January 13th, 2002
BRR Goes Karting
As published in the February issue of the Blue Ridge Region SCCA newsletter "Ridge Runner"
You might say that this was the first event of the 2002 season for the Blue Ridge Region SCCA… though it wasn't officially sponsored by the club. A bunch (9) of us autocrossers got together and tripped down south to run some go-karts around an indoor track and release some pent up winter tension. It'd been more than a month since our last autocross and some of us were experiencing symptoms of motorsport competition withdraw.
In attendance were myself, Jeff Underwood, Greg Michael, Matt Mead, Matt Carson, Mark Eisenbies, Bob Erhardt, Todd Baumgardner, and Scott Frame.
Victory Lane Karting (www.victorylanekarting.com) is an indoor karting facility in the European style. They run rockin' little karts with wee tiny 200cc 5.5 hp Honda engines on a 14 turn ¼ mile road course with a front straight chicane, two 180° hairpins, and a flat out backstretch. On a good lap you'd hit the brakes twice and the rest of it would be flat out with maybe a little throttle-lift at a tricky left turn if you were moving along nicely. We had 13 karts on track at a time and you can pass anywhere, if you can find room.
The rules of engagement stated that we'd endure a two-hour enduro split up with pit stops and driver changes every 10 minutes or so. Each team had three drivers to rotate through. We were instructed to not crash and not bump and we'd get warned and eventually ejected if we didn't at least TRY to obey these commands. They said "please" and "if you can help it" and we did our best to please but I must say sometimes we couldn't help but push a little bit on the guy in front of us. There were passing flags, and if you ignored them you'd eventually get a black flag but traffic management was quite key to turning in consistently fast lap times.
Grrrrr, git outta my way! (There's me releasing pent up winter tension.)
The karts varied greatly in how they handled but at least in my experience most of them required as much counter-steering to catch your wildly sliding ass as they did normal-steering to get the thing turning in the first place. But turn they did! Good grippage. "G-force" must stand for "Grin-Force" or something equally indicative of the reason our smile-muscles were so sore.
Brakes ONLY in the rear meant the hairpins were often (if not always) a rally style pivot turn. This is something that really requires more power to pull off cleanly so the key was not to hit the brakes, they only slow you down anyway. Oh, by the way... the brake pedal was operated by the left foot, as it properly should.
Secured the win for the team of Jeff (CSP champ) Underwood, Matt (NASCARson) Carson, and Tim (Jeff's friend the hired hotshoe) Peele running under the team name of "SPUMPH" (ask Jeff if you must know). I suppose some fine driving might have had something to do with them leading the entire field by a lap or two at the end.
I'll go again if anyone wants to team with me, but not too often please… I don't want to develop a dependency.
My pictures from the event are posted on my web gallery page at: http://www.at-speed.goof.com/spark.html
-STEFAN Vapaa '68 Saab Sonett "Spyder"
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Here we see yellow helmeted Scott Frame coming up behind Mark Eisenbies who is passing #10 on the inside! |
| ...And Team SPUMPH wins! Jeff Underwood takes his victory lap! |  |