Hi Gang,
Been ages since a post, update, or anything from my end, so I hope you all are doing very well.
It has been an exciting year in mostorsport thus far and last weekend was a personal highlight for my year! After spending a ton of time instructing, riding next to people helping them with their driving, on Saturday it was time to kick them out of and take the wheel myself to get back to work.
The race was at the track that I started my driving career at, North Texas Karters, in Denton, Texas. The opposition was some of the very top drivers in American kart racing including three time US Rotax team member Jordan Musser, recent IKF Grand Nationals winners Nick Lucido and Mike Jones, along with Skusa Supernationals winner Chris Jennings amongst other strong contenders and a big field.
My ride was my Arrow shifter kart which I will be using in my next project and it is propelled by a 40 bhp Honda CR125 engine. Six-speed sequential gearbox means it goes and in a hurry. Moreso it is really loud by karting standards and when the shifter karts launch everyone stops what they are doing to come watch the race. Pretty cool to do a kart race with thousands? hundreds of people looking on!
The racing went very well and irregardless of a lack of testing and sorting out the chassis I was able to finish in 4th. While 4th isn't the result I was looking for I was really pleased with the pace. Had a few breaks in traffic gone differently then it could have been a much better result.
The project that has been keeping me so busy is set in shifter kart program which I have more or less been burried in for the past few months. I never knew how much went into launching such a project but the final pieces are coming together (I believe) and you are welcome to check out the first draft here:
www.superkartchallenge.com
Hope you all enjoy and look forward to speaking soon.
Best wishes
Michael
14 July, 2009
19 February, 2009
California
Hi there!
Tomorrow morning bright and early I am going to be boarding a plane bound for the sunny left coast of America specifically to Buttonwillow raceway. This weekend I am going to be working with the North American Road Racing Association as a race instructor helping the owners in the 'pro' group get the most out of their automobiles. From what I know about NARRA is that it is a tiered track day company where novice drivers can get involved in performance driving. From the entry level it progresses up to a medium group, then an advanced - time attack style group who is entered into a fastest man competition. This concept seems to be popular in England and apparently generates a lot of excitment in this organization as well.
I am especially looking forward to the weekend since a number of my old colleagues are going to be there. My friend Josh Gilbert who went with me as my 'crief chief' on my last trip to California to be on a reality racing TV show which never took place. Additionally I will get to work with my friend Ruth and Kevin who run the organization who have enjoyed their own very interesting career in motorsport. Their speciality is safety and are a wealth of information which they have acrued from around the globe visiting different racing circuits and participating in the different events.
Hope you are all doing well, wishing you the best!
Cheers
Michael
Tomorrow morning bright and early I am going to be boarding a plane bound for the sunny left coast of America specifically to Buttonwillow raceway. This weekend I am going to be working with the North American Road Racing Association as a race instructor helping the owners in the 'pro' group get the most out of their automobiles. From what I know about NARRA is that it is a tiered track day company where novice drivers can get involved in performance driving. From the entry level it progresses up to a medium group, then an advanced - time attack style group who is entered into a fastest man competition. This concept seems to be popular in England and apparently generates a lot of excitment in this organization as well.
I am especially looking forward to the weekend since a number of my old colleagues are going to be there. My friend Josh Gilbert who went with me as my 'crief chief' on my last trip to California to be on a reality racing TV show which never took place. Additionally I will get to work with my friend Ruth and Kevin who run the organization who have enjoyed their own very interesting career in motorsport. Their speciality is safety and are a wealth of information which they have acrued from around the globe visiting different racing circuits and participating in the different events.
Hope you are all doing well, wishing you the best!
Cheers
Michael
11 February, 2009
Now on for something completely different
Dear Friends,
It has been ages! My appologies, especially to those of you in England who are probably wondering if I am still alive or not!
Things have wrapped up at the kart track in Houston. We made a lot of significant improvements in their factility, operations and program, now time to move on.
There is a lot taking place in American motorsport at the moment with the new season kicking off along with significant changes to the landscape of the international motorsport scene. The Grand Am championship started its season in Daytona a few weeks ago, and this week (15 February) will be the most prestigious stock car race in America, the Daytona 500. Internationally Formula 1 has gotten a swift kick upside the regulatory head and all of the teams are scrambeling like made right now to build new cars with the intent of lowering cost and improving the 'show.' The changes are certainly dramatic, we will see how it goes, and how the grid shakes out! I am very excited to see Formula Two unveiled in England this year as the newest feeder series to Formula 1. A brilliant series philosophy which brings costs down to a more reasonable level.
Now I am based in Dallas and have a few things up my sleeve for the 2009 year. I still have no idea when I will be able to get back to England but hopefully I will find out soon!
Hope all of you who occasionally check this are doing well. Would love to hear what you've been up to.
Kindest regards
Michael
It has been ages! My appologies, especially to those of you in England who are probably wondering if I am still alive or not!
Things have wrapped up at the kart track in Houston. We made a lot of significant improvements in their factility, operations and program, now time to move on.
There is a lot taking place in American motorsport at the moment with the new season kicking off along with significant changes to the landscape of the international motorsport scene. The Grand Am championship started its season in Daytona a few weeks ago, and this week (15 February) will be the most prestigious stock car race in America, the Daytona 500. Internationally Formula 1 has gotten a swift kick upside the regulatory head and all of the teams are scrambeling like made right now to build new cars with the intent of lowering cost and improving the 'show.' The changes are certainly dramatic, we will see how it goes, and how the grid shakes out! I am very excited to see Formula Two unveiled in England this year as the newest feeder series to Formula 1. A brilliant series philosophy which brings costs down to a more reasonable level.
Now I am based in Dallas and have a few things up my sleeve for the 2009 year. I still have no idea when I will be able to get back to England but hopefully I will find out soon!
Hope all of you who occasionally check this are doing well. Would love to hear what you've been up to.
Kindest regards
Michael
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
