June 18th 2010

Sitting around and not racing for 2 weeks seems like a life-time, everyone ready to race tonight. We left for the track at 5:15 a little nervous about traffic as the Baseball College World Series opening events started today. Traffic wasn't bad and we got to the track at 6pm. Unloaded and set our tire pressures and sat down and relaxed a bit. During the drivers meeting I saw Bob Sullivan & family walking to the grandstands and I hollered, Hi. Hot laps the Kart had power but was loose in the corners and I adjusted tire pressures for Heat 1.

Heat 1 - Kart #75 didn't show up on the line so Jaz moved up and started on the pole. Jaz had a great run but was getting pressure from behind. She held off the field and the Kart set-up was good. She was able to drive where she wanted. On the closing laps a Kart got on her inside and they made contact that pushed Jaz up the track allowing the inside line thru. Jaz fell back to 5th for the finish.

Heat 2 - Adjusted tire pressure again. Jaz started last (6th) got a good start but couldn't get around. She was running last but in the final laps was able to catch the Kart in front of her but didn't have enough for a pass and settled for 6th. After the heat I went into the grandstands and talked to Bob. He noticed that Jaz was losing speed in turn 2 and Jaz had mentioned that she hitting something that was slowing her down. We checked the free play in the rear axle and the front tires and everything seemed OK. We couldn't find anything dragging and even removed the air box to make sure it wasn't plugged up. Checked the gas peddle linkage and it was OK. Took the oil cap off to make sure it was OK. We couldn't find anything to explain what was causing her to slow down. They were running the features right away so we didn't have time for any changes and just left the Kart the way it was.

Feature - Jaz started 4th and didn't gain or lose but the 5th place Kart was giving Jaz some pressure. Jaz could pull ahead but she was losing speed every time in turn 2. Jaz started running a different line in turn 2 and was running much better. She managed to figure out that it wasn't the Kart that was slowing down but the way she was driving. She finished 4th and all top 5 Karts had to remove air boxes for tech inspection after the race - all passed.  She got trophy for 4th place finish. Matter of fact 3rd, 4th & 5th were all girls on the podium tonight - Racer girl very happy!

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