After over a month of preparations, we left home Thursday afternoon at 4:00pm. We stayed the night in Lexington, Ky and were back on the road again by 7:00am. The drive was fairly uneventful until we got a measly 70 miles from our destination. Rick looked in his mirror and noticed the tire on our trailer was sticking out past the wheel well. He quickly pulled over and accessed the situation. The bearing was gone on the front axle assembly. Luckly, it is a two axle trailer and we were able to limp it to an auto repair shop called Heatherly Brothers in Pelzer, SC that I managed to contact after trying to figure out where we were actually at (thank goodness for smartphones). Upon investigation, the repair shop told us that they couldn’t help us with our trailer. They were nice enough to send us to a trailer repair/sales facility, TNJ Trailers in Pelzer, SC. We arrived and they got the trailer in after a short wait. He wasn’t sure to begin with if it could be repaired and I found myself looking at the trailers he had for sale, anticipating a purchase would soon need to be made. The owner was very knowledgeable and was able to repair our trailer. He told us that was only the 2nd time in twenty plus years that he was ever able to repair what had actually happened without having to replace the entire axle assembly (which he wouldn’t have had if we did need it).
We finally arrived at the track around 2:00pm. We unloaded and spoke with some people when we were told that Mason would probably be running a 21-22 tooth driver at this track. The largest driver we brought with us was an 18, which we thought would be plenty big enough. (A driver is the gear that goes into the clutch.) We made it through tech and purchased our purple plate and attached the transponder as required. Rick went to the parts trailer and attempted to purchase the driver we needed for our clutch, only to be informed that they run a different clutch down south than most of us run in the North. After digging through his parts, the man at the parts truck stumbled across a 21 driver for our particular clutch. We thought we caught a break again until Mason went out for practice and instantly, we knew we were in trouble. The engine didn’t make nearly the RPMs it should have, therefore, Mason didn’t have the speed he needed to be competitive. After much deliberation, Rick attempted another driver/sprocket set up.
This track was so big that the karts had to draft and looked like they were running the Daytona 500 out there. The adults were running 85+ MPH. The racing consisted of two very short practice sessions, a 4 lap qualifying run and the feature race. There wasn’t much time to try different options. At these big events, the races are run different that we are used to. Once the leader starts to near the back of the pack, the slower karts are flagged to exit the race. Friday night, Mason ran the Purple Plate Heavy class and after several laps he was flagged to exit the track. Once he climbed out of the kart, he was quite disappointed about it but he was able to maintain his composure and I am very proud of him for being able to do so. There were a lot of kids down there that didn’t handle themselves very well at all, be it sad or mad. We aren’t really sure what place Mason finished but we will know shortly once they figure the results and post them. When all was said and done, we ended up being short the driver/sprocket combination that was needed for this track to get the engine to top speed and there was absolutely nothing we could do about it.
We returned Saturday knowing that we didn’t have much of a shot but we stuck it out and he went on to race his other two races. Mason looked great and drove nice and smooth like he always does. The kart was handling great. Especially considering we haven’t had any experience with prepping tires before. The first race of the day was the Purple Plate Lite class and he ended up being flagged off the track. The last race he ran was the Purple Plate Pro class and the way the cautions cycled, he ended up staying out on the track for the entire race. Mason had his first experience with drafting during this race and thought it was pretty fun. A couple of times, there were karts that spun out and had to go to the rear of the pack and ended up behind Mason, pushing him. Once again, we aren’t sure of the exact position he ended up with but we do know it wasn’t dead last.
After thinking back and breaking the weekend down, we don’t necessarily have any regrets. It was pretty stressful upon arrival and several times we made comments about packing up and heading home. We stuck it out though and I’m glad we did. This was a tremendous feat for us even though we would have liked to have run better. To have been able to go out there and know that we were just out of the running because of gearing is pretty darn good if you ask me. Especially when you take the following into consideration:
A. We were up against teams with $250,000 motor homes and $50,000 trailers and hundreds of brand new tires, multiple karts and chassis setups and all the knowledge money can buy.
B. This was Mason’s first time at this track, most of the other kids have run at Possum Kingdom before.
C. This was Mason’s first time in the kart since the end of last season. Most of the competition was from the South where they can run all year long.
D. We don’t have any experience with tire prepping at all. We were learning as we went.
E. There were kids that didn’t even get as far as we did due to equipment failure. Our equipment is all still in good shape and we didn’t have any mechanical catastrophes.
All in all, we are thankful for the experience and happy to be home.
