"It's good to be back" ???

As we pulled up to Arthur Raceway this past Saturday the first words out of Mason's mouth were "It's good to be back".  Little did he know what the night was going to bring.  During practice he looked really sketchy.  He wasn't running very good lines and having so much experience at this track, Rick and I were a bit confused as to his thinking.  Well Rick had some words with him that ultimately led to a not so great outcome.  Mason has a tendency to pick and choose which words he hears during a conversation and this was certainly one of those times.  He was told by his dad not to pass on the inside, needless to say, there was more to the conversation but none of that translated.  I guess, he is only 9; small attention span.  Anyway, come feature time, he ran in second place during the purple plate alcohol class and ultimately that is where he finished.  (He should have attempted to pass but didn't want to get in trouble.)  The kart looked fairly good.  It could always be better but we put more focus and attention on the gold plate kart because that's the one we are struggling with so badly at Arthur.  The race started pretty poorly for him as he seemed to keep going backwards in the lineup.  Mason finished in 2nd, however, was awarded with 3rd place.  I'm not going to try to sugar coat it, Mason truly was a 3rd place kart, but the way the race played out, he should have took 2nd place.  On the final lap, Mason was running in 3rd place.  He and the 2nd place kart approached a lapped kart and each took a different route to go around.  Mason took the inside and Hunter #22, took the outside.  Mason made it by the lapped kart but Hunter didn't and they spun off to cause a caution.  In the meantime, Raven #33 took the checkered flag and Mason followed, also taking the checkered flag.  After deliberation by the officials, they somehow came up with the call of freezing the field to the last completed lap, where Mason was running in 3rd position and Hunter in 2nd.  In my opinion, this was a really bad call.  I'm not saying that Hunter didn't deserve 2nd place, because that boy raced his heart out Saturday night.  Hunter is a great driver and a super nice kid.  Just as we were a 3rd place kart all night, he was a 2nd place kart but the way the race played out, Mason clearly should have been awarded the 2nd place.  I was pretty upset and once again had to calm myself down.  What's done is done and there's no going back.  I will admit though that I do agree with Mason, it was nice to be back at our local track and see familiar faces.  The kids at Arthur are all great kids and really good drivers.  They are really polite and courteous  to one another off and on the track.  I get a kick out of seeing all of them improve their skills as drivers.  We have a couple more Saturdays (not this coming Saturday though) of racing at Arthur before we go back out to the Burris Tour, hopefully we can pull ourselves together.  Ultimately, we wouldn't have to worry about shady calls if we were running in the front.  :) 

Here is the video, you can make your own conclusions...

Arthur Raceway Gold Plate Feature 6/23/2012

Here's his first feature race of the night...
Arthur Raceway Purple Plate Alcohol Feature 6/23/2012

Don't forget...Rick is racing in the North Branch Bump-N-Run this coming Saturday, June 30th.  The car's ready to go, as long as Rick doesn't blow it up racing it around the field first.

BACK FROM ILLINOIS - Round 2 Burris Thunder Tour

First of all I just want to comment on how we must be getting pretty popular.  My blog has received the most page views ever today and I haven't even created a blog about this past weekend yet!  Either that or we have a stalker.  Lol.  And before I begin, I just want to take a minute to recognize all of our sponsors, especially Dietrich's Collision in Imlay City (810-724-8540) and our silent contributor (you know who you are) for making funds available for us to make this particular trip possible and continue to race this season.  We truly appreciate your support.

Dietrich's Collision, Imlay City, MI  810-724-8540

T.G. Priehs Paving Co., Dryden, MI 810-796-2600

DieTech Tool & Mfg., Imlay City, MI  810-724-0505

Don's Auto Repair, Imlay City, MI  810-724-3147

United Automotive, Imlay City, MI  810-724-6174

Our trip to Illinois for the second round of the Burris Thunder Tour was pretty productive.  The travel went great with us leaving Friday morning, arriving at Cole's County Speedway around 6:00 pm, EST.  It took us a couple of hours to realize we changed time zones and were actually an hour behind now in CST.  We made camp pretty quickly, checked out the track and pit area and settled in to watch the Friday night racing.  Luck must have been on our side though as the very nice, intelligent and talented guys we pitted next to at the previous race in Indiana at Ben Hur ended up pitting right next to us again.  I can't say enough good things about these two guys.  The driver is Jeremy Howe #48 and races in the Sr. Champ class and is an incredible driver.  His buddy and mechanic, for lack of a better word, is Don and he is literally a walking dictionary when it comes to everything karting.  They were incredible and helped us so much throughout Saturday's racing.  The day was extremely hot and the track was pretty tough.  There really isn't too much to say about how the practices and qualifying went.  Mason was consistently running mid pack throughout the day.  It just appeared as though he was glued to the track.  The engine seemed to run really good and we were getting the correct RPM's out of it.  Rick and I (more Rick) have been pounding the Internet and karting books trying to pick up any amount of knowledge and tips we could possibly use to help Mason gain speed.  After Don checked out the kart and informed us of some changes we needed to make, we went out for the feature.  Mason had some tough moments during the race and he wasn't looking all that great.  About half way through the race though he seemed to gain speed by running a few really good laps with clean lines and he positioned himself in 4th place.  After running a couple of laps in 4th a caution flag was thrown.  They attempted to line the kids up correctly several times and they never did get the line up right.  Mason was restarted in 6th place.  As you can imagine, I was livid.  Ultimately, Mason finished in 5th place out of 10 karts.  He was quite upset when he came off the track, knowing full well that he was not put back in the correct position.  We assured him that it was no fault of his and that he did everything right.  I made the decision to allow myself to cool down and not make a big deal out of the mistake.  I had to keep telling myself what's done is done and there isn't anything we can do to change it.  I will admit though that when I saw the tears on Mason's cheeks as he pulled off his helmet, mama was ready to pounce.  We won't let it get us down and we aren't going to quit.  Those that know our family and how we operate, know that we take these setbacks and use them as fuel to drive our determination to be successful.  Quitting isn't an option and we will keep going, dreaming big and working hard, knowing that our persistence and determination will ultimately pay off in the end.


As an additional note, related to my first comments of becoming popular (I mentioned this on Facebook but forgot to mention it in my blog)...
When we went out to Owosso to race a couple of weeks ago, an older gentleman came up to us and asked "Is this Racin' Mason?"  We had no idea who this man was.  We replied with "Yes it is!"  He proceeded to tell us he was a fan and it turns out he had been voting for Mason everyday to win the "Search for a Champion" contest that I had him entered into.  He was randomly reviewing the entries and found that Mason was local and liked his video so he continued to vote for him.  Pretty cool, huh?

TRY, TRY AGAIN

Well, this Friday we will be heading out to IL to run our second race of the Burris Thunder Series.  We feel good about our program at this point and are looking forward to the challenge.  There are so many different directions we could go with the racing but it's difficult to decide which one to take.  We are giving up points at our local track every time we miss a race there but in our minds, it makes more sense to try different things while time and money allow.   We learn something new from every race we go to. 

"You can never cross the ocean

unless you have the courage to

lose sight of the shore."

                                                                                             Mahatma Gandhi, India Spiritual Leader