EKN Trackside - 2012 IAME International Final

[Tiffin Willareth]

Senior B vs D

At the start of the heat race, Duvall was looking to move up but congestion at the first turn bottled everyone up and he was forced to wait. In the meantime, behind Duvall a wreck occured, injuring a TopKart driver to the extent that he could not exit his kart so the field was slowed to pace themselves for 4 laps under yellow while crews attended to the driver. No red flags or medics rushing to the aide of the driver. Corner marshalls carried the driver to a corner station whiel the race resumed with 5 laps to go. Duvall made a daring pass into the tight section to try and gain a 10th place pass but the exit line was slowed and allowed the pack to make a run on him on the back straigh and leave him on the outside looking for grip. As the race went along he was able to get back up to 13th, but contact in front of him forced anothers nose off with 1 lap to go so he may be placed one position highher. A good string of consistant 12th thru 15th place finishes so far look to keep him in contention for a spot in the Main. Isman was able to avoid all the troubles on track and finish 22nd after retaking the green in 25th.

UPDATE
Hargrove last heat results were removed due to a mechanic working on the kart once it left the Parc Ferme compound. Apperantly after speaking with Remo his tuner, the radiator was adjusted so it would not be contacting the battery. A tough break and what appears to be a silly rule according the the Canadian Team. An appeal is being looked into.

Also one of the Masters in Russell's class was assesed a 10sec penalty for contact after the finish in the arguments on the track, moving Russell to 4th overalll in his heat.
_________________
Tiffin Willareth
www.verdespeedresources.com
Verde Speed Resources / Joel Jens Racing

[Tiffin Willareth]

X30 Senior C vs E 3rd heat

Running good all race long after a great start and as high as 12th, Scott Hargrove remained in the that position till the checkered. A great comeback after the prior heats penalty. We will need to see where this puts him in the final points tabulations as 4 more groups are still to run.

Unoffical points for finishes so far:

Hargrove: 17+16+38+12

Jens: 38+19+19 one race remaining

Duvall: 15+14+12 one race remaining

Isman: 23+17+22 one race remaining
_________________
Tiffin Willareth
www.verdespeedresources.com
Verde Speed Resources / Joel Jens Racing

[Tiffin Willareth]

X30 Junior points classification has Dustin Stross USA (DR) 26th in the final points going into tomorrows PreFinal line up

X30 Master A vs D
Jim Russell Jr. held on to a second place finish for most of the the race. Jim trailed Kip Foster basically the entire race that saw little to no action amongst the top few drivers. This strong finish should give Russell enough points to be in the top 2 rows for the PreFinal line up tomorrow.

X30 Master B vs C
Hyde and Derrig ran a consistant last heat race until two laps two go when Derrig made contact with the outside wall existing the hairpin and retired a couple turns later after restarting. It appeared to have front steering damage to the kart. Hyde would finish 16th in the race, keeping it clean and having fun.
_________________
Tiffin Willareth
www.verdespeedresources.com
Verde Speed Resources / Joel Jens Racing

[Tiffin Willareth]

X30 Senior A vs D last heat.
The start for this race as an absolute disaster! Some mid pack driver decided to go downthe inside and try and make the grass infield a racing surface, sliding across the apex and onto the track contacting others and stopping nearly half the field dead in their tracks. The front 10 or so karts continued on while the rest of the field had to get out of thier karts and restart or continue on while pushing themselves free. Jens the only North American in the field enter the corner with pressure from behind and had nowhere to go put into it and with karts and drivers piled around him. The USA driver had no chance of missing the melay. He would finish the race 27th after having to get out of thekart to restart and try to charge the rest of the race. Bad luck in 3 out of 4 heat races will probably find him in the B Main race.

X30 Senior B vs E last heat
Duvall started 5th row inside and Isman started last on the field. After one lap Duvall was 5th, while Isman watched the pack shuffle around. By mid race Duvall is 9th, and is passed by multi-time IAME champion Kenny Vermeylen in the last few corners to bring home his best heat of the day, 10th. Duvall is surely in the Main Final tomorrow.

That concludes the days racing.
_________________
Tiffin Willareth
www.verdespeedresources.com
Verde Speed Resources / Joel Jens Racing

[Michael Boone]

I would think it's a busy morning for the guys as the warm up is 8 or 8:30 and the weather isn't looking to great ! Maybe going out on a wet track and trying to decide whether to put a wet set up and probably mounting wets also just in case.

This could change some things

Good luck guys keep your heads up and be ready to attack!

MB
_________________
If you can't keep up don't worry I'll be coming around again !
KZ 125 Masters
FFSA National race Director
http://www.ask-ancenis.fr/

[Tiffin Willareth]

X30 Senior Pre-Final B " B main in US/noone transfers"

Hargrove 2nd
Isman 4th

X30 Senior Pre-Final A
Duvall 33rd Unfortanetly out in first lap. Midway up in field.
_________________
Tiffin Willareth
www.verdespeedresources.com
Verde Speed Resources / Joel Jens Racing

[Bill Wright]

[Bill Wright]

[Bill Wright]

[Bill Wright]

[Bill Wright]

Just wanted to say thanks for the reporting!!
_________________
Bill Wright
Formula Kart Productions, Inc "SERIOUS FUN!"
Exclusive Promoter / Owner of the Florida Winter Tour
www.floridawintertour.com
Lo Rider Casual Kart Apparel

[Tiffin Willareth]

Junior Final Stross (DR) comes home 18th. Moving forward from his starting postion and finishing the weekend with a good result.

Weather was nice all day with no rain in sight and high attendance from the spectators and fans
_________________
Tiffin Willareth
www.verdespeedresources.com
Verde Speed Resources / Joel Jens Racing

[Tiffin Willareth]

X30 Senior Final B

Hargrove (PRAGA) leads early to get shuffled back a bit during the race battling hard within the front pack. At the checkers Hargrove is 6th and Isman 8th.
_________________
Tiffin Willareth
www.verdespeedresources.com
Verde Speed Resources / Joel Jens Racing

[Tiffin Willareth]

Very few penalties.
Except for blatant contact after the checkered flag and for some violations in the parc ferme and on the grid. Some penalties could have been avoided had the communication been better from the stewards/host country. For an International event, alot of people were commenting on how the was a breakdown in the English for those that did not communicte in the other languages. The hosts of the event listened and confirmed that this will be addressed better in future.
_________________
Tiffin Willareth
www.verdespeedresources.com
Verde Speed Resources / Joel Jens Racing

[Jim Derrig]

Hi everyone. The racin' is over and I finally have time to write.

First, a big thanks to the Italian Motors team, SIMA and the Valientes for giving a local club racer a chance to rub elbows (and body work) with the heavy hitters. And thanks to the Praga team for excellent service. My mechanic was a former world KF champion. Is that cool or what?

Joel and Tim didn't describe the track much, so I'll take a shot.

The facility itself is impressive with 4 separate kart tracks (one brand new), a kart shop, massive parking, and event buildings.

We ran on the sprint layout for the big "championship" track. The signature turn is a double apex right hander at the end of the straight. The straight itself starts with a slow right hander and goes uphill for most of its length. Just before the turn it starts downhill and the turn itself is all downhill. You lift briefly, hit it at about 65 mph, and rotate through the entire length, so you're sliding sideways downhill all the way. To make it even more interesting there is a series of waves in the pavement that unsettle the kart. But to get the best time you have to keep your foot flat on the gas as the kart skitters over the waves. When you reach the bottom, and if you've done it right, your left rear tire will cross the exit curbing at the far left: b-r-a-a-a-a-p.

Terrifying and fun at the same time.

The race was well organized, with plenty of flagmen and officials. I can't answer Bill Wright's questions about penalties, but it was plenty rough out there, especially in seniors. The final finished under a full course yellow, and on Saturday one Senior karter was rammed so hard that his kart did a 360 and he was not moving afterwards. Turned out to be a leg injury of some sort, so he should be alright. Joel and I watched it from a hill above the track and Joel kept saying "Wow, I've never seen a full course yellow in a kart race before."

The only inexplicable organization move I know of was in the Masters B prefinal. The field was small, so they decided to run the "group C" seniors with us. Which would be okay except somebody decided to grid them BEHIND the masters. My mechanic looks at me and says "this cannot be good." It all came to grief in the first turn, of course, when a couple seniors tried to ram there way through the masters, with the expected results. And no Bill, there were not any penalties.

I can't overstate the level of driving skill I saw here. Just double wow good. You could watch 8 seniors, each separated by one or two feet, go through a turn on EXACTLY the same line. An accidental ballet.

And one last thought for any of you thinking of trying the international karting thing: I've been in France 5 days now and 90% of what I've seen is the road to the airport, the road to the track, and the hotel. We caught a couple hours in old Lyon the day before the race, plus dinner there one night, but that's it. And the terrain itself reminds me of Kansas City, so nothing exotic there. Which is my way of saying, go for the race, but don't expect to spend a lot of time as a tourist.