SWRA Races onto Texas World Speedway

It doesn't get any better than this!

Author of this column, Ian Carroll, "Katykarter" stands next to his '98 Birel racing kart just prior to his race on Saturday. Against the lights he placed 8th out of 11. Respectable for his first time out.

Southwest Roadracing Association held its first event of the 2007 season at Texas World Speedway this past weekend, March 23-25, 2007.

It was a memorable weekend of kart racing for me, my first event in over two years. Hopefully, I'll be able to attend all seven race meetings this year in their road race calendar, the next one is the first weekend of May at Motorsports Ranch Houston.

Here are several picures from the weekend. At right and below is the front straightaway of the main track at TWS, and the very popular TaG class.

-Katykarter

Kart Roadrace Debut this Week

The Birel is getting very close to race ready. It's Sunday after a rare weekend off, exept Friday night, and there are only two things left to iron out before loading up Thursday night.

Friday, March 23 will be practice day for anyone who wants to, Texas World Speedway opens the track to all competitors for open practice and it will be my first time back in the seat in almost 24 months. I have put on weight, although I have worked hard to bring it back down. My results are not eye-popping. Up from a previous weight of 185 to over 200 at times, I must realize I've increased mass as well as some flab. I think though, that to lose over 10 - 15 pounds will be an incredible feat. I'll be satisfied at 190-195 if there are enough entrants in the Yamaha Heavy. The rest of the team will compete in Yamaha Light, a difference of 40 lbs. which I would be giving away. We'll see how the Heavy class is populated.

Frank and Colin are busy putting together the team's karts: Colin, Oscar and one other I think will run. We'll be ratio scaling the karts this coming week in preparation of the loading on Thursday night.

Talk to you soon.


Katykarter

Swift/PPK Behind Kart Effort

With 4 weeks to go before opening weekend in the IKF/SWRA's 2007 Road Race Karting Season, Team Principles Colin Walker (Swiftboy Racing) and Frank Newsom (Precision Performance Karting) combine their resources to move forward, and you're humble blogger will tag along the team's heels.

Texas World Speedway is the first stop on the list with a race weekend beginning on March 23. Topics around the Birel are engine work, a new pipe and header pipe, and tires.

The engine work is done by Frank at his shop, while he and/or Colin will provide the pipe combination for this track. It will be a part I am purchasing and hopefully use again after this race meeting. Some tracks call for special pipes, although, and again this is my first season in road racing, this pipe/header combination may be used again this year at other tracks. Bottom line, I have no idea. Good thing for Swift/PPK!!

We should be ratio-scaling the kart soon, along with the team's karts, driven by several young men I'll report on in this column. The chassis the team uses are Fullerton's, while mine is an Italian-made Birel. The motors are all Yamaha KT100's and the tires are by choice, all Maxxis.

The clutch set-up is new to me, so I'll be learning more about it soon and reporting on it in upcoming posts.

Here are some pics from around the U.S.

-Katykarter