Staying Focused
Contributed by Johnny West/West Racing
Hi Guys,
Road America was excellent!
We arrived Thursday. Andy Kiker, Donnie Souters son, Jimmy Brannon’s helper Lenoard, and I went up the hill to secure what was the USSK pitting aera. Upon arrival we found the HUGE tent. I was told we could use the tent for the week end, so we started to put the racers in to place as they made it up the hill.
As we were setting up in the pits, it started to “down pour.” It was coming on us pretty good too, so being able to use the tent was a Blessing to be sure! Once everyone was in place, we went out for a good dinner with some good friends. I have said it many, many times: There is nothing like getting together with your buddies for a good time at the races.
Friday:
I take the track for a few laps. The times were in the 2:20’s, so I came in and made a couple of adjustments to the track width. After that, everything was fine. It was good to see Steve Rhodes and his son Craig show up from Canada. They have been very busy making a living and luckily were able to make the trip. Their new body work looked GREAT! I spoke to Alan Rudolph a bit. 1st class guy! What can I say? Here is a man that shows up BY HIMSELF! No pit crew! He prepared his kart and it was FAST!
He and I went out to practice, and we went back and forth a bit. Talking in the pits he said I had the same top speed he had but a bit more mid-range. When I asked what he weighed he said 487. This man really is on his game. With the weight at 485, that it playing it tight. I weighed in at 509. (I'm just a little chubbie!)
In qualifling, Alan set a 2:14.7 I believe, and I had a 2:17.5. I was 3 seconds off, but I was happy because everything was running well. No blown engines, no mishaps.
Saturday
Alan took the lead and never looked back. I was in hot pursuit (or at least as hot as I could go). The red flag came on lap 10, and the race was over. I was back 12.5 at that time. If the race were to go on there would be 3 more laps to do, but it was not to be. Alan Won the heat. Good Job Alan!
In the pits I looked at the data from my Mycron. I noticed I could change the gearing a bit and it could get me better acceleration and still have top speed.
I took the engine apart for inspection. Everything looked good. The lower piston ring was stuck slightly. So I replaced the lower ring. Changed the gearing, new Dunlop tires and topped off with fuel. We were ready for Sunday.
HO! I almost forgot. My Grandson Mathew came to see his grandpa race. I bought him a Kid Kart. He did not know I got him one. At first he was leary of it. He did not want to try on his driving suit. After a while he did put the suit on and we could hardly get him out of the kart. If I knew the grand kids would be this much fun, I would just have grand kids! Being a parent is a lot harder.
Sunday’s Race:
Alan lead the field to the flagman and OFF we go! Alan took the lead I got under him into one, but he got by me in 4 and we ran up the hill to six nose to tail. We swaped back and forth for 2 laps. That’s when I had a brain fart going into turn 6 under the bridge. I was right on Alan’s bumper, he went in a little deep and hit the brakes. I too hit the brakes only to do a SLOW spin that put the rear of my kart off the track. I held the clutch and kept it running. I got back in the race and tried to press on. If you look at the MY LAPS it shows just how the race unfolded. I did catch back up to Alan by lap 10. I had him in sight, but I knew there was something wrong with his ride. I thought it might be either tires or fuel. When I passed Alan it was just after the carousel before the kink. This was on lap 12. I took the checker flag and then the Red Flag came out.
After scaling and tech, I saw Alan and Scotty on the flatbed tow truck. Alan’s tires on the left were blistered and he said he ran out of fuel. I had a great time.
I can not thank my son Joey enough. That boy worked his but off for me. He got all the race coverage from the entire event including the in kart camera stuff. I'd also like to thank Steve Rhodes, Craig Rhodes, Scotty, and of course Russell Karting, Dunlop Tires, Wiesco pistons, and the BKC
Thanks to everyone that makes the races possible.
Stay safe
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Road America Recap
Contributed by Reggie Brown Jr. / R2 Racing
What a great overall weekend! The first thing I would like to do is thank whoever was responsible for getting us the pit spots we had.
We were RIGHT off of pit road under a covered tent. All the 250 guys were under it and it was really cool, made pushing the karts around a non-issue.
Weather was pouring rain when we got in on Thursday and thankfully for us it rained most of Friday morning/afternoon as well. We fought what we thought was a carburetion issue for the better part of 3 hours. Finally, after some help from Dean at R&D and Pat's camp we figured out it was actually a timing issue. For those of you who don't know Dean, good gosh is he smart! We had toyed with some stuff back at Atlanta and I honestly don't know how it ran while we were there. With that fixed we were able to make the first session, barely.
2 practice sessions flew by and it was time to qualify. We had made some big changes and I felt like the kart was really going to be quick. I did my out lap and then put the pressure on, so much pressure that I drove the kart off of the outside of turn 14. As I was sitting there in the gravel pissed at myself, I saw a 2:16.6 on my mychron. This eased some of the tension. The next 3 hours were spent finding rocks and cleaning...
Saturday morning went well and again I felt like we had made some gains. The chassis was handling to my liking (over steer and loose  ) and I thought we were getting closer with the engine. We were ready for the first race.
After the first lap I knew we were in trouble. Motor just did not really want to pull in 5th or 6th gear and the temps were hot. This is a dumb error on our part. The entire weekend I think I had only done 2 laps back to back, never allowing the engine to build any real heat. After the 3rd lap of the race, I just began short shifting and watching the temps close. Midway through the race I began to real guys back in. I had some great racing with Scotty, Jayce and I had a hell of a battle with Pat. We ran side by side through turns, braking, drafting, etc it was a ball. Sadly the race was red flagged as I could have kept going with him forever. Thanks bud!
With poor planning and a bad tune on our part, we finished 4th in F/E. This was acceptable as we finished and didn't hurt the engine, even with temps close to 1100 on the egt! We were happy as we figured we would just pour some fuel to it and the motor would come alive. Saturday night was tough as we were waiting for Sunday.
Ran 4 hard laps Sunday am and then coming out of the carousel I thought the motor was seizing so I pulled the clutch in. Turns out we were just out of gas  We had gone richer with jetting but the air was better as well and I don't think we went far enough. At this point we were running out of time. Thankfully we were pitted right next to Alan Rudolf. We had been running our own setup till this point, but obviously were having a rough go. We put in what Alan had for jetting and went back out. Motor seemed to run better in the second session, tires were turning to junk and there was a lot of traffic so I didn't put a good lap in but it felt better.
SIDE NOTE: Meeting Alan this weekend was awesome! This guy showed up by himself at the first race with this kart and engine package. He never thrashed, rushed, or fought ANYTHING. He was fast from the first session on. He kept getting faster and faster all weekend. I learned a bunch from being around him and could only hope to become half of the driver and tuner he is. Truly a racecar driver! I hope to see you at more events bud.
On to our final, we were excited and again thought we would be much faster. This hope was quickly dashed as I barely made it out of pit road. The engine did not want to clean itself up and I had to keep playing with throttle and clutch to get out. Once it did catch it was only on the front cylinder, the whole parade lap I was waiting for the back to finally light up. It never did and I had to bring it up pit lane, as I was coming up the back FINALLY hit and I drove right through at probably 90mph, sorry everyone! I was able to enter back onto the track at the rear of the field. The back cylinder spent the rest of the race on and off. We were now far too rich, and the temps were down as well. After a long race of running slowly and by myself, we somehow wound up 3rd. Alan had the race in the bag but ran out of gas on the last lap! Congrats to JW and Mike Spear jr/sr, all deserving for the victory.
After running the entire race weekend at roughly 2:22's I don't know if our 2:16 during qualifying was true or not. I feel like the speed was there for sure. The thing that really ticks me off is I did not get that session saved, so I can't look at the freakin data! We will be working hard between now and Laguna to have a better showing.
Other notes, USSK had another great podium (thanks Cory) and cool trophies with champagne, always fun. Thanks to the people at Road America for letting us race with you. Riley was right by the phone as always to help us and answer our questions, muchas gracias homey.
I had fun trash talking and beating Cory at Simpson Motorsports AGAIN. His kart was way faster and much cleaner; I think this was due to his dad. Erin did a great job on taking photos and putting up the info, nice to meet you and glad you made the trip. We also had a bunch of fun pitting next to Friouuuuze and Jayce, great weekend guys.
Thanks again to Dean, Pat, Loren, and Alberto for all their help and taking our stuff out. If I missed anyone I'm sorry, I'm sure I did.
Lastly, my thoughts and prayers are with Adam Schatz and family. He had a bad accident and I wish them the best. It was hard to focus on racing with that going on.
Back to the real world for now, talk to you all later.
Reggie Jr.
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