SWRA's Oakhill Event a Scorcher

Two weeks before this race, I started working out to lose some weight. At the same time, June rolled in and brought with it a taste of the hot summer to come. Each evening, I pushed myself hard with situps, pushups, jumprope, distance running and stair climbing. Still I hung around 200 pounds, and at 5' 10", I was larger than most all of the other competitors, still giving away crucial poundage. In case you didn't hear, it was weight that sunk the last race's winner, Kari Summer, a 16 year old driver who came across the scales 6 pounds too light- handing the trophy to me.

This race, I knew lightning wouldn't strike twice: I would need to win outright. Arriving at the track just after dawn on Friday for practice, I checked in right after my motor builder and mentor, Frank Newsom. It was already hot. Since I hadn't had time to install the freshened motor Frank had prepared for me I set to that once my area was set up. By the time I was ready to take my first laps of practice, it was almost 11 a.m. I went to pre-grid and after 1 lap knew my clutch wasn't right, I came back in.

Crystal and I had brought the dogs with us, and we had to go and pick up our pop-up camper. I didn't get back trackside until after 4 p.m. When I did, we made an adjustment to the clutch and I made the first real laps at Oakhill, a 10 lap practice stint.

Oakhill is an old track near Henderson, Tx, southeast of Dallas, built in the 50's for karts it was embraced right away by motorcycles. It is a hilly, asphalt twisting road course with several fast turns and a couple of slow ones making it a challenge to get the proper setup.

In our class, Yamaha KT 100, the difference is beginning to be the clutch. Who's got the best clutch setup and at Oakhill with it's several slow turns the launch out of the hole is everything.

After the first stint in the afternoon, a fellow Houston karter and buddy Dale Posinski helped me make an adjustment to the SMC axle clutch; it was coming in a little low. He rotated the clutch out a quarter turn to make the stall speed a little higher. It made quite a difference and now the kart was accellerating out of the slow corners much quicker.

Frank's team karts seemed to be operating well, and their experimental "left engine" kart came out of the trailer. Driven by Oscar Moran, the #22 "right engine" kart was doing well. They decided to try out the "lefty" which had been fabricated in Frank's shop over the last couple of months. The point of a left engine kart is that the Yamaha KT 100 motor has a drive direction out of one side of the motor. When mounted traditionally, on the right, the drive shaft comes out of the motor on the inboard side. To get the shaft out on the outboard side, the motor's got to be manipulated with the head being spun around 180 degrees- but this degrades slightly the power the motor generates. The reason Frank has been toiling at this change is that several other compettitors are running "lefty's" and they are measurably faster. So this was their first attempt with the lefty on-track. The results weren't all they had hoped though, and due to handling problems, they switched back to the right hand drive. Colin's #29 kart was reliably running and Colin took only a few laps of practice.

On Saturday morning, I took to the track for morning practice and recorded lap times roughly a second off of Oscar's pace. Since I didn't race on Saturday, I had the rest of the day off, and though it was as hot as Hades, we had a great time watching the team go through their preparations and their race. I helped Colin start and he got away cleanly. Oscar wasn't so lucky. After sitting on the grid for several minutes, the kart's motor wouldn't fire right away. Our races start Le Mans style: we line up on-track, parked at an angle and when the green flag drops, we take off. Well, not wanting the motors to have to idle or rev without accelerating, we start the motors as late as possible, mostly within one minute of the flag dropping. When Oscar's motor wouldn't fire, Frank attempted to restart it, but the flag fell, the field took off and finally his motor fired and he left the line- dead last. Oscar is a terrific driver and the strong motor got him back to the top of the field, but one kart, driven by repeat race winner Steve Miller had taken so much of a lead, Oscar had to settle for 2nd place. He drove through the field though, and it was a fine display of driving skill.

On Sunday I had a good morning practice. Frank stayed and helped me and called me in after only 4 or 5 laps. No sense in tiring the motor out when the setup is right. And it was, I was lapping at roughly the same time as yesterday.

My start was a disaster of the same stripes as Oscar's the day before. The motor fired alright, and I left the line along with everyone, but I adjusted my carb the wrong way. This is a drill I thought I had down pat. Our motor needs to start in a "lean" state, so when it is started, and while leaving the starting grid, it gets a full turn of "rich". For some reason, my dislexic brain turned the needle the opposite direction! My boneheaded move earned me dead last into the first turn, but I had a good motor and a great setup and I was able to pick-off most all of the other competitors, and several went out with mechanical failures. After 4 or 5 laps I had moved into 2nd place to last race's fastest kart driven by Kari Summer. The rest of the race was almost a carbon copy of the last race: She checked out. This time she made weight and took the victory she deserved and I took 2nd.

This karting club, my second club, is mostly made up of shifter karts and quite a lot of TaG. the KT100 class is a slightly less populated class, just as it was at GCKI. This weekend there were several more Yamaha's there, but our field was comprised of only 7 karts (there were 5 at the last race). I have always wanted to get into the shifter class, but I know I'm honing my skill in these less powerful class. I am planning to finish this year and race as many times as possible, and I've voiced my intentions of returning for another season as a Yamaha KT100, but I look forward to the time when I can purchase a more powerful kart and compete in a largerclass.