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| October 18, 2004 News |
| EKN Trackside: Rotax Max Grand Nationals |
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It took a while to get there, but Jordon Musser successfully repeated his Rotax championship for the third time, after a long weekend at X-Plex. Musser easily defended his title after three other front-runners, polesitter Sean Gilmartin, Zachary Woodsford and Josh Fultz were involved in a lap 20 accident in the first corner. Prior to the wreck, the four drivers were running in formation, showing how equally matched their karts were.
 | | Rotax Max Champion Jordon Musser stands tall for Texas (Photo: Blaney - Super Kart Illustrated) |
With Musser leading, heading down the long straight, Gilmartin made a move from third on the inside of Woodsford. Coming back to turn two, contact between Gilmartin and Woodsford collected Fultz ending their races. With those three out of the way, Musser cruised to an easy 14-second win over second place finisher Michael Johnson of Dallas. After the race, Johnson, who had been running a respectable fifth for Arrow said that he had seen the wreck but didn’t realize he had moved all the way to second place. Pending any tech issues, both Musser and Johnson will be representing the United States at the Rotax Max World Championships in January in the Canary Islands. Felipe Carcamo finished third.
The final day of action got off to a rocky start for the race control team as timing and scoring problems plagued their ability to get the grids for either the LCQs or Prefinals set. The delays caused the program to get started well behind schedule and things never were able to get caught up. A couple of red flags in the Mini Max and Rotax Junior classes didn’t help to move the program along either.
The on-track action was solid as the racers provided the excitement of the day. In the Master’s class, things got away in strange fashion in the Prefinals with the clear favorite, Jean Valerio, making an unforced error and spinning his PTK. Robby Mott was running right behind him and couldn’t avoid contact. Mott’s kart suffered no apparent damage but Valerio’s kart had bent pieces in the front end. Mott led for a while but eventually Andy Seesemann came through and took the win.
In the final, Mott and Seesemann worked together to pull away from the field and waited until late in the race to settle the win. Seesemann kept the pressure on Mott but never so much that the two lost ground to third place. Seesemann finally made the pass and began pulling away from Mott who was suffering from carbueration problems. He eventually ceded second place to Kris Zimmerman.
 | Andy Seesemann on his way for Rotax Masters Title
(Photo: Blaney - Super Kart Illustrated) |
Over in the Junior class, Mike Herda came from well back in the pack and scored a big win at his home track. It wasn’t easy for Herda who got tangled up with Carl Skerlong on the last lap of the Prefinal and as a result the two had to start mid pack. The Birel driver came to the Final grid in a bright pink “rally-suit” hoping it would bring him luck. After falling back a couple spots at the start, he began working forward and moved into contention late in the race. After getting by Timmy Megenbier who had all his karting gear stolen after the SKUSA World Finals, Herda went on to win. Megenbier, who struggled in the heats, finished a very solid second with David Holland third making it an all-Birel podium.
The RM1 class was the only race that saw the pre-race favorite score the win. Last year's junior winner, Justin Melton of Flower Mound, Texas was the clear class of the field all weekend. Come Final time, he had an early challenge from Robby Mott but Mott dropped out of the race from the lead after he experienced a shift linkage problem. Attrition was high in the race with only five drivers completing the full distance. Nathan Mauel was second and Nick Weil was third. Melton and Weil qualify for the World Finals under the rules set by SSC. The two spots were divided between drivers who received a waiver to compete in the Grand Nationals (Melton) and those who qualified by running the regional series (Weil).
Finally in the Mini Max class, Court Vernon was declared the winner after Jarvis Gennari was DQ’d in tech for a carburetor problem. Daniel Formal and Clay Settles were second and third. The Mini Max class proved to be good racing as the youngest drivers at the X-Plex raced hard and for the most part cleanly. While they were prone to spinning on the formation laps behind pace driver Michael Abbate, once they began racing, they did a good job.
As we left the track last night, karts were still in the tech tent and some races were under protest. As soon as he have official results, we will make changes to the results posted below.
Coming up in a couple days is an introduction to Team USA for the Rotax Max World Finals. |
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