Friday, November 15, 2013
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
TKZ is closed for the winter
Thanks to Joe White JWRengines.com for this years tech support....and as always. Big D! Without my number one tuner, my racing endeavors would not be possible!
SHIFTERFEST
The inaugural Shifterfest took place at New Castle Motorsports park Sept 13-15. I had mixed feelings about this event. I wanted to attend as I am eager to see the SKUSA organization gain momentum in the Midwest...but have been disappointed at their previous events and scheduling dates. Even this particular event was scheduled on the same weekend at the race at Michigan International Speedway. The MIS race is a big draw for Midwest shifter drivers - oh well.
Upon arrival at the track Friday evening...the lack of competitors was obvious. I've seen more racers at NCMP on a practice weekend! Sad to say, the kart count was bad. My hope is that SKUSA can take some input from Midwest racers, and work TOGETHER with other regional series to get some shifters together. Unfortunately, ontrack driving tended to be rough without policing, and rules enforcement was inconsistent at best. A bad recipe with drivers, for a series trying to build a brand and establish a new market.
I'm hopeful that the future will bring better events to the Midwest from SKUSA.
Gingerman
The final round of the Championship Enduro Series took place at the Gingerman Raceway near South Haven MI. This is a great track, only minuets from Lake Michigan. Gingerman is a fast challenging layout, that makes for some great shifter racing. The track surface is in need of resurfacing, and some competitors had complaints....but there were rumors that track management is considering repaving. -GREAT NEWS-
The CES still proves to be THE place to race with a shifterkart in the MidWest! Another solid field of fast drivers took to the track to compete on this beautiful late summer day! We had awesome weather all weekend, which made for great evenings along the Lake Michigan shoreline. If you have not raced with the CES - Plan on attending one of their events for 2014.
I was pleased with the new Maxter MXS power...I finished with a 2nd place on Saturday and 1st place on Sunday! The Maxter power continued to be strong through the entire season. I've raced the engine with no issues, complaints, or problems all season. 10hours of race time! Many people will claim that these motors can not compete competitively for a full season without continual maintenance/rebuilding. This was my first season with the KZ/ICC power plant, and I was very pleased with the power, and ease of tuning.
ROCK ISLAND GRAND PRIX 2013
Another great year at the ROCK! Rock Island still gets my vote as the best street race in North America! A well run event with great competitors and one of the best staffs in karting all meet together in Rock Island Il over the Labor Day weekend for a great street race. This year I entered the 125Shifter Masters class, along with the 125Shifter Open class. I honestly had extremely high expectations this year (WINNING!), so the bar was pretty high for my on track performance. Long story short - 2nd place was the best I could produce on the track! It was tough to swallow, as this was most likely my last trip to this event.....maybe!
Great battles on the track in nearly every class. I had great wheel to wheel battles all weekend. It is such a blast to race with guys that are clean racers, and solid competitors!
Thursday, August 22, 2013
That's a lot of tires!!
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Prep work
Monday, July 15, 2013
Championship Enduro Series - Grattan
We had a great turn out of racers, along with friends and family to share the great weather and scenery of Grattan Raceway.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Grattan - WKA
New GOFAST parts from our friends at Alden Racing are ready for testing! We are prepping for the first race of the season here in the Mid-West at Grattan Raceway. I will have a couple of new silencer options to test during our Friday practice session. The Alden A3 silencers have proven to be a great tuning tool for our 125 Stock Honda. I'm ready to hit the track, log some test laps and have a great weekend of racing!
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Spring/winter test day.
I managed to get three solid practice sessions logged in the 39degree weather on dry track conditions before the snow started to fall.
April 14 and snow showers!
The Maxter felt strong, and I'm looking forward to turning some laps in dry track conditions to see how it performs. The package pulls strong, and seems to have a very wide power band! The top end speed should be a great asset on the road courses for the CES series.
At least the track owners let us use the shop for our lunch break so we had shelter and HEAT!
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Ready to race
Fresh CR125 power along with testing a new S4 Birel chassis at Grattan Raceway is the plan for our first outing of the year. Can't wait!
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Winter prep
Now it's time to get ready for some warm weather!
Monday, March 4, 2013
Wide Open Baja
Cabo to Todos Santos day trip was the plan in the Baja Challenge cars.
Our day started at 8:00am at the Cabo San Lucas race shop for WideOpen. We started with a helmet fitting and short video before our guide Darrin gave us some needed safety tips. Safety tips were followed with some critical radio communication and GPS instructions. Navigation was going to be a very important portion of the day....mostly because we would be far enough away from the other cars that we would not be in sight, and also the fact that we did not want to be lost riding the Baja peninsula of Mexico!
Safety gear, video, GPS instructions all finished....lets ROLL (or 'move' as I was corrected later in the day. It seems there are some customers that take the ROLL term literally!). A fellow driver asked if we were going to be on public or private roads for the trip....our guide said "we're in Mexico brah, there's no such thing as PRIVATE!"
We were quickly outside and fitted into 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith' (for any movie buffs, that was the name of our car) 5-point safety harness, helmet air ventilation hooked up, and communication wires plugged in, engines fired....and we were OFF.
The cars drove kinda like a bull in a china store through the Cabo city streets as we worked our way out of town, but they definitely attracted plenty of attention. We made our way out into the dusty Baja roads and Darrin instructed us to leave enough room for the dust to settle in between cars and - HAVE FUN!
I will say I was putzing along for the first half of the morning....not knowing what type of terrain lay ahead, and just how much abuse these cars would take. I had a fair learning curve for an offroad racing novice. It didn't take long to learn the cars could take WAY more abuse than we could dish out pounding through the Mexican trails.
The landscape was full of desert flowers and trees in bloom, and actually quite colorful for the desert. Definitely the best time to be touring the Baja peninsula. Wildlife, working ranches, horses, dogs, cows, snakes, roadrunners, were just a few of the excitement we encountered racing through the trails. Did I mention we saw a ROADRUNNER! We saw beautiful endless blue skies, views of the pacific from high mountain bluffs, and even had to make a few creek crossings along the journey. Our morning journey ended in Todos Santos, with a stop there for lunch at the famous Hotel California. We were treated to an awesome authentic lunch and some history of the hotel, the city and the Baja1000. We traveled roads used in the Baja1000, and were driving cars used in the race!
After lunch and a short walking tour of Todos Santos, we loaded up and headed back to Cabo. We made quick time through the trails...as myself and our other driver for the day had learned much on our morning in the cars. We stopped off at a bluff overlooking the pacific for a few photo's and we were able to see a few wales in the distance making their way south in the pacific. BEAUTIFUL views!
Mel was flawless all day with her navigation skills, and 'CAR2 COPY' was a familiar phrase by the end of the day. All things were going flawless and I thought the lost cooler by our support car was going to be the funny moment of the day.....until I made a wrong turn during the last hour of the drive. It didn't take long for Mel and I to realize I had made a wrong turn. Where was our 'CAR1 going LEFT' instruction when we needed it! SO....we ended up in a little area outside of Cabo known as 'shanty town'....lets just say it's not on any tourist map! Mel quickly keyed the radio with "I think Car2 took a wrong turn". Luckily, but hesitantly, our guide knew where we were and told us to "sit tight" while he circled back to get us. Not after he joking asked "how's the scenery over there?" A short stay in 'shanty town' and we were the hit of the day in that neighborhood - FOR SURE!
A short drive back and we were back onto the Cabo city streets and pulling into the Wide Open Baja race shop. We couldn't even get our belts unbuckled or the helmets off before the mechanics were handing us cold beers! Well deserved I will add.
What a great adventure. Great people, conversation, scenery, a top notch organization and equipment. A perfect way to experience the Baja peninsula.
Our day started at 8:00am at the Cabo San Lucas race shop for WideOpen. We started with a helmet fitting and short video before our guide Darrin gave us some needed safety tips. Safety tips were followed with some critical radio communication and GPS instructions. Navigation was going to be a very important portion of the day....mostly because we would be far enough away from the other cars that we would not be in sight, and also the fact that we did not want to be lost riding the Baja peninsula of Mexico!
Safety gear, video, GPS instructions all finished....lets ROLL (or 'move' as I was corrected later in the day. It seems there are some customers that take the ROLL term literally!). A fellow driver asked if we were going to be on public or private roads for the trip....our guide said "we're in Mexico brah, there's no such thing as PRIVATE!"
We were quickly outside and fitted into 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith' (for any movie buffs, that was the name of our car) 5-point safety harness, helmet air ventilation hooked up, and communication wires plugged in, engines fired....and we were OFF.
The cars drove kinda like a bull in a china store through the Cabo city streets as we worked our way out of town, but they definitely attracted plenty of attention. We made our way out into the dusty Baja roads and Darrin instructed us to leave enough room for the dust to settle in between cars and - HAVE FUN!
I will say I was putzing along for the first half of the morning....not knowing what type of terrain lay ahead, and just how much abuse these cars would take. I had a fair learning curve for an offroad racing novice. It didn't take long to learn the cars could take WAY more abuse than we could dish out pounding through the Mexican trails.
The landscape was full of desert flowers and trees in bloom, and actually quite colorful for the desert. Definitely the best time to be touring the Baja peninsula. Wildlife, working ranches, horses, dogs, cows, snakes, roadrunners, were just a few of the excitement we encountered racing through the trails. Did I mention we saw a ROADRUNNER! We saw beautiful endless blue skies, views of the pacific from high mountain bluffs, and even had to make a few creek crossings along the journey. Our morning journey ended in Todos Santos, with a stop there for lunch at the famous Hotel California. We were treated to an awesome authentic lunch and some history of the hotel, the city and the Baja1000. We traveled roads used in the Baja1000, and were driving cars used in the race!
After lunch and a short walking tour of Todos Santos, we loaded up and headed back to Cabo. We made quick time through the trails...as myself and our other driver for the day had learned much on our morning in the cars. We stopped off at a bluff overlooking the pacific for a few photo's and we were able to see a few wales in the distance making their way south in the pacific. BEAUTIFUL views!
Mel was flawless all day with her navigation skills, and 'CAR2 COPY' was a familiar phrase by the end of the day. All things were going flawless and I thought the lost cooler by our support car was going to be the funny moment of the day.....until I made a wrong turn during the last hour of the drive. It didn't take long for Mel and I to realize I had made a wrong turn. Where was our 'CAR1 going LEFT' instruction when we needed it! SO....we ended up in a little area outside of Cabo known as 'shanty town'....lets just say it's not on any tourist map! Mel quickly keyed the radio with "I think Car2 took a wrong turn". Luckily, but hesitantly, our guide knew where we were and told us to "sit tight" while he circled back to get us. Not after he joking asked "how's the scenery over there?" A short stay in 'shanty town' and we were the hit of the day in that neighborhood - FOR SURE!
A short drive back and we were back onto the Cabo city streets and pulling into the Wide Open Baja race shop. We couldn't even get our belts unbuckled or the helmets off before the mechanics were handing us cold beers! Well deserved I will add.
 |
| view as we race down one of the SMOOTH roads |
 |
| CAR2 copy! |
 |
| Hotel California lobby |
 |
| Todos Santos |
 |
| Mr. and Mrs. Smith |
 |
| #EXPLOREDIFFERENT |
 |
| our support vehicle - minus 1 cooler and 2 spare tires |
 |
| BIG desert sky! |
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
New KZ Power
Monday, January 7, 2013
King of the Castle!!
KING of the Castle – $40,000 up for GRABS – New Castle Motorsports Park – March 22nd, 23rd, & 24th
Nearly 12 months ago, preparations began. Now, the Pro Kart Tour is ready to Race onto the Road Course Karting Scene!!
For those who aren't familiar with the Pro Kart Tour, our Series, sponsored by Chase'n Race'n Illustrated, was arguably the Largest Dirt Oval Karting Series in America in 2012.
We were approached about the possibilities of promoting a 4 race series for the Road Racers. You ever heard of Race Junkies turning that type of offer down??! Neither have we, and we didn't! So here we are!
Agreeing to promote the "baddest" sprint series in the country was the easy part. The tough task was deciding where to begin. The result of the search is New Castle Motorsports Park! NCMP was the most common answer when the question was posed to countless members of the road racing community. Mark Dismore Sr, Mike Adams, and the entire NCMP staff welcomed us with open arms during our visit to this multi-million dollar facility in September. We were astounded and amazed by the facility and the hospitality. Having visited scores upon scores of karting facilities all across the country over the years, this facility still managed to blow us away! With that said, here it is… Race number 1 in the 2013 Pro Kart Tour (Right Turn Edition) at New Castle
Motorsports Park in New Castle, IN. The date will be March 22nd, 23rd, and 24th.
Motorsports Park in New Castle, IN. The date will be March 22nd, 23rd, and 24th.
A full race program will be highlighted by 2 "marquee" features. A guaranteed $10,000 purse with 5 G's going to the winner will be up for grabs in TAG Heavy and Clone Heavy. The remaining five grand in the guaranteed purse will be paid back through tenth place!!! Oh yeah, we did say that 20G's was guaranteed, but here's the other "sweet" part… there's no Kart Minimum!!!! All for an entry fee of only $95!!
By now, you're probably thinking, "holy cow batman!", but what about the Jr's?!?! Don't worry, this ain't our first rodeo and we're not leaving them out. Try this on for size!!….. Yamaha Jr Heavy will have a guaranteed purse over $4000, and pay the top ten!!! Yamaha Sportsman Heavy will pay more than $2000, again Guaranteed and paying the top ten!!! Last, but certainly not least, the Yamaha Rookie Sportsman Heavy racers will be chasing a Guaranteed $900 purse, paying the top five!!
The full weekend purse will be over $40,000 in Cash, not to mention the baddest, coolest trophies karters have ever seen!!
You can chisel this in stone, when the Pro Kart Tour comes to town, it's gonna be BIG!!! Here's what we have in place with additional information and classes to be announced later;
KING of the CASTLE
PRO Kart Tour (Right Turn Edition)
March 22nd, 23rd, and 24th
New Castle Motorsports Park
2650 West Main Street
Greenfield, IN 46140
PRO Kart Tour (Right Turn Edition)
March 22nd, 23rd, and 24th
New Castle Motorsports Park
2650 West Main Street
Greenfield, IN 46140
SCHEDULE:
*Our very Tentative Schedule will be similar to the below. A more finalized schedule will be posted closer to the event.
*Our very Tentative Schedule will be similar to the below. A more finalized schedule will be posted closer to the event.
Friday March 22nd, 2013
4pm – 8pm : Parking, Registration, and Safety TechSaturday March 23rd, 2013
7am : Gates Open
7am-9am : Parking, Registration, and Safety Tech
9am : Practice Begins, Qualifying to followSunday March 24th, 2013
7am : Gates Open
7am-9am : Parking, Registration, and Safety Tech
9am : Practice Begins, Qualifying to follow
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
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