We got to the track Friday evening and got some practice laps in. We tried a few things on Kira's car earlier in the week and she was running faster than she had been. Zachary ran some laps with his foot to the floor and was looking good. We went through safety and felt pretty good about Saturday.
Saturday - qualifying:
- Zachary came in 3rd with a 8.04 and went straight to the A main! To give you an idea of how close these places are - 1st was 7.99, 2nd was 8.02, and then Zachary at 8.04.
- Kira was the last senior novice so she had nobody to race. She did break the track record for senior novice at 7.6. It was a great way to leave the novice class and the previous record holder was from another track so we brought it back home! Her name and time will now stay up on the tower until the next qualifying day if someone breaks it (although it would have to be an out-of-towner because all our senior novices moved up).
Zachary got some playing time in waiting for the A Main. When he went in the A Main, he was car 2 but had a bad break. 2 cars got hung up next to each other, slowing them down - right in front of him on a straight away. He ended up with nowhere to go and bumped into them. They got untangled and sped away. He lost a lot of momentum and fell back a half lap. He didn't get back up after that. I can't remember where he placed.
Kira had no one to race so went out and did 15 laps all by herself. Luckily she came in first but did say it was really embarrassing to be on the track by herself like that.
 |
| Kira with the checkered flag on last Senior Novice race |
Zachary had a hard time because when you go to A Main directly, even though you kicked butt to get there - if you don't place in the race, you get no ribbon/trophy. Meanwhile Kira broke track record AND got a 1st place trophy.
After races were done Saturday Kira's motor had to go through TECH because we were pulling her motor out that night. I'll tell you about tech some other time...
That night we went through Kira's car - changed motors, put on new right side wheels (they have rules about right side wheels when you get out of novice, and changed gears. By the time we got finished I was beat, out of lemonade for my Honey Jack drinks, and had no idea how that car was gonna run the next day. I went to bed crossing my fingers that her car was fast and Zachary won any award at all.
 |
| Kira ready to race with Senior Honda |
Sunday - heats:
Kira moved up to Senior Honda. I really wanted her to run Heavy Honda but didn't have the time to change everything that needed to be changed to get her there i.e. weight addition, springs, etc.
Senior Honda is just what it sounds - kids 9 and over running Honda 120 motors. Heavy Honda has the additional rule that the kid has to weigh 100 lbs minimum.
When you move up and out of novice, they put a little green ribbon on the back of your car so everyone knows it's your move-up race. You then start in the back of the race.
Kira put a big 0 on her car (meaning number 10). She started her heat off very aggressively and confident. She made some good passes but earned two calls (yellow flags) for charging (more on calls later). You can only get 3 calls in one race before you're out. She got two calls for the exact same move - passing on the turn without her front wheel being next to the driver before the white line. She finally got told what she was doing and we didn't see that again.
Unfortunately, she got thrown another yellow when someone in front of her slowed down and sort of bobbled. She ran into them and spun out. It was a bummer because it was really not her fault but because she spun out, caused a caution flag (yellow) - it was her third and she did not get to finish the heat.
This was a hard weekend of lessons for us. She did not understand how she got called for that since she didn't cause her own accident (but I guess I can compare it to our dumb road rule of if you hit someone from behind, it's automatically your fault). Under normal circumstances, if that was her only call - it would have been fine and she'd be back in the race - just at the back.
After she got ejected we had a long time of working through that whole thing. Since there were 10 cars though, she was going to get to run the A Main anyway - (in novice the run 8, in other classes they run 10).
When she got to her main, she began at the back again. She had 3 clean passes. Then somehow she ended up rubbing the wall (I say somehow because so much happened that I don't quite remember how now). She ended up with a flat. She came off track to fix it. When you come off track, you have 5 laps to fix whatever's wrong if you want to re-join the race. The problem with being new, you don't have enough stuff to efficiently do this. So usually people come out of the woodwork to help you. I think this is the coolest thing ever and more on this later.
Now she's in the pit - or whatever it's called and one of the other guys is banging on her wheel with a hammer trying to unbend it so it'll hold air (FYI - that was technically his wheel we were using). He got it reshaped, threw air in it, and we sent her back out.
About 1 lap later, they are racing and she is flat again. I am working a corner and going crazy cause I know she's flat, I am not allowed to say anything, and I am wondering why they aren't pulling her off when I know for a fact that can't be safe.
And here came the hard lesson.......
Kira's car slowed from the flat tire and the kids behind her didn't see it or avoid it. She got slammed on the straight- away sooooo hard. Many people told me they hadn't seen that hard of a hit in awhile. (Shhhh - I didn't tell her that!) She busted her tail cone, her rear METAL bumper folded and broke off, her exhaust pipe (oh yeah, I gave her the "good one" I just had rewelded) got pinched and bent. And we still had the busted up wheel. Also, it scared the crap out of her. There was no fixing that by 5 laps so we were done. She was so mad that she didn't get to even finish the race and it was her last one before leaving for the summer. It really was a bummer. So much for senior honda. I think we'll try Heavy Honda when she gets back.
Zachary still had his race to go. He was moping about his ribbon/award issues and did not want to race. Then he saw Kira's wreck and REALLY didn't want to race. Finally he said he did because his friends were racing. He was car 8 and had A LOT of passing to do (not something he's fond of) in order to place at all. When he drives, he drives really good though. It's just that he gets nervous when it's more than just him on the track.
The race starts - I can't remember if they were under caution but I see him leaving the track for no apparent reason. I am on the oppposite corner of the track with no real good way to get to the car and no idea what's wrong. I see about 5 people I trust with my kids life (pretty good for people you just met) over there so I just wait. Finally my body burying friend goes to check what's going on for me. She comes back and tells me my son's brakes were gone. Apparently he realized he lost brakes and it scared the crap out of him. What's weird is one of the last things you do in staging is a brake check. You never go out without making sure you have brakes.
Well, Zachary can read his car! He came off, didn't wreck or get injured. Thank god for good 6 year old decisions.
So while we started off the weekend good, we didn't end on the greatest of notes but we did learn a hell of a lot about a lot of stuff this weekend. We are starting to get the cars adjusted to actually be competitive but now we have a lot of race rule learning to do.
I will say it was a big jump for Kira to go from a 3 man senior novice class to a 10 car race. Her novice class was mostly in the rain and snow i.e. not high speed and if they passed, they had TONS of room. We're in a different world without a lot of training there.
No comments:
Post a Comment