This past Sunday, the Mid America Pro Kart Series was at Thunderlake Speedway. Along with the normal classes, there was also a special Junior Amateur race. Since the grandparents were in town and we've had more rain than races, Miss G entered the Junior Amateur race (her normal class at Thunderlake). It was a long, hot, sunny day, but it was so fun watching her and the other classes out on the track.
While packing the track, she had a lot of problems between turns 3 and 4 - it was quite slippery there and she got plenty of opportunities to practice her 360s. :) A few images from when all the classes were out on the track -
There were only 3 karts entered for her race and 4 karts entered for the Chasin' Racin' class. Since the classes are pretty comparable in speed and experience, they combined them. She spent most of her practices and feature racing with the 44 since they were about even in speed. These photos are all taken from practice. The 60 kart was the dominant kart for her class. The photo where he is coming up behind them, he is getting ready to lap the field.
She had a great race for her feature race. She started 5th and eventually was racing for 3rd. Unfortunately turns 3 and 4 were giving her problems again and she spun out while trying to take third place. Since the caution came out, she was sent to the back of the field and with only a couple laps to go, she never had enough time to advance her position. She ending up finishing 6th out of the 6 karts left on the field.
While she was disappointed with her finish, she had a great time and can't wait for the next weekend of racing. With two 6th place finishes, her goal is just to finish any place but 6th (well, any place but 6th and not anything lower than 6th :) ).
Update from Dad: The official results put the #73 kart in 5th place. She made the pass at the finish line and beat the 6th-place kart by less than one tenth of a second. Her first top-5! :)
Posted by: Tracy Gullett | June 04, 2009 at 11:05 AM