What a Florida Winter Tour. We couldn’t be happier with our overall 2nd place as we were tested with some of the best in our class. But still there’s a a feeling of missed opportunity.
Our plan was to win outright and solidify Cayden as the best in class before moving to Senior Rok. And in the final analysis we had a chance but were let down by our technical side. Part of our inexperience as we are still only 16 months into 2 stroke karting and learning on the fly.
Round 1
So where to start. Round 1 took place in Pompano in Jan, We finished 3rd but we were a second off the pace in the final. At the time we took this to mean that the leaders were better and more experienced so we were focused on Cayden’s driving and looking for areas to improve. His lap times were super consistent just not as quick. In review back in Canada we looked at our videos and computer data and discovered something different.
Cayden wasn’t making mistakes but we were losing a tenth per corner. More over it looked like we were losing this in the corner exit. So we focused our attention to making setup changes to allow Cayden to get on throttle sooner.
Round 2
Round 2 took place in St Petersburg. We were so excited to try our changes, narrowed the rear, stronger torsion bar in the front and up a tooth in the gear. Bingo, we were suddenly on the pace. We’ll a tenth down but good enough to qualify 2nd! Lesson learned. We should have not accepted the deficit in round 1 as driver related. Our bad.
However it was now time for tech issue 2. Failed tech in Qualifying for Squish. Again not a driver issue but this completely compromised our weekend. We had to start each heat from last but we continued to close the gap. One driver change in getting closer to the barrier was the final change. We were not quickest on track and set the fastest lap in the final.
This was a race win we gave up in the failed tech.
Round 3
On to the final in Orlando. Excited with our new setup and confidence we were looking to put in more of a fight. More exciting still was the competition with a full 14 Master VLR drivers and 6 of them multiple race winners! This would be a great test for Cayden. In practice sessions we did well. Always running in the lead group finishing 3 in two of the sessions and 1st in the two wet practice heats.
In this game experience counts and come qualifying we finished 6th. Disappointing! Times were close with 3 tenths separating 1st to 7th. But while we were doing our thing each of the top runners was working strategically, getting a tow, put in a hot lap then cool the tires for a lap. Each of the top runners took a turn getting a tow from Cayden. Lesson learned.
Still we were in the hunt. We finished 5th in Heat 1 after a bad start but still up a position.
Heat 2 was out 3rd technical issue. Getting a wet race we didn’t protect our engine well enough can Cayden struggled with water in the engine for the entire race. After leading the Wet heats we could only finish 9th. Not the drivers fault.
Heat 3 we were collectively mad and determined. Cayden made a charge and finished 4th with a serious pace advantage on 3rd place finisher Vomir.
The prefinal was another tech issue. Temps and humidity had dropped dramatically after the rain but we did not make an adjustment to the jets to compensate. We ended up with a dramatically lean condition that Cayden couldn’t resolve on track. He drove his heart out finishing 7th but we know we should have been higher so there was a lot of anger after the race.
When we got to the final it was all hands on deck to make sure the engine was running well. We gave Cayden a kart he could drive and he was the big mover coming from 7th to 4th finishing 1.3 sec off a podium. More over this was enough to secure his second place overall on the championship! But… without the issues 1st was possible.
Still I couldn’t be happier. We proved to ourselves that there was no one in the class that is faster. Cayden could compete with the best in class and go toe to toe. So excited for the rest of 2022.
