7-7-7 Burris Thunder Tour Race #1, 2013

7-7-7

Luck is on our side.  The first Burris Thunder Tour race is now behind us.  We are completely exhausted but had a good time.  We left home at 8:30 AM Friday morning and arrived at Ben Hur Speedway in Crawfordsville, IN at 2:30 PM.  Mason ran the Jr 1 Flathead class Friday evening.  He qualified in 12^th position out of 22 karts in the class.  He was a bit timid the first couple times on the track.  Ben Hur is a tough track to drive and they refer to it as “The Fastest Kart Track in the State Of Indiana”.  Mason quickly got it figured out and was able to get the Freight Train up to 7^th place when he took the checkered flag.  Due to a kart not passing tech after the race, Mason was bumped up to 6^th place for the official results.

Saturday’s races consisted of another Jr 1 Flathead and the Jr 1 Pro classes.  Practice started for the day at 2:30 PM and Mason ran his very last race at 2:00 AM.  He qualified in 7^th position for the Jr 1 Flathead feature.  He felt good going into the race and was excited to have the inside line to start.  All 21 karts began the race double file.  After several times of the leader jumping the start, they decided to make them start single file.  We don’t understand this concept.  The leader controls and sets the speed for the pace lap.  Since he failed to do this and kept jumping the start, does it make sense to make the rest of the field start single file, essentially awarding him for his actions?  No, it doesn’t and it wasn’t fair to the rest of the kids.  After a lap or two, the leader changed and a caution came out and they had the same problem again with the leader jumping the start but they allowed him to keep do it.  In our opinion, those kids should have been put to the rear of the field.  They may have actually got in a whole 3-4 laps worth of racing due to the trouble they had with the start and restarts.  After 20 minutes, they called the race and scored it where everyone sat with Mason in 7th.  It was very frustrating to watch.  Many parents were quite angry and very vocal about it.  We feel so bad for Mason and the other kids that didn’t do anything wrong.  We are confident he could have gained a couple more positions if they would have had a chance to actually race.  The reason we ran on Friday was to prepare and get a feel for the track for Saturday’s races and the race was a complete mess.  Unfortunately, what we are expecting to possibly happen for the future races is limit the number of drivers going into the features.  That means not all kids will be guaranteed to race at these events and they will have to race their way into the feature.  This is just speculation on our part but all we do know is that we spend too much time, money and effort for a race to end like the Jr 1 Flathead did. 

Mason didn’t qualify quite as well for the Jr 1 Pro class, with a 16^th place start.  We tried a little something different with the tires and gearing and it wasn’t to our advantage.  The feature race for the Jr 1 Pro class ran at 2:00 AM.  It didn’t take long to decide to start them single file once again.  There were a total of 25 kids in the feature race.  Mason drove from 16^th all the way to 5^th.  At one point, he drove into turns 3 and 4 too hard, got into some soft dirt and lost a few positions.  Before the race ended, he made up one more position and ended with another 7^th.  He was exhausted and went back to the trailer and fell asleep in no time.  

It was a good time and we are very fortunate to be able to spend time as a family racing.  It’s also really nice to meet new people and make new friends in the process.  This was really our first real chance to work with our new tire specialist, Eric Askren, Xcel Cuts and we think it’s going to be a great relationship.  He sure knows what he’s doing and is a super nice guy.  We are very lucky to have the opportunity to be part of the Xcel Cuts team.  We are taking Mason’s 7-7-7 finishes as a sign that there are good things to come!

Special thanks to our 2013 sponsors...  Dietrich's Collision, Imlay City; Dietech Tool & Mfg., Imlay City; Don's Auto Repair, Imlay City.