We elected to start off with Dan in the 19 kart and Bernie in the 9 kart. Both karts seemed to be well tuned for the event. We were given three warm-up laps in which we had the chance to warm up the tires and get an idea of how the course was going to be. Once we lined up on the grid, kart 19 had a transmitter problem and was forced to take one more lap to ensure its functionality. This put Dan in last place and Bernie in first place on the grid. Upon the start of the race, Bernie maintained the lead into the first corner and Dan made a brilliant start jumping up several places before turn one. By the end of the first lap Bernie had already set several second lead and Dan had already made up ground for second place. For the first five laps or so Dan and Bernie traded positions and each turning fast laps. However some time before the tenth lap, Dan and Bernie were coming up on lap traffic, where Bernie took the inside line and Dan took the outside line; splitting the lapped person. Due to some miscalculations on the lapped kart, Dan was forced to take a wider line and then a mechanical failure of the drive belt caused him to lose control and end up in the grass in turn one. This was a disaster for the Tifosi (Kart B) team. However, keeping the charge going to ensure the placement wasn’t lost team Ferrari kept pushing. Ten minutes had gone by but with nothing sure about the Tifosi rejoining the race. Then Tifosi started back up and in a car that had a bad clutch. This equated to lower speeds and slower throttle response but grip was better than the Team Ferrari kart.
After twenty minutes had gone by we did our first exchange. Where Bernie came in first to send out Scott Santiani and then a couple laps later, Dan came in to exchange with Bernie for his second twenty minute stint. This is where we could tell the difference in the karts and how much different they really were. Scott Santiani, a SyKart indoor league champion, was blindingly quick in the Team Ferrari kart easily passing Bernie in the clutch-crippled kart. Twenty minutes later another exchange between the drivers took place.
Per the rules, each team had to stop at least four times with one of those stops being a mandatory four minute fuel stop. Finding a good time to come in for that stop was challenging and we decided on both cars to wait for the last exchange. With this in mind we changed up the strategy and sent in Team Tifosi into the fuel first. This would allow for more time to try and overtake cars that still had to do their fuel stop. Unfortunately this was a strategy that originally was a mistake by Bernie who called in Scott Santiani first. However, this mistake may have been a blessing in disguise. Being down a lap going into the fuel exchange, we were lucky to have better track position with less congestion after the fuel stop. Once both karts did their final exchange (Bernie in the number 9 kart and Scott in the 23 kart) we continued to push each other to overtake the team in third position. Our final result paid off and we ended up first and third. Team Ferrari won with 107 laps completed for the two hour event, five laps ahead of second place.
Once again Victory Racing Camp (www.victoryracingcamp.org) did a great job putting a flawless event together with an excellent BBQ to top it off. The next event will be August 22nd and we hope to see more team out there. Until then, Scott, Dan and Bernie will continue to practice to defend their title.
