 4 at Grandsport Speedway took place over the June 1st weekend. On Thursday Andre and I did some initial setup on our karts and loaded up Chris’s trailer for the long drive to Houston. We ended up leaving Plano around 5:30 pm and slowly made our way down. Just south of Ennis we met up with Mathew Souza and carpooled the rest of the trip to Houston. Mat is a veteran racer who is our competition in the Local Option Yamaha KT100 class for this weekends activities and who would prove to a valued friend and competitor!
After spending a night at a friend of Andre’s place, we completed our journey to Grandsport Speedway and setup our pit spot. Everything got underway pretty fast with us finishing up our registration, unloading and getting ready for our practice sessions. The TPKC organizers had setup multiple sessions so everyone was getting lots of track time! Friday practice was going well with my kart setup seemingly perfect and getting use to the track layout.
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There was quite a bit of action the whole weekend and I plan to upload a video at some point, but for now I leave you with a few pictures and a quick synopsis:
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Due to a problem with my starter nut, I destroyed my crank and that would have been the end to the weekend for me except Mat graciously allowed me to use his spare engine. With that ordeal sorted out, the rest of the heats were basically Mat and I battling for position. We would pass each other in the draft (which was very fun by the way!) and dive up the inside on certain turns. At one point in lapped traffic (the Chondas were on the track with us) I didn’t expect Mat to break as early as he did and I ran up the back of his kart! Luckily nothing broke and we continued on. For the final race of the weekend we got caught out in lapped traffic again and I unfortunately was forced off the track with 1 lap to go which meant Mat would get the win and I finished second place.
NTK Spring Series Race 5
Posted by on 2012.05.22
This was a great race! The day was wonderful, the temperature great, and our class had a decent turnout. Andre and I spent the morning moving his KT100 engine over from his Intrepid chassis back to his Birel since on the next day he was buying his Honda Shifter Motor! After getting most of that done and me changing the 11 tooth driver to a 10 tooth driver for the short track race, I went out and did a few practice laps. I don’t know what it was about that day, but my kart just worked wonderfully. After running about 10 laps, I came back, made sure I was still meeting the weight requirement, and just decide I wouldn’t touch a thing on my kart for the rest of the day!
It came time for qualifying and Andre and I rushed up to the grid and set out. We were all pretty well spaced out and keeping apart, but as the session ended I could tell I was reeling in a few people ahead of me. After weighing in, Andre asked what I had done because I was flying! Apparently I had run a 24.4 which is my fastest ever on the short track and good enough for 2nd on the grid! After making no changes to my kart we went out for the pre-final race; this is where things went bad! As we left the pits, another kart had a problem and as we went around on our sighting lap, they were trying to signal him in. I mistook what they were trying to signal as a race stoppage and stopped at the top of turn 2–that was the end of my race. 😦
Lesson learned for me, so now I get to start at the back of the grid for the final race. I was still pumped because of how great my kart felt and how close the racing action was. As we were racing in the final, I was able to get past one racer after a few laps (short track is very hard to pass on) and at that point was about 4 seconds off the 2nd place group of karts. In about two laps I was on the back of the pack and try as I might, I just couldn’t make any clean passes. I bumped the racer in front of me a few times and went off track once, but I could never make it passed!
Aside from finishing in 5th when I had the speed to finish at least 2nd, I had a great and fun race and all the spectators said they enjoyed watching me trying to make those passes! Overall, I consider it a pretty satisfying day. 😀
NTK Spring Race 4 and Chonda Endurance Race
Posted by on 2012.05.13
Yesterday was race 4 for the spring series at NTK and I had some problems finding my speed. I was able to consistently run 40.7 second laps during the final race, but that’s almost half a second off where I normally run–which means I finished 5th. :(.
But after all the adventures with the spring race, NTK kicked off its inaugural Chonda Endurance Race which was a 75 lap, three driver team race. There was a lot of action on track with 12 teams and two classes and our team was able to finish third place overall and in class.
Spring Series Race 2
Posted by on 2012.05.02
NTK’s Spring Race 2 was a great success for me! While there were only 5 of us in the Super Sportsman class, I was able to qualify first, finish the pre-race in first, and hold off everyone in the 12 lap final race to claim victory! Watch the racing action below!
Squirrels Racing 