BACK ON TRACK?!?

Saturday, May 26th we went for the first time to Owosso Kart Speedway to race.  Mason ran in the Purple Plate Clone class.  There were 4 other kids registered.  Everyone was so nice and the track was nice with large pit areas.  When the kids weren't racing, they were all playing ball in the center of the pit area.  We were really impressed.  We really wanted to check the track out because it's slightly larger than our regular track, Arthur Raceway in Reese.  I know, I know, you want to know how he did, right?  He went out for a couple practice sessions and he looked pretty good.  During the second practice, however, he had to exit the track early because his body was falling apart in the front right.  Of course it's nothing a little (or a lot) of duck tape can't fix.  So we made some adjustments and he was ready for the first heat.  He started on the pole since he drew the lowest number for his position.  He went out and ran his little heart out, winning the race.  We made a couple more adjustments and changed tires hoping to be even faster and he went out for the second heat.  Unfortunately, he ended up with a 3rd place finish as our adjustments didn't seem to do any good.  I changed his tires back to the first ones we were running and Rick made even more adjustments to get him ready for the Feature.  He started the race in 2nd place.  He looked good and was running strong when another driver tried to pass him where there wasn't really room to pass.  They both spun and Mason took a big hit.  They lined the drivers back up again and they took off.  Mason was running in second place with just a couple of laps to go when a tire went shooting across the track.  From my stand point, it was hard to see whose kart it came off of as they all kept racing.  I quickly realized it was Mason's kart that lost the wheel.  So, needless to say, he didn't finish the race.  He very likely would have took second place but that's not going to happen on 3 wheels.  It appears that the damage may have been caused from the wreck he was involved in or by some fluke thing, the lug nuts started to back off of two of the wheel studs.  Either way, we have to replace a wheel stud and possibly get a new rim.  Mason took losing the tire pretty hard and was crying when he came off the track.  We assured him there was nothing we could do and that he did a great job driving at this track, especially being his very first time.  He actually had some pretty big fears of this track too.  The very first time we visited the track, just as spectators, there was a kid that crashed badly right in front of the grandstands we were sitting in.  Come Saturday morning, Mason flat out told me he didn't want to go to Owosso and didn't want to race there.  We talked it out and I explained to him that there are dangers in every track and that he has raced on much more dangerous places than Owosso.  I reassured him that he is a good driver and he knows what he's doing and how to control the kart.  We are very proud of him and all in all, accomplished what we set out to do.