Victory Racing Camp hosted a fundraiser event for its camp members by running a two-hour event known as a “Speed and Feed” at Pat’s Acres Racing Complex. Teams raced, strategized, endured and overcame ever-changing conditions for this two-hour enduro.  The four member squad consisting of veterans Bernie Russnogle and Scott Santiani and new comers Ralph Boeckman and Jimmy Moore joined together to become “Team Cavallino”.   Bernie has competed in the Victory Racing Camp “Speed and Feeds” for the last three years.  Scott did the previous “Speed and Feed” earlier in the year and the other two; Ralph and Jimmy, this was their first time at the challenge.  All, however, are experienced kart racers and compete in the various racing leagues.

The race started off around 9:30am.  Team Cavallino’s strategy and running order was Jimmy, Ralph, Bernie and Scott.  Jimmy seemed to be one of the fastest in the field and we relied on him to make a good start and try to take the lead for the first stint.  This would also burn fuel for Jimmy to keep consistent with lap-times by having a better power to weight ratio.  After Ralph’s stint, we would refuel and Bernie, being the lightest of the group, would try and burn fuel for Scott for the final stint.  As good of a plan as that was, not all things went accordingly.

Jimmy took a great line going into turn one and past two competitors by the exit of the first corner.  By turn three, Jimmy had taken the lead and started to spread a gap on second place.  After four laps into the race he caught lap traffic and began working his way through them.  On lap ten though, it all started to go wrong for the team.  In an effort to work around traffic and stay within the “Speed and Feed” rules, Jimmy spun on turn two (or three depending on how you interpret the course) in an effort to avoid hitting another driver.  In doing so the only safe way to reposition himself on the course was to do a drive off.  By doing this, it was assessed with an automatic driver change penalty.  Frantically, Ralph had to get ready to race, twenty minutes before he needed to.  Team Cavallino called in Jimmy for the driver exchange and the pit stop went flawless.  In accordance with the event rules there needed to be four pitstops with one of them being allowed for the mandatory four-minute fuel stop.  In our case though, a penalty will not count as a pitstop so the team had to quickly rethink the strategy.

Ralph went out and worked his way back into first place after it was lost with the driver exchange penalty.  Although Ralph’s stint was uneventful he still powered his way through the field giving any possible buffer for unforeseen events.  With Jimmy only having completed ten minutes, we decided that our first exchange would be with Ralph handing off to Jimmy to complete his share of the stint.  Again the exchange went flawlessly.  Scott’s pit-board proved to be a huge asset to the team by displaying lap-times and giving driver updates as needed.  The rest of Jimmy’s stint was fast and even posted the fastest lap of the event of 50.1 seconds for the short course (although the team stop watch clocked him at 49.9 seconds).

The dilemma that Team Cavallino had at this point in the race was the thought of when to take on fuel.  Unfortunately, being half way though the race, this was also on everyone else’s minds.  Fighting to find a time of when to bring Jimmy in for the refueling stop and working around when other teams come in was a bit of a circus act.  The team decided to go ahead and bring Jimmy in to first do an exchange to Bernie and then during his stint, come in for fuel when the refueling station was open.  This mix-up ended up being a blessing in disguise.  By doing the driver exchange and for Bernie to do the refueling, this would relieve our mandatory four stops (after Bernie handed off to Scott) along with our mandatory refueling stop.  At this point in the race we had already had the lead by six laps.  Again, Bernie’s stint was uneventful but still quick by team standards.  This also still allowed Bernie to burn fuel before Scott got in to do the final stint.

Finally, the hand-off from Bernie to Scott took place and Team Cavallino had little to worry about as for event requirements.  Bernie stayed suited up as Scott went out for the final thirty minutes.  Bernie did this in the event of another driver exchange penalty was assessed.  However, this was not needed Scott drove excellent to bring home the victory and the team’s closest competitor ended up 10-laps down.  The main thing is that everyone drove relatively consistent and everyone turned around the same lap-times (mostly between 52-55 second lap-times).  Competition was still tough though and was not taken for granted.  There were a couple of teams there that, if given a good kart, could have challenged Team Cavallino for the win.

Team Cavallino

All in all though, even with Team Cavallino’s win, this was for a great cause.  Victory Racing Camp’s mission is to get kids, teenagers and council members connected to God through motorsport.  If you’re interested in participating in this even please visit:  http://www.victoryracingcamp.org