STILL GOING...

Mason raced this past Saturday at Arthur Raceway.  He ran both the purple plate alcohol and gold plate classes.  This was the first race day for the chase toward the championships.  Due to Arthur changing the race schedule, we will be missing the race that is scheduled for Sept. 22 since we will be at the Burris Thunder Tour, therefore, Mason is pretty much out of contention for a championship this year.  We are still waiting for the points to get straightened around for the Burris Thunder Tour as well.  As it stands right now, he is sitting in 5th place on the tour.  This year is really testing us as we have be faced with many challenges from vehicle troubles while on tour, chassis and setup troubles, engine and exhaust issues to points and scheduling errors.  As frustrating as it all is, we are still going...

Mason finished 4th in the purple plate alcohol class.  He had a handful with his kart and the track conditions. Track officials have tried and tried to get the track to come back to what is normally a very nice track with lots of grip.  It's been a very difficult track to race on for the past couple of races.  During the feature, Mason  was in a pretty rough wreck.  A couple of karts spun out in front on him and he ended up t-boning one of the karts.  Mason slumped is his seat, leaving people to think he was knocked out.  He wasn't and thankfully he just hurt his knee on the steering shaft.  He was in tears after the wreck but insisted on continuing the race.  He even kept going and raced the feature in the gold plate class.  He and another racer competed for 2nd position through the entire race and ultimately, Mason finished 2nd.  He showed great dedication and perseverance once again.

ROUND 4 BURRIS THUNDER TOUR

I am actually laying in bed typing this post.  I am pooped.  This traveling is really taking a toll on us.  The trip went fairly uneventful, only one minor hiccup on the way down to Covington, IN.  Good 'ol State cops sitting in the pouring rain on the freeway making drivers uneasy and brake checking.  Things came to a stop really quickly in front of us and our rig isn't the smallest to get slowed down in a hurry.  Thank goodness for the median.  The good news is no one was hurt and our hearts all seem to work really well.  Once we got through Michigan, the weather changed and was beautiful.  It was the weather we had been hoping for.  Every race so far has been high 90 degrees and scorching but this time it was low 80s and sunny.  We went in to the race with good weather, a new set of tires and a good attitude.  None of it really helped with our race results, however.  Mason timed in his usual position for the series and no matter what adjustments we made, nothing seemed to help him gain.  He looked great on the track and the kart handled wonderfully, he just flat our didn't have any speed.  Mase tried and tried and after all said and done, ended up with an 8th place finish, his worst yet of the series.  He was a bit upset but we assured him that he drove great and did what he could.  All in all, once again, he made us proud and we know that our son has one of the best sportsman-like attitudes on the track, many of which can't say the same.

I need to go check our lottery tickets...

CAN YOU SAY "DEDICATION"?

I am a few races behind on my blogs.  I apologize for not getting them together sooner.  Finding spare time to blog isn’t an easy task.   This particular post is probably going to be pretty bland since the details aren’t fresh in my head.

Saturday, July 7, 2012:  Mason actually won the gold plate class at Arthur Raceway.  It was such a relief after working so hard on the setup to finally get him back to the front of the pack.   He ended up placing second in the purple plate class.

Friday, July 13, 2012:  Earlier in the week, Rick asked Mason how he felt about going back to Owosso to race.  Mason responded with “as long as I don’t lose another tire this time”.  So we headed out to the track for only our second time ever.  Mason made a lap and ½ of practice, when one of his wheels flew off.  I was stunned.  What are the chances of us only racing that particular track two times and both times, losing a wheel?  I was ready to pack up and head home.  Truth is though that it wasn’t any fault of ours this time that he lost a wheel.  I had purchased a used set of wheels and tires off of a karting forum and we were scammed big time.  They were complete junk and I totally got taken on them.  The rims were just trashed and didn’t even match.  We fixed the studs in the hub and got him back out on the track.  Mason came in third place. 

Friday, July 20, 2012:  We woke up early and took off headed for Cerro Gordo, IL.  It was supposed to be about an 8 hour trip.  Trenton decided to stay home with grandma and visit a buddy rather than go with us this trip.  So, Rick, my dad, Mason and I were chatting along in the truck when we got about 2 hours away, just on the other side of Lansing, when the truck just completely died.  Rick got us off onto the shoulder of I-69.  We waited for it to cool down and tried and tried to get it to fire but it wouldn’t.  I made call after call to repair shops in the area to see if they could even get us in if we were able to get it started.  Finally, one shop agreed to tow us and the trailer to another diesel shop to have the truck checked out.  So after waiting another hour or so, two tow trucks showed up; one to tow our truck and one to tow the trailer. The diesel mechanic checked out our truck for about an hour and a half only for it to fire up and not find any solid problems.  At that point we at least needed to get home.  We elected to leave the trailer over there while we took our chances on limping the truck back home.   I guess Rick decided to put the truck to more of a workout and we ended up driving an extra 120 miles out of our way.  Actually Rick just missed his exit and didn’t realize it for like an hour.  So we backtracked.  Between Rick, my dad and I we had the cellular towers burning up trying to find a vehicle to use to get us back on track to go racing.  We weren’t ready to give up on the trip just yet.  At this time Mason was only 4 points out of 4^th place for the series.  If we missed this race, we knew we would never be able to catch up and might as well call it quits at that point.  So we called and called and after no luck we finally decided to attempt to take my dad’s truck on the adventure.  About 30 minutes from my dad’s house, we realized that his truck didn’t have the correct trailer plug on it to even be able to hook the trailer up to it.  As we sat at my dad’s house trying to decided what to do (we at least had to get back to get the trailer), my mother showed up with her Trailblazer.  Mason took a look at the trailer plug and said “grandma’s truck has the right plug”.  We all pretty much looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders and piled in.  It was a really sketchy ride and we could only do about 60 mph but we eventually showed up to the track at 3:00AM Saturday morning.  Just a little bit longer that our original destination time of 4:00PM Friday afternoon.  (Note:  during this time we also had a 30 minute detour trying to find a gas station at one point in the middle of nowhere.  I swear we were probably running on fumes.  Rick was pretty relieved when we found one and I have to say, I truly thought I was going to throw up.)  Talk about an emotional roller coaster we went on during this trip.  We kept asking ourselves, “At what point do we just give up?  Is there some higher power that it trying to keep us from this race?”  When we arrived, we all climbed into the trailer where Rick and my dad slept on their gravity chairs and Mason and I slept on the bench in the trailer.  A few hours later, we were up and being greeted by our fellow racers.  As usual, the racing was hard.  Mason was running pretty much in 10 place for the practices and time qualifications.  We tried this and tried that, only to come up with the conclusion that we just couldn’t find any speed.   These races are so hard to tune in because there is so much time in between that the track conditions change every time Mason is out on a run.  Finally come feature time, Mason went out and looked good.  I was so nervous and uneasy.  I just kept pacing the dirt thinking about all we went through to get to that race.  I just had a bad feeling that I couldn’t shake.  During the race there we a couple cautions and they had to restart the race a couple of times.  The officials left the lapped two karts in the middle of the pack which just so happened to be right in front of Mason by one kart.  This just meant Mason had to work that much harder to get around these karts that weren’t even technically on the lead lap.  Well, he eventually made it around the kids in front of him and the lapped traffic.  He ended up taking the checkered flag in 5th place out of 14.  We were ecstatic!   Even though at this point, I would have been happy with a last place finish, as long as my baby wasn’t hurt, it felt great to get that 5th place finish.  We are so proud of Mason and the way he pulled himself together after such a bad start to the trip and such a long day of struggle.    We ended up sleeping another night in the trailer and woke up early Sunday for the long agonizing trip home.  The trip home went very smoothly.  We walked in the door and… no power!  Really?!?  Lol.  Ultimately, I have come to the conclusion that the lesson we were supposed to learn on this trip was that we can do anything we put our minds to.  When you have to work hard for what you want, it means so much more that if it were to just come easy.  Dream Big…Work Hard.