Purple in Sector 1

Last week SCCA announced the rebirth of the Trans-Am series after being “on hiatus” for the last two seasons. Many had thought previous management had managed (or mismanaged as the case was) to put the nails in the coffin but the SCCA is hopeful the reborn series and platform (GT-1 tube based chassis) will mark the new dawn of the series inspite of tough financial times.

Story at http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/scca-trans-am-series-returns-in-2009/

Story from the Death Star……err, I mean SCCA Pro Racing HQ

http://www.scca.com/newsarticle.aspx?hub=4&news=3541

I wonder if  TK will rebuild the Chicken Car and take a whack at it…  Let’s see if I can dig up some shots I have of TK and the Chicken Car at PIR during some CART testing earlier in the decade.

On Wednesday Dec 10 HANS Performance Products filed a patent infringement suit against Innovative  Safety Technologies in the District Court, Southern District of California.  The suit coincides with the announcement of the defNder G70 head and neck restraint system at the Performance Racing Industry show this week in Orlando.  HANS has long had a lock on the head and neck restraint business, with only Hutchens and LFT Tech the only competition.  Awarded the fifth patent on the device in September, HANS has been able to maintain a near stranglehold in that sector of the safety market for a while, commanding a premium price though recently introducing a budget version.  Still, even at a premium it works and it’s a lot cheaper than a basilar skull fracture.

I’ll update the post with links to the patent HANS alleges was violated and a copy of the complaint from Pacer.  Interestingly, I can’t find a patent application for the defNder though they say there is a patent pending on the the site.

UPDATE 1:  Jayski has pulled the blurb off his site but here is the PR Newswire copy of the release from HANS http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/12-10-2008/0004940184&EDATE=  My PACER account was locked because I haven’t used it in about a year and the card I was using on it expired.  The gov needs to manually turn my account back on.  I can sell engines on the other side of the country for a couple grand,  update banking and bill pay info in real time, buy race parts or welders at the click of a mouse but to access a public records database they need to have some gov IT guy do it by hand?  You’ve got to be fucking shitting me…  This is stuff that I was doing in 1997.

In the meantime, here is a link to Hubbard’s patent that is claimed to be violated.  I’ll post the other Hubbard/HANS patents as I dig them up.  The URLs at USPTO are real ball busters (not that the PR Newswire URLS are any better), thankfully we have Tiny URL  http://tinyurl.com/5u7ruc  .  The patent is a good read.

UPDATE 2: I guess they weren’t shitting me but I did get PACER access restored this morning.   Here is a link to the file hosted here at PI1.  It’s pretty standard, general and bland document that loosely claims that because Innovative manufactures a shoulder worn head and neck restraint that transfers the load to the vehicle’s restraint system they have caused harm to HANS and violated the patent.  As Lumbergh might say (the VP at Initech Lumbergh, not the Lumbergh Joanna slept with)  ”uuuuhhmmm, yeah”.  The complaint reads pretty much like a rank and file TPS report.  It will be interesting to see the Innovative response.

hans-v-innovative-complaint

Buried in the news of the Supernationals and Rotax World Finals is the news that a religious sect run by RC Samanta Roy, owner of the USA International Raceway in Shawano, WI is the subject of a federal investigation alleging threats against as many as 60 Shawano area residents, including public and elected officials.  Roy is no stranger to controversy which includes long-standing disputes with some in the area and local authorities.  According to the AP Roy also goes by the names Rama Behera and Avraham Cohen.  Roy operates the religious sect Samanta Roy Institute for Science and Technology, at one time known as The Disciples of the Lord Jesus and has been involved in instigating several lawsuits against the city in recent years.  The investigation centers around a tip from a former associate that as many as 60 people were listed “to be taken care of” was confirmed by Shawano Police Chief Ed Whealon.  The registered agent for the sect, and related businesses including the kart track, Naomi Isaacson was recently arrested on an unrelated federal bench warrant on contempt of court charges.  One sect member is considered a “person of interest” in the case and responsible for the majority of the list, but Whealon would not identify that person or his or her status within the organization because the investigation is ongoing.

Compiled from various local and national press reports.

Now that the rough and tumble of the Supernats is behind me, it’s time to focus toward next season. Specifically, should I do a Spec Miata (my personal fav), a drag car (Ambi has a soft spot due to her father’s rides in the desert in a 67 Charger at full tilt) or some sort of circle track car?  I’m going to race, I just haven’t decided what I’ll race.  (actually, it’s going to be a Spec Miata…if she’d let me, I’d do a drag car and a road race car) I know that racing karts I won’t be competitive, I’m just too big.  I just sold the Rotax, a great deal at US$1650 for a full kit.  I’m likely to turn it into a Spec Miata.  Drags are cool, circle track is OK but I’d rather road race.  On Weds I may buy a 97 Miata that the guy has been trying to sell for about 6 months.  I’m still keeping the shifter kart for practice and plan in the next couple of weeks to hit Grange for some testing.  Two days after SNATs I got back on my workout program.

In two weeks we close on the house.  Since I started driving the kart down here I’ve had a single car garage and for the last year I’ve had a full blown shop in a two car garage.  When we get the house I’ll get the workshop space sorted.  Already have an Ingersoll Rand 3HP, 60 gal single stage compressor on order. 15 CFM @ 90 PSI. I’m going to plumb the shop for at least four air lines.  I’ve had a 180 amp Lincoln MIG welder for a while now and will wire the shop for that plus a few other outlets.  Thanks to help from Dave Robinson at EKN our floor guys are contracted to do a three layer urethane coating on the shop floor.  And I’m about to pull the trigger on a Hypertherm PowerMax 30 so I can get down to some serious cutting.  In a year or two I’ll lease a shop space but for now I need to do it in the garage. Just like I have for the last few years.

The next series of posts will chronicle how I convert a two car garage in the suburbs into a race shop.   It will be enough to build a club racing sports car and keep a shifter karting program going for practice.  After the floor (and a new insulated garage door with a Liftmaster 1/2 HP belt drive opener mechanism), the first purchase is the compressor.  An Ingersoll Rand SS3L3 plumbed for the workspace.  I’ve got most everything else.

I thought I was done with the race commentary but one of my esteemed colleages in S4 replied to me the other day and over at ekartingIhavewaytoomuchtimeonmyhands.com there seems to be a bit of a thread calling me out.  Well, tough shit.  The second place guy blamed a lapper in lap 5 for his not getting to the lead.  I thought it was me and politely told him not to blame me for his lose.  Turns out I was wrong.  It wasn’t me he caught, they didn’t catch me until the pit straight hair pin, and more importantly, I think anyway, T&S has been posted at MyLaps.com that shows that whomever it was he caught at the bus stop wasn’t the cause of his loss.  In other words, he got spanked by a guy that was faster that race.

Mike, threatening to put me in the wall if we ever raced again is a pretty low class thing to say.   Threats of physical violence toward me, or anyone else for that matter are ill advised.  Not only is it petty and immature, it’s illegal.  They call that assault in this state.  Just like in the Metro Las Vegas Police report filed Sunday alleges the race director assaulted a 13 year old racer.  I’ll have a copy of the report Monday afternoon.  Please, let’s get some perspective Mike.  You are a middle aged man racing a go kart (albiet an expensive and fast one) for a purse of a pair of sunglasses and a 20 dollar throphy.    I don’t think Flav is going to be calling you, babe.  Not unlike the former King of Pop, he likes his boys younger.  Like I said in my reply, whomever you caught in the bus stop might have cost you a couple of tenths.  Maybe.  You were beat by about 3.5 seconds.  I might be slower than a second cum but I do know how to do math and interpret data.  I also know that you can’t win a race if out of the 30 laps, you’re only faster than the leader on 9 of those laps.  The middle of the race is really where it all went south when in laps 12-19 you dropped a cumulative total of about 2.5 secs.  How is it that lapper on 5 make you drop about half a sec for a few laps in a row about 10 laps later into the race?  Remember, he was off the you were about 7 miles further into the race.  Looked the leader had a pretty big bobble on 21 with a 1.3 sec difference but I wasn’t watching the race at that point.  You’re going to find another windmill at which to tilt.  You came to win and had a pretty good shot at doing it.  It wasn’t lapped traffic that was the cause.

Craig Sender seemed fit to post something though perhaps he had me confused with the 60X kart that was behind me. Either way, I wasn’t shown the black nor did they have a yellow stripe to show.  I was honored to be in the class with you, but acting like an unsportsman like ass pretty much negates that.  Bummer.  I’ve been following your career (or shall I say another middle aged guy racing karts) and this isn’t the first time we’ve been on the track together.  We met at the APD shop about 7 years ago.  Didn’t think you would remember.  I almost didn’t until now.  On the lap you claim I hung you up you had Jennings by 23 100ths of a sec.  And you had Conte by 3 tenths.  Show me that you got hung up by me.  What color was my helmet or number plate?  I might be a backmarker but when you are faster than the leader on only six of thirty laps, you aren’t going to win.  Looks like you lost perhaps 4 tenths to Jones in 5 but when you’re behind him and for 18 laps you can’t best his time, at times 4 to 8 tenths off his pace, how do you expect to pass him.  I was long off the track at that point.  Want to blame someone for your performance?  Get a mirror.

Time to wrap it up and put the 2008 National Guard Supernationals in the rear view and give my overall opinion of how we all did.  First, my performance.  I give me a solid D-.  Not a complete failure because of the preparation and effort but once the rental ride was incapacitated my five year old worn kart just didn’t have the brakes and handling.  It’s only the difference in my case of a couple of seconds but I didn’t make my performance goals which were to run on the lead lap or be within 2-3 seconds of the lead pack.  Early on there was a glimmer that I would make it as my best rolling lap in the CRG a 47.2 with only about 20 minutes in the package and a support crew second to none.  I had a best theoretical lap of 46.3 in the CRG but once we had to go to my backup, I added another 5 secs and spent the next few days rebuilding brakes and struggling to get the car to respond, particularly as the track rubbered in and missing most of my track time.  It wouldn’t stop and it wouldn’t turn and frankly had this been just another regional or local race, I would have parked it.  It was a struggle just to get the car safe enough to be on the track.  But I wanted to extract some enjoyment from my at that point more than US$6000 investment in money and about a years worth of labor.  No way was I going to walk away at that point.  By then, for me it was personal.  

I used the budget I’d saved for my sports car program next year so I could race out this season in karts, instead of running TT and HPDE to get the miles for my big car license without fast tracking school.  I’d do the SNATS again if I had the equipment and support but realistically that money would be or have been better spent on a form of motorsport that was more suited to my build. That 6K would have paid for fast tracking my SCCA license (and in turn my NASA license) and gotten me a ride in at least one or two weekend local club races at Willow Springs or Buttonwillow.  Or it would have gone a long way toward building the car or buying one that’s been for sale here in town for the better part of the year.  Either way, I’ll keep at least one of the karts because I enjoy them and I hear that MRP may open the Xplex after the first of the year.  At least the shifter will help me develop the sports car program.  The current plan is after we get settled in the new house (we close Dec 15) to go to Skippy at Laguna and do the one day Mazda test drive to see if I like the car before we spend another 20 grand on getting a race program off the ground.  If I like it (which I’m sure I will) I’ll either fast track the license with Skippy school or buy/build a car and go the cheaper, longer route using HPDE and TT.  Either way, my days of doing anything other than lapping sessions and our local club track in my kart are done.  Just wish I could have gone out on a higher note.

I give my team for the week an enthusiastic A+++.  The entire gang at Evolution Karting was incredibly supportive and helpful.  Thanks to Jason Lee for the driver coaching and tips, Garrick Miller for the tuning and generously sharing your knowledge and Kurt Mathewson for allowing me to rent the ride under the tent.  Hope I didn’t stink up your program too badly.  The best part of my week was hanging with those guys.  These guys don’t have the biggest tent in the paddock but they can hold their own against the best.  If you’ve got a young ‘un that you want brought up through the ranks, give Kurt a call.

As for the event itself, overall a solid B.  The presentation and stature was outstanding for a kart race.  Top notch, and A++ for that but other areas were lacking.  For those outside karting it was a great way to expose them at a fantastic venue.  The problem is that I saw zero publicity in town surrounding the event.  The circuit layout was fantastic, I quite enjoyed the little time I had on it.  It was however, very rough and bumpy and it took race control a day or two to work out run off areas in the plastic canyons.  It’s a trade off to fit the track in the limited space but there were a couple of areas that could have used a bit of run off.  There was also angst and unnecessary drama with respect to how race control communicated with the racers.  At times the lack of professionalism was surprising.   Thursday’s session was at times I thought unnecessarily dangerous.  With flaggers doubling as security guards during hot track sessions all of the focus wasn’t on the green, crowded track.  In some classes, particularly TaG SR race control did not appear to be able to exert any discipline or control on the class as there were several red flags. Eventually a couple of people were parked (or so I’m told) but based on what I saw first hand, it was anarchy out on the track for the first day or so and it seemed they did not have control of the racers.  You don’t get control of the situation by making whiney announcements over the PA.  You do that by laying down the law and enforcing the rules.

All in all even with the few misteps and faux paux it was a premier karting event.  The presentation was excellent, the racing was fantastic and the track was a blast to drive.  While at this point the promoter is operationally and logistically at the limit of what they can achieve given the current resources, the event will still continue to be the ass slapping daddy of karting events in the US.

Good luck, race safe and we’ll see you from the bleachers next year…

Not as cool as Bonnier or the other pro shooters but shots none the less…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47305609@N00/sets/72157610185317944/

“If you don’t expect too much from me, you might not be let down”

Doug Hopkins

“I’m slow, I’m not new”

Dave Stevens

Contrary to what some of the mental giants on the karting “news” site think, entering the Supernats wasn’t a decision I made lightly.  In fact it was about a year of hard work and at times equal parts of frustration and joy.  When I decided to stop touring the second time, I wanted it to be for good this time.  Previously in 2000, selling my dot com business and retiring from touring the first time is what lead me to karting.  At the CART race in Portland in 2001 there was an open kart class running as an exhibition early morning class.  I had been doing a bunch of indoor karting and was instantly hooked when I toured the big tent with all the karts in the paddock.  There were booths from the regional tracks and shops and that next Tues after the shops and schools reopened, I signed up at Racer’s Edge driving school and started making the decision about which kart to get.  I settled on shifter, focusing on road racing as at the time I was nearly 300 lbs.  Far, far too big for any race vehicle let alone a go kart.   Over the years road racing I got to drive some great tracks with some great people.  People like the late Dave Clift, the Hagars, the Holmboes, the Blasckes, the Tacketts, the Millers and many, many others whose names escape me.  All of them very, very helpful to the fat guy who at the time had more money than sense.  These days I have little of either.  Dave Clift, always generous with his time said something at my first race that stuck with me over the year.  ”You’ll never run at the front.  You’re too big.  That’s just the way it’s going to be.  You will though find people to race in the middle and the back of the pack and have fun doing it.”  He was a great guy, we lost him far too early. Even armed with the knowledge that I was going to perma-suck I endevored to get all the seat time, training and every little wiz bang item for the kart I could find.  I was addicted to racing.  Still am.

After the dot com cratered I returned to touring.  It took me a few years to decide I was far too old to be a touring big time show business roadie.  Touring is a young mans game.  After 26 years (save for the 30 months of the dot com) traveling the world working with who you’ve been listening to on the radio for the last 30 years or on MTV for the last 20, I knew it was time to stop.  Past time to stop.  I was having health issues from abusing my body during my younger years and had recently been diagnosed with a couple that were chronic and severe.  I had a couple of choices. I could continue consulting with manufacturers on making high end pro audio gear and selling it, something many old sound roadies do.  I could go back to managing touring audio vendors, something I’d done quite a bit or I could remain in the creative side and move to the boom town of Vegas where there was a shortage of gray beards with mad skills and were needed to teach these young turk how this sort of thing is done on a large scale way.  I decided that I wanted to keep mixing shows, so off to Vegas I went where now I mix one of the largest, most technically elaborate shows known to mankind.   

Due to the expense of the dot com cratering, me returning to touring, only in town (or even in the country) for only weeks at a time a few times a year, I shelved karting for a couple of years competing in only a few races.  One benefit to moving down here was an active road race club, a good local track in Xplex and not too far away Moran.  Just before I moved SCK went belly up and stopped promoting races.  A few months after I got here and before I had my karts brought down Xplex closed.  That’s OK, I still had Moran, my favorite sprint track and Grange, a track I like a bunch.  Then Moran closed last year.   And with that, I have less karting available than I did when I was in the Northwest.  Goddamnsonofabitchmotherfucker.   There is always Grange though I don’t know how many more times my kidneys can take the last mile or two of dirt road leading to the track.  Maybe I should see if Robby will build me a vest specifically for that road or at the very least loan me one of the models to make the ride a bit more enjoyable.

All that background to say…

My first race was in the day, but it wasn’t yesterday.  I do drive to the track in a truck, but it’s not a turnip truck.  I have industrial sized cans of both shit and Shinola and well know the difference.  Just because someone is slow, it doesn’t mean they don’t have a clue.  I didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to spend five or six grand on one race as a whim.  It was a calculated move, the result of about a year of preparation and planning.  And finishing 33rd, getting pulled after six laps was the best you could do?  YOU SUCK!  Yep, I’m not that good.  I’m fine with that but it seems some others in cyberspace aren’t.  Bummer for them.  I’m safe and have an on track demeanor and etiquette that plenty of you faster guys should use as an example.

About a year ago, after being back in the kart on a regular basis I knew that I needed some help with fitness.  I was down around 285, or about 15 lbs lighter than when I was road racing but still without much stamina and greatly fatiqued in very short distances.  For a few months I tried to work out on my own at the little gym in the complex but it wasn’t working.  After a couple of conversations with Jim Leo at Pit Fit I signed up and started working on getting into shape.  Not so much for karting as it was to do something that all of the men in our family with the exception of my dad couldn’t do.  Make it past 60 years old.  That’s just over 10 years away for me.  In the resulting year, I’ve lost 35 lbs, gained a bunch of strength, agility and flexibility.  Lowered my BP and cholesterol to safe levels and generally feel better.  I can do a 6 1/2 minute mile and swim 2000 meters at a time.  A typical week would have me doing 15-20 miles of cross training, 2000-3000 meters of swimming, a couple hours reaction and flexibility training and two or three one hour upper body workouts for muscle strength and flexibility.  And it only took two trainers, a dietician, my primary care MD, my internist, my cardiologist (the docs are three of the best in the Las Vegas valley) and a membership to the Las Vegas Athletic Club to pull it all off.  These days a half hour in a kart or race car is easy.  Barely winded.

I suppose the irony is that something so dangerous could be used to motivate someone to do something that will prolong their life.

Steve Buckner, Race Director for the National Guard Supernationals (or someone posting as him) was kind enough to post this as a public comment in a previous post to which I gladly respond.

DAVE, I would like to know if you were in top 5 would you like to pass a guy that is 5.5 seconds a lap off the pace in the supernats. I have seen to many wrecks from drivers that are being passed. I understand your point that drivers should pass safely, but open wheel karts its not that simple. I am sorry you had issues with wrist bands,ass wipe,lighting, flagging,how tom asked everyone to sit down,and who knows what else you can think of. I hope all the people who put there life on the line for you next year will live up to your expectations. I will take your comments and all other comments good or bad and try to make things better for everyone.

I don’t really know where to start, but I’ll jump in anyway.  First, I was about six seconds off the pace.  If I’m that slow (which I was) and they can’t safely get around me that says more about their race ability (or lack therof) than it does about mine.  No excuses.  My size (6-4 255 lbs), my lack of ability on a sprint track and the fact that someone totaled my sweet rental ride arriving about 30 seconds after a track blocking incident and was not parked following that incident were factors.  Where were you when that guy barreled into me under yellow at race speed?  My goal was to be three secs off the pace and remain at the tail of the lead lap but that didn’t happen.  Regardless, you guys readily took my US$836 for entry, tires and fuel.  Had I not rented the ride it would have been another couple hundred for a 10×40 pit space.  

Let’s do some math, shall we?  Let’s say US$836 for 420 entries.  That’s US$351,120 gross potential.  I’m sure there are many expenses with the venue.  I can say with certainty that I’ve worked at the Rio far more often than you (or any SKUSA principal) and know full well what the costs are associated with putting on an event at that venue.  The last one I did there for a major fast food franchise was well into the millions.  Now let’s add another couple hundred grand for pit spaces.  Call it a cool half mil gross potential before the Guard, Oakley and the others forked any cash.  I don’t think Tom is getting rich from the gig but it definitely pays for itself, plus a little more.  It’s all about the risk/reward. And good for them. 

Back to the black flag rule…

Let’s say that those of us that are lapped decide to shoot you guys the collective bird and not attend.  In reality, that won’t happen as there is more demand than available spaces but humor me.  Let’s say around the 40% of us that got the flag chose not to come back.  Could you make that up in pent up demand?  Could you do it more than a few years in a row?  Remember, Jim got all cocky and look what happened.  For those doing the math at home that would be a reduction in entry, tire and fuel revenue of around 40% or to about US$210,672 gross potential.  Could you guys still do the gig and be profitable?  I don’t know, it’s got to cost you a couple hundred K at least to throw that shindig.  My point?  Racers that are getting lapped make it possible for you guys to have the event.

Let’s touch on the flaggers “put their life on the line” so I can race and in the process feed a profit making enterprise.   Do you really think that’s more dangerous than going from 78 to 30 at the braking point of the bus stop with no room once you commit?   I’m not discounting the importance or danger of manning a corner stations.  Seems to me more racers went to the hospital than corner workers.  I don’t recall any ambulance rolls for corner workers though I could have missed it.  Let’s get a reality check, it’s karting after all.  Not Cup or even trucks.  Except for the anointed few, no one is making any money on this.  But you guys are.  I’ve raced at some of the most storied road circuits in North America.  Are you saying your corner crews are as good at those crews?  With all due respect to your crew, some of them have no business out there.  You may think that my race ability and pace are lacking or I have no business out there but I met the requirements and paid my money.  When statements are made about how hard they work for so little money it says more to me about your business model than it does enabling me to give you guys a grand to let me drive my go kart around the bumpy parking lot of an off Strip casino.  I look at our relationship no differently than I do my relationship with 7-11 when I want a Slurpee.  You have a product or service I want, I have money and desire and pay you for that service.  If I don’t like the Slurpee flavors, I might go get an Icee.  Or maybe a Slush Puppy.

If I were in the top five, would I want to encounter lapped traffic?  I have been in that position but only a few times in thousands of miles of kart racing over about 8 years.  You see, I’m not very good and do this for fun and relaxation.  Obviously, you weren’t paying attention to my on track behavior  and ability to race when being lapped.  Lapped traffic is part of racing.  If the lappers can’t hang, you park them.  One issue I noticed last week was the lack of enforcement of basic racing faux paux.  It took an overly amped dad assaulting a corner worker (unacceptable under any circumstance) for you guys to do anything.  And why isn’t the karting “media” reporting that incident?

Maybe I’m jaded for being in big time show biz for the last three decades or maybe the allure of racing at a casino in Vegas escapes me.  I can, however, say that I enjoyed the track and for most parts the event.  If you (or others) are so defensive you can’t see the sarcasm or humor in my posts, well, that’s on you buddy, not me.