Championship Enduro Series Race #1
Gateway International Speedway
Madison, IL


April 13-15 2007

Friday April 13: Friday, as always, is our practice and testing day. The day was both good and bad.

The good parts was that I was fast right away in my Yamaha sprint kart. My crew and I were able to find a setup that we knew would be fast and would allow me to be competitive during the race.

The bad part was that I did not get to do any testing with my new Briggs and Stratton Animal kart. The kart was ordered from the manufactures plenty early, but still did not arrive until the week before the race. My crew worked 16 days trying to get the kart ready for the first race. Even though they put in a great effort, the kart was not ready and therefore most of the day Friday was spent finishing the assembly. I knew this would be a huge set back for the race, however there was nothing we could do about it.

Saturday April 14: The weather on Saturday was horrible. Rain, sleet and snow forced the cancellation of the days races. The day was not all bad. The cancellation of the day gave us time we would not normally have to go out with friends that we only get to see a couple of times each year. Even though we ALL wanted to be racing, this was the next best thing.

Sunday April 15: My first race of the day was in the Sprint Yamaha CIK SSX division. This is the division that I am the defending champion of. My crew and I know this division very well and we know how to prepare to be competitive in it.

I started the race in the 5th position. I took the lead on the first lap and never gave it up. Even though I was pushed hard by my competitors, I was able to hold them off for my 179th career victory. Along the way to my victory I also set a new track record breaking the old record by 2 seconds.

The second race of the day was in the Briggs Animal division. This is a completely new division for me and one that my crew and I have a lot to learn about. I knew that the lack of testing in this kart was going to hurt me.

I was able to get a decent start at the beginning of the race and started to think things might not turn out so bad. I was proved wrong very quickly. Just 5 minutes into the 30 minute race my exhaust pipe broke off. This caused me to slow done and loose contact with the lead group. I did finish the race and ended up in 7th place. Like I said before, we have a lot to learn. With more testing, I know we will figure things out.

Getting to race at Badger Raceway is always a treat for me. This is where I got my start in racing and I have so many friends that still race there. I only get to see them when I am racing there because I am always on the road racing the national circuit.

Saturday April 28:
We used Saturday as a test day and we needed all of the testing we could get. It has been 4 years since I raced a Yamaha at Badger and my crew needed the time to figure things out. It was not the greatest day for us. We fought small problems all day. We did figure out a few things. Now we just needed to put all of our information together so we would be ready for the race on Sunday.

Sunday April 29:
At Badger, each class races 3 races during the day. The first 2 are heat races. How well you do in the heat races determines where you will start the feature race. They are kind of like qualifying races. The feature race is for all the marbles. This is the race that counts for final results and finishing order.

Heat race #1:
I had to start towards the back of the pack. As the green flag fell, one of the karts towards the front stalled and stopped on the track. We were all full on the gas and there was no time to stop. One kart in front of me flew over the top of the stalled kart and I flew over the top of both karts. I kept my kart running, but by the time i got going the whole field got away from me. I had a fast kart and worked hard to catch up. By the end of the race I had passed 9 karts. I finished the race in 5th place right behind the leaders. Wow! I guess we did figure things out on Saturday.

Heat race #2:
This time I started more in the middle. I got a good start and made my move to the front.
I was able to take the lead for a few laps. Towards the end of the race my kart tightened up and I did get passed. I would have liked to get the win, but I was happy that we were fast and I knew I would be starting the feature race in the front.

Feature race:
Because of how well I did in the heat races, I started the feature race on the outside of the front row. 1st and 3rd place have the preferred line going into the first turn, this makes it tough to start in 2nd place. At the start they were both able to get a jump on me. I quickly got pass 2nd place and set out to take over the lead. I was able to get along side of
the leader several times, but could not make the pass. After 4 laps my kart tightened up again. My crew thought they had the problem fixed, but we needed to go a little farther on our adjustment. Oh well, I was still happy with my 2nd place finish. We learned alot and we will be more ready the next time we are able to race at Badger.