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Gaye and family,
Our thoughts and prayers are with you. We are deeply saddened. We will always cherish our memories of Rich. He was such an inspiration and helped us much during our early years of kart racing. I know he will live on in your own memories and in the impact he has had in your lives. I hope that brings you some measure of comfort in this most difficult time. God bless you and your family.
God Speed & RIP RV51
The Toby family
Congrats to Conner Thomas and team. We have found racing in the Florida Winter Tour is very difficult but equally satisfying. Keep up the good work.
Eddy,
The meeting had, what I thought, was some very good dialogue. Many topics were discussed and a variety of opinions were shared. However, no real decisions were made other than to select a board of folks that could make decisions with input from the karting community via surveys, internet forums, word of mouth, etc. As you would expect, that kind of forum was not conducive to making decisions. However, seeing karting friends during the off season, sharing ideas and enjoying good food was great. Thanks Brad! I can’t wait to hear what follows from the board.
It looks like it will be a great turn out for Colorado drivers! Best of luck to everyone!
Like last year, we will be in Vegas at the same time to take in the finals for the AMA EnduroCross. We’ll also take in some of the four wheel action to cheer for the Colorado drivers.
Have fun, be safe, go fast.
Thanks for the comments guys. I guess, other than Jim’s licensing idea, there hasn’t been any additional “wow” moments this week. Maybe things will stay relatively quiet until the 10/17 karters meeting.
On the national level I see there has been a shake up at Stars. I’m pleased to see that Ardigo, the 2007 and 2008 World Champion and defending SKUSA Super Nats Champion is returning to America to put his stuff up against America’s best. It was a pleasure watching him last year. I think our top guys got his attention.
Stacey, are you saying the “grass is greener on the other side?” 😆 You’re interactions with the Utah group sounds interesting. Maybe we can share a beer sometime and talk Rotax “off the record.” See ya on the 17th.
Rich, I see what you see. I hope dilution doesn’t hurt Colorado karting. I would rather see multiple club series and one super regional series than a bunch of weak competing series. Unfortunately, we may see even fewer karters in 2009 if the economy continues on its present course. Tag masters – yeah, yeah, yeah. 😀 Actually, you guys are often the envy of all the other classes. Keep it up.
Les, I hear you. Every year the same concern is raised and yet an easy solution never presents itself. As the kids grow they naturally want more speed and horsepower. More horsepower equals more $$. Unfortunately, that graph is more exponential than linear. I hope you can find the right combination that works for your family.
:clap: Here’s to hoping that 2009 is a great year for Colorado karting.
Couldn’t agree more Rick. I guess karting has its own version of silly season… I hope it works out for Colorado karters that we can see and experience some great racing at multiple locations. I always liked that we had so many nice tracks in Colorado but maybe it is a little bit of a curse??? Let’s hope that everything works out well for Colorado karters. I do agree that all our track owners are good guys.
Last year we planned to run the entire FWT. Unfortunately, during the first event Jesse re-injured his ribs he cracked in Monaco so we watched from the sidelines. They have some great racing down there but it is hard to watch when you want to race. Jesse wanted to finish his last year of eligibility in the Jr Rotax class. Unfortunately, there are not too many Jr Rotax drivers in the state. We completed at CRE where they had the most drivers in his class. Once again, Jesse won the So Colorado Jr Rotax championship and Colorado WKA Jr Rotax championship. Jesse is now a senior and looking forward to mixing it up with a large number of class participants next year.
We’re hoping to run Rotax and maybe a gearbox class but will have to wait and see how things settle down. It sure would be great to see some of those big names make it into the state.
Who’s going to the Super Nats? I think we need to put a team or two of Colorado drivers into the Machismo 500. Any takers?
Now it is off to the track to get some seat time in before the first snowfall…
I agree with Joe. Having a meeting like this in October is great! It will definitely help in making plans for ’09.
I also read in ekartingnews this morning that IMI is now an official Rotax dealer and service center. It also stated IMI would be hosting a Rotax series. This is great news for Rotax drivers in the Denver area.
2009 is shaping up nicely.
We’re still having “serious” fun. Jesse doesn’t complain but I can see how much pain he is in. I’m enjoying the tee shirt and shorts weather a lot.
Jarvis is a former national mini max champ as well but he has been running Jr the last two years and went to the worlds both years. He was usually fastest at Centennial but ended up second to his team mate, Jose Zanela.
It is so awesome seeing this level of competition. Very few drivers were on the podium both days for any of the classes. Those that were can be very, very proud.
Sunday was less successful for us. Jesse injured his ribs again in a Saturday crash and competed with a lot of pain on Sunday. I tried to keep him out of the kart but he wouldn’t listen to me – go figure. :loony: He threw down a good lap in qualifying and earned a direct trip to the Pre Main. He fell back a couple positions in the Pre Main from his 28th qualifying position. A mishap on the start of the Main put him in 40th place by the end of the first lap. He slowly moved up and finished 31st and on the lead lap again.
We planned to run this weekend in either KF or the Spec class but will have to wait and see if he will be fit to race. Even though there will be less competitors, the racing action should be every bit as good this weekend as last weekend.
It’s amazing to see the Jarvis Genari, the favorite in the Jr Rotax class, struggle to get a 5th and 11th place finish. He is the defending FWT Jr champ, current JICA champ and four time FWT champ and is as surprised as everyone else how stiff the competition is this year. It has been very difficult for an American driver to crack the top ten in the Sr class. This is some of the very best racing we have seen. 😀
We hope to see a few more Colorado competitors this weekend. :clap:
I’ll try to keep everyone updated.
David,
I’m so sorry to hear this. We will be sending you all our best wishes and keep you in our thoughts and prayers. All the best to you and your family.
Larry
Ditto… very nice shop Barry! The place is bright, nicely organized, clean, well equipped – very professional. Keep up the good work and best wishes for the holidays.
I sure wish you could find steady work….This running all over racing kart’s has to stop!
Mikey, that’s just too funny…and true. I wish I could take your advise, but I seem to be inflicted with something. :loony: However, I’m excited about going to Florida – Jesse for the racing but me for the WARMTH. I won’t be taking my snow shovel with me!
You ought to throw a kart in my trailer and fly to Florida with Tyler or Sydney for a weekend of racing. It would put hair on their chest. Oh wait a minute, Tyler may not want that. 😀
Thanks for the support. We will keep you posted.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to your family as well.
Yeah, I was bummed to read that story also. The good news is that the Morans seem determined to come back bigger and better than ever.
After watching the excitement of the SuperNats, we were on the fence trying to decide whether to do the Florida Winter Tour again or to do both the Pro Kart Series and the Gatorz Rotax Challenge of the Americas. Both the PKC and Gatorz series had planned stops at Moran with two weekends being back to back. I’m sure both series will find and schedule a suitable backup. However, it is a little late in the game so I pulled the trigger and signed up for the FWT. Besides, the FWT is introducing the KF classes to America. I’m very excited about running these new engines. I think of them as Tag’s on steroids. The KF2 and KF3 classes run at lighter weights than Tag Sr and Tag Jr, have more horsepower and are reported to be more reliable. To me, that spells serious fun. We’re going to run all six weekends (12 races). If anybody else is interested in doing some or all of the FWT give me a call. I might have extra room to haul karts/equipment.
Stay warm,
LarryTim,
I’ve been out of town for a couple of weeks so I haven’t had a chance to add my two cents worth. Over the last 50 plus races we have run WF, Rotax, Tag and Tag 4 Cycle. By far, the most enjoyable and the most “bang for the buck” has been the Tag 4 Cycle. In addition to other classes, this year we ran a Vampire engine and found it to be the easiest to set-up, race and maintain of all the engine packages we have ever used. It definitely provides the biggest ear-to-ear grin factor.
Apparently, others have felt the same thing. This class has taken off like nothing I have seen. The four cycle class just started this year and there were over ten entries at the last IMI CLUB race. At the Tag World Finals they had so many entries they split the class into light and heavy. Compare that to other engine packages that have been around for years and provide only a few entries. I think the four cycle classes will be among the largest classes in Colorado next year.
Despite having the most horsepower, the Vampire engine has been easier on the 219 chain than anything we have ever run. I don’t know if it is the lower overall RPM, larger front gear or smoother power delivery but we get great wear out of the 219 chain with the four stroke. We have raced the senior Vampire engine four times and have had multiple practice days and we are on only our second chain. I replaced the first one only because we had so much more time on it than I have ever got out of the 219 chain. I put on a new chain for the Tag World Finals but I’m not sure I needed to.
As for the clutch, the Vampire uses a multi-plate clutch much like a motorcycle. It is far more heavy duty than the fly weight type clutches we have had on our two stroke Tag engines.
The only down side I see to the four strokes is that other than the Tag World Finals or International racing there is not a national series where you can race them YET. In Colorado you can race them at the club or regional (CSC) level.
With all that said, we will likely race the national Stars program next year so we will have to revert back to a slower, higher maintenance two stroke engine package. Furthermore, we may also race a car next year. If so, we won’t be able to race our four stroke and may offer our three month old, Tag World Finals Championship winning Intrepid Explorer Pro/Vampire kart for sale.
If you haven’t done so already, go to IMI and talk to Brad. He has over 25 years of karting experience and will give you straight talk on four strokes or any other karting subjest.
Whatever you decide to do – have fun at it!
Another thanks for a great day of racing! All the change ups added to the excitement. It was a great finish to an awesome season. You have one of the largest and deepest fields in the country for Jr Rotax racing. I know racing at CRE has helped Jesse accelerate the improvement in his driving abilities. Keep up the good work.
Larry
