Racing in the Rain in Hallet

I got to test my rain driving skill again this past weekend at Hallet Motor Racing Circuit. The small town of Hallet is about an hour west of Tulsa, and the rolling hills, rivers and trees- its very beautiful country, my first time there.

I dropped out onto the 1.7 mile road course on Friday morning to "shake the kart out". We'll just run a few laps- get some heat into the tires and motor, come back in and check it out. If it needs any major adjustments we'll make some then, but it was very good. With needle positions Ls>7/16, Hs>2 the motor was singing along at a comfortable 13,400 rpms making about 16 h.p. With my body weight, it doesn't get quite to it's estimated top speed of roughly 75 m.p.h. I'm probably closer to 70.

Hallet is a twisty, rising and falling track with one monster corner, Coyote Turn. It's usually turn 2, but karts go opposite direction from cars and bikes: we go clockwise. This puts Coyote Turn at the bottom of a very steep hill and long straight. Exiting that turn, any slide or overdriving will cripple your speed up the hill. While the rest of the course is pretty standard, this turn is very challenging and the focus of everyone's setup plans dealing with tuning the clutch just right.

Our clutches are axle mounted, while Oscar has a 1 1/4" rear axle and the new, red SMC clutch, I have the old standard, the very quick and hard hitting gold SMC on a 40mm axle. My kart is European, a Birel with metric components and his is a Fullerton, designed by Terry Fullerton and owned of course by Colin Walker.

The new red SMC was being unveiled with high hopes: all year the difference (besides being snake-bit so many times), between Oscar and his best rival, Steve Miller has been Steve's Hartman axle clutch. Several times this year, however, Oscar had driven his way to the lead only to be killed by chains jumping off of sprockets and not knowing (as well as Steve) his way around the tracks we've visited. At MSR Houston Oscar's chain came off while he was in the lead, but at MSR Cresson he over drove a corner after limited practice laps because of rain. This is Oscar's first year in the road racing circuit SWRA as well as me. Another race Oscar's chain came off while he was in the lead, so the team is going to switch over to belt-drive. Frank had been resisting the costly upgrade, but after this last chain failure has relented. Oscar went off again out of first place. It was rainy and he zigged to miss another kart spinning out and went off.

Sunday the rain came and never left. A huge storm system had rolled across Oklahoma City with high winds and torrential rain was moving into the Tulsa area. It held off till about 8:00 and our class's drivers gathered in the scoring tower. If all entrants agree not to race due to the conditions, everyone would be given 1st place points. If one entrant wanted to race, then others must race or take 2nd place points. My main competition, 16-year old Kari Summer decided to race, although everyone else had suggested not racing. When she committed to race, so did I. We were racing for championship points.

I left the scoring tower and took to the track when practice opened. I had set my kart up for wet weather, we narrowed the rear track, lowered the air pressure in the tires, and had full-wet tires. It was a rain-soaked track and I was eager to find out how I'd do on it. First laps of practice on Sunday morning were very tenative, by the fourth lap I had cut 8 seconds off my lap times and ended with a 1:57. The kart was performing well and the leaner needle positions set by Frank were perfect, we still achieved 13,400 rpms with a needle setting of Ls1 1/4 Hs 7/16.

I came off the track after about 5 laps and was confident the kart would perform well in the race.

We never got there. Kari couldn't race because of mechanical failure, giving me the 1st place finishing position without actually having to race. Preparation was our best ally this weekend, and it allowed us to tweak another five points out of our lead.

The final two races of the season will be at Oakhill. The last race has been on the schedule all year but an unfinished track at Eagle Canyon forced the change in venue to Oakhill.

I raced well at Oakhill in April, but I finished a distant second...to Ms. Summers. It'll take outright winning to bring home the championship. And while I contemplate what it'll mean to win the championship in my rookie year, I pull back on my reigns and remind myself:

"To finish first, first, you must finish."

Ancient Chinese philosophy, I think.

Katykarter