May 23, 2009

Jack started the Tiger Sprint Heat race from the third position. He took over second spot on lap one and began to chase down TJ. Justin nearly lost it coming off turn four early in the race but held on to maintain speed. Jack set up a nice pass on TJ coming out of turn four to take over the lead spot on lap 5. Justin then took over the second spot from TJ causing TJ to loop it in turn 2. Caution flew with 6 to go. Jack took them to the green and led them to the checkers for the heat win. Jack led every lap of the feature race. The boys spread out pretty quickly and pretty evenly making it easy for them to just ride around and not get into any trouble. Jack laid down one of the fastest laps of the season at 9.365.
In the Jr Sportsman Champ Heat Race, the inside line of Zompanti, Bleau and Duhaime somehow took each other out as they were coming around to take the green before the start of the race. They lined them all back in single file to start the race. Jack started in second spot. Barry took Duhaime with him around Jack going into turn 3 and then TJ and Jack split Cody coming out of turn two. Barry looped it on turn 4 on the next lap bringing out the caution. Jack stayed on the lead lap to finish the heat race in fourth.
This was one of Jack's best feature races so far this season in the Jr Sportsman Champ. Jack managed to hang with the top three cars for the first half of the race before falling off the pace. Jack made a nice clean pass on the lapped car of Cody Zompanti and finished the race on the lead lap in the fourth position.

May 30, 2009 - SNL Race # 1

This was the first race in the new "Saturday Night Live" Series at Route 106 Race Park. This is a 5 race non-points money series. Jack and the crew decided to try it out in the Tiger Sprint. The weekend started just like any other, only an hour and a half later...Jack went out for first practice and put down some pretty good laps along with the 7 other Tigers racing for the night. We decided to skip the second practice since this was to be a longer race than Jack was used to. Instead of a qualifying race they did Time trials. Jack usually does pretty good with time trials so we weren't too worried about it. Jack had quite a big bauble on the first lap and took it real close to the wall on the front stretch which made him have to get after it on lap two if he wanted to rip off a decent time. Jack ended up with a second place starting position behind the 95 of Josh Gayman.

Jack started outside poll for the feature. He easily slid in behind Josh going in to turn 1. Jack lost the position when Devin O'Connell drove under him on lap two. Jack took the spot back on lap 4 and rode it out until the caution flew on lap eleven when Trevor Bleau went around on the backstretch. The single file restart saw Jack in second place. Jack took the lead going into turn four on the restart but the caution flew for a spun car in turn 2. Jack took the green in second again on the restart and assumed the lead coming out of turn 4 on lap 12. Jack went too high through turn three and Josh drove underneath pulling Devin with him. The front three went three wide through turns 1 and 2 with Jack on the outside. Jack got shuffled back to fourth behind Gayman, O'Connell and Daniel Wesson, trying to stay off the backstretch wall. On lap 16 Jack made the pass on Wesson on the backstretch to take over the third spot. The 29 attempted a pass on Jack in turn three of lap 18 but did not have the position and spun them both out. The two of them landed in turn 4 where the 09 of JP Brennan came around the corner and slammed into the side of the 29 taking himself out of the race and off the track. Starting 6th on the restart Jack had a lot of ground to make up and a short time to get there. On lap 19 the 29 went in to turn 2 attempting to drive under Jack but again did not have the position and managed to hook his wheel into Jack's left side nerf bar. The two of them drove a lap and a half hooked together before being stopped under caution. After getting the two apart Jack restarted the race in last place. Jack took the 6th position a lap into the restart. Jack took the 5th spot with 9 laps to go but had about a 1/4 track to go to catch 4th. With 5 laps to go he was a straight away behind. He ended the race in 5th place coming out of turn 4 as the leaders crossed the finish line. Hopefully we'll have better luck next time...

May 16, 2009

Today was a longer day than usual with the makeup races from the previous week. Jack started the Tiger Heat in second spot behind TJ. Jack stayed right with TJ for the first half of the race looking to make a pass when he finally got the chance just before half way. TJ and Justin battled it out behind Jack and got together on the back stretch but maintained momentum to keep the race caution free. Jack stretched his lead as TJ and Justin battled for second spot and took the heat race win.
The Tiger Feature began with Jack in the pole position. After an initial "no start" Jack took them around the trak in the lead position. The boys ran the race in single file with Jack at the lead followed closely by Barry and then Bleau. About a kart length separated each of them for the beginning poriton of the race. TJ began battling Justin for the second spot which allowed Jack to lengthen his lead over the two. About half way Justin started closing in on Jack and TJ started to fall off. It was looking like this would be a race to the finish! The distance between them leveled off with about 8 to go and they rode around for the remainder of the race with Jack taking the win over Justin.

The Jr Sportsman heat started with Jack in second spot. Jack got a huge run coming out of turn four to take the lead but was easily passed by Barry crossing the stripe for lap one. Duhaime then passed Jack on lap two. Jack and TJ battled it out for quite a few laps each gunning for the third position. Jack pulled ahead of TJ when the two of them came upon the lapped kart of Cody Zompanti. TJ finally grabbed the spot from Jack with two to go causing Jack to finish the heat race in fourth spot.
The Jr Sportsman Feature saw Jack in 4th spot. Taking the green flag Barry got turned by Duhaime causing a single file restart. With Jack single file from the fourth position he had all he could do to maintain the lead lap. Jack made a nice clean pass on the lapped kart of Cody Zompanti. With about 4 laps to go the pack caught up to him putting him a lap down. With one to go they came out of turn four in a pack and caught Zompanti for a second time. Jack spun the kart trying to avoid crashing into Barry but saved it enough to keep the green flag flying. The race ended with Jack in fourth just getting back up to speed...