Hey Guys,
After a great weekend of karting and autox I thought I'd tell you all a bit about my Racenow Challenge experience.
We arrive at the Chilliwack track very early, people were just arriving or popping out of their motor homes. We took the time to do what all autocrossers do, walk the course. My memory of the track was pretty good, but I forgot just how fantastic the track is, I couldn't wait!
After a kinda lengthy registration process which is done by the same lady who is manning the food truck we met Blake who runs BBR karting. Our karts were brought out for us, we discussed the day and suited up. WCKC had a couple of their members go over some general track rules and do's and don'ts of the day ended by a drivers meeting.
Our 1st practice of the day was fairly early and the track was still fairly cool. I luckily fit my kart like a GLOVE, immediately felt comfortable. We were driving karts with a Briggs & Stratton 'Animal' engine which makes somewhere around 9hp. What surprised me is they felt pretty quick! I've driven a few pretty fast karts around GMR and these were still challenging. Due to the lack of power if you made a mistake on entry or mid corner the power wasn't there to pick you back up. You also don't arrive at the corners at a massive speed, meaning some corners are flat out, and let me tell you, it takes big swingers to keep your foot down in some of them.
After three practice sessions which were around 10 mins each we braked for lunch and gridded up for our 1st of two qualifying heats. The positions for the qualifying heats were set in a lottery and the 2nd grid was the inverted 1st grid. Neither of my two qualifying races went well.
As you can see from my video, I was black flagged only 1 lap into the race for two reasons. I was not aware that sticking a go-pro to your helmet was not legal and no one had told me warming your tires was a 'no no'. On my outlap i was fairly aggressive with weaving, which they didn't like. Luckily they took it easy on me because I was in the RaceNow Challenge. The 2nd heat is a bit of a long story, but there was a bit of a coming together with 3 karts before the green flag. Remember, the guys in this class are still noobs and accidents will happen. All the karts involved were ok but I finished a lap down due to my kart not starting.
The final is a 16 minute race, I started on the inside of the 3rd row in 5th place due to two poor qualifying heats. We got the green flag and everyone infront of me for some reason covered their outside line. I had P1 into the 1st turn and never looked back.
It was a fantastic day. Just over $300 for a full day of racing was spectacular. I showed up, drove and left. No setup, wrenching or tear down. Between heats I got to watch a bunch of good racing and think about my driving. BBR karting actually lent me a hand with doing some setup changes on the kart which made the Tony Kart chassis a dream to drive especially when the tires warmed up.
If you guys have any questions, I'd be happy to help in any way.
rich
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