August 1, 2009

Coming off of such a high that was last week's racing event, we had extremely high hopes for this week. We spent a lot of time preparing the kart for the race and knew that the kart was fast. We were trying out a couple of new things and needed to use the practice sessions to see how they took. Practice was OK. We stayed far enough away from the other karts that we wouldn't risk getting wrecked if any of the changes didn't work out the way we wanted them to but still were able to maintain a decent speed to really see what the kart was capable of. Now it was all up to Jack.
For the heat race we started in the third spot behind TJ Bleau and Justin Barry. TJ and Justin seemed to be playing with each other on the warm up laps and Jack didn't know what was going on. He hung back just a little too long so that the other two were able to get a jump on him at the start. This gave Jack some time he had to make up for on the track. Jack did a pretty good job of catching up with the leaders and attempted to make a couple passes but at the last second backed out of the pass giving up precious time and distance on the track. Jack hit the brakes a little too hard on his last pass attempt leaving him too far behind with not enough laps left to make up the distance and finished the heat in the third position.
The feature actually played out much the same as the heat. TJ and Justin slowed down and sped up on the white flag lap to start the race leaving Jack wondering what was going on. Instead of staying in it and staying with them he hung back just enough to lose them at the start of the race giving him ground he needed to make up yet again. TJ jumped out to the lead as the boys drove around single file. Justin passed TJ and TJ passed him right back while Jack used the time to catch up. Jack again got alongside Justin in a pass attempt but backed off at the last second. Finally with about three laps to go, coming out of turn four and heading down the front stretch Jack decided to make the pass and stay in it. Unfortunately Justin didn't realize that was what he wanted to do and cut down in front of him causing Jack to hop up out of the way and spin around through turns one and two. Jack lost about four seconds to the leaders on the lap and didn't have enough laps to make it up. Jack finished the race in third.