Season Reviews With Pictures

Kris Finishes Second Overall in TaG Heavy for the 2007 Season

What an exciting season. We started this year out with a new to us 125 Stock Honda shifter kart to compliment our fourth season with the 125cc TaGkart we've been running, a new trailer with custom grpahics to carry our stuff back and forth to Pevely, and a new pit member, Matt Kesel one of Kris' fraternity brothers. Matt has experience in racing quad four wheelers and we really appreciated his help throughout the season.

SLKA combined the TaG Heavy class with the TaG Masters class and there were a number of new people to compete against. Many of them much more experienced and lighter than we were. Add to that some confusion about weights during the first three races, and we were beginning to wonder if we were going to be competitive this season. Finally the weight issues were resolved and our times were once again right up there with the front runners in the TaG class. This year Kris was home more often and we were able to attend more races . This year we atte attended: Race 2 (4th), Race 3 (5th), Race 4 (6th) Race 5 (5th) Race 6 (3rd) Race 7 (4th) Race 8 (2nd), Race 9 (4th), and finally Race 10 (2nd). Race 11 was a work weekend so the TaG Heavy/Masters had that weekend assisting at the track.

While never winning a race this year, our highest finish was second place, Kris drove consistant lap times and almost always finished each event. Our season though was not without problems.

For some reason, this was the year that we seemed to be taken out of races from drivers behind us. Three of ourearly/mid season races were plagued with drivers making caress decisions while braking at the end of the straight resulting in the destruction of three radiators, two sets of steering rods, and a dislocated shoulder and badly bruised ankle. While not keeping us from finishing, Kris was unable to effectively steer the kart and the engine seriously overheated in race 8, though he stil finished second. One more lap and he would have been out of the race with a fried engine. The last three race weekends were more normal and we were able to relax as kart repairs were fewer and we had more time in the pits to set the karts up for the next event

This was our first experience running two kart's. We purchased a used Intrepid kart with a Honda CR-125 moto engine from Greg Yocum at PG Racing and spent all of this season on the learning curve figuring out the ins and outs of shifter kart preparation. We chose to run a "Stock Shifter" setup, but wound up competing against built motors and even ICC motors, so we resigned ourselves to learning about the setups and how to handle the additional power and of course shifting at the Thunder Valley club track this year. We finished last, but felt the year was successful as we learned a lot and really didn't break too much with the shifter kart. Next year we're hoping that there will be at least four or five stock shifter competitors so that we can have our own class and be more competitive.

We made a number of changes to the shifter over the season to get a little more power out of the stock Honda. Though a stock kart class, some modifications are allowable. Improvements include: a high output exhaust pipe, high tech carbon fiber reeds, a larger radiator and re-routed pipes, more advanced ignition setting and finally some grinding to the powerport plugs near the exhaust port. These changes along added 3-5 hundred RPMs p to 12.5K rpms. on the top end and a much more responsive engine at 9Krpms where the power begins to come on. These changes helped to drop his lap time about two seconds.

Most of the difference is just Kris getting more familiar with the shifting capabilities of the new kart. We're hoping to break the 40 second barrier next year. Kris is almost there with the TaG Kart, so getting there with the additional 10hp and the six speed gearbox should come sometime soon.

New Graphics on Pit Row	Kris' Pits On His Own for race 12
Due to his dad''s health, Kris raced the last race of the season at SLKA by himself. Most of the pictures above on this page were taken by Kris at the last race. His mom and dad are really proud of his accomplishments this year and his successful last race weekend on his own. Good going Kris!!
Ready to go for race 5 on the SLKA Starting Grid	Kris is visiting with the Crockets after Race 11

We very much appreciate the assistance and support of Greg Yocum and the rest of the crew at PG Racing which never failed to get us back out on the track in time to start each race, especialy this year with all the mid season attacks. We also would like to thank the officers and workers at SLKA for their efforts to run safe, fair and fun events at the Pevely, Missouri track. We're looking forward to next season. There are links for their websites in the graphics on the left and right if ou wold like to learn more about Karting in St. Lois.