[Robert Lawson]

This should be a very interesting weekend.

I may (or not!) A. Get to RACE my ride and B. Get back in a clutch kart for the first time in almost 20 years!

Were gonna polish it all up, load it in the trailer, show our support and give it a go regardless!!!

Gene, you can count me in for any assistance ya’ll may need.

Weather report coming soon! ;)

RPM

[Jeremy Baldi]

Can’t wait to get back on track. After the long winter finally getting the kart together though it will not be pretty. I’ll be sporting lots of duct tape and primer grey. Hopefully some of the new concepts will work out and I can find a little more speed. See everyone this weekend.

Jeremy

[David Cole]

Who’s coming? If anyone needs a hand, I’ll be there.

[Jeff Wesell]

We’re making the journey David.

[Jeff Salak]

I just purchased an AGV Grid Helmet. Its not Snell rated. Its a DOT and ECE-2205(Euro rated) certified helmet. Can anyone let me know if I can use this helmet in WKA? CES will let me use it. Its a new helmet.
Thanks Jeff

[David Cole]

Awesome JW. I’m wrenching for pops but if you need anything, let me know.

Salak, looking at the WKA Tech Mag, it looks like you have to have a Snell or SFI specified helmet. I would call WKA office.

[Brian Wilhelm]

Mitch and I will be there.

[Bruce Peck]

I heard the big Saturday night party is at David’s house again this year.  ;-)

[David Cole]

Bruce, if you and a bunch of others are interested in doing some landscaping and house work I’m putting off to be at the race track all weekend, you are more than welcome to come hang at the house :)

Looking forward to hanging out at the track.

[Bryan Blair]

I’ll be there. Plan on running a BRC250 Twin on Saturday and my WKA 125 on Sunday. Should be a riot.

[Jeff Wesell]

With the exception of Sunday, Ol’ Mother Nature ain’t painting too pretty a picture for us right now. Uggghhh.

[David Cole]

Local weather says it’s going to be fine, just not warm.

[Jeremy Baldi]

The good news is even if it rains DKC will still run practice so you can still get track time instead of just sitting in the trailer. Hopefully we have good weather but either way looking forward to the weekend.

[Gene Davis]

Race monitor will be running thru the DKC website all three days. See everyone Thursday. Registration and pre tech will be open Thursday evening. Practice pre entries are at 102% of last years total and race entries are at 98%. Shapping up to be a fun weekend.

Gene

[Jeremy Baldi]

I love running in the rain. Ask any of the DKC board and they’ll tell you my dad and I are one of the first ones down for a wet practice. Last time it rained at Mid Ohio we went through 10 gallons of fuel in a morning of open practice. I guess practice makes perfect too because last time we raced in the rain I was something like 15 sec a lap faster than second place.

Yeah there is a more clean up but I love the challenge of driving in the rain, fighting for grip, hardly ever going straight, smooth inputs. Really teaches you car control that is for sure.

If it is too cold it can be miserable but not as miserable as looking at an open track from the trailer in my opinion.

But I still prefer a dry track because than everyone is out to race! See everyone this weekend.

[Robert Lawson]

What a bummer, won’t make it after all!

Ughh!!! After all the time and effort, things just fell apart at the last minute.

Good Luck fellas, I’ll be watching on Race Monitor!!

RPM

[Jeremy Baldi]

Even though my weekend was a complete bust I want to thank DKC for a great event. DKC always puts on a great event and the crew did it once again.

It was very cold and water was seeping from the track in most corners after 3 days of solid rain so the track was very slippery. After breaking in a new top end in the first session I had some good laps in the next 2 sessions until my crank went. Even though we had all the parts we needed to fix it we didn’t have the tools at the track to do it. Plan than changed to stealing my dads K9b off his sprint after his race on sat so I could run in F-125 in the afternoon. Unfortunately his crank also went in his race. So weekend was over, packed up early and went home to start repairs for Mid Ohio. Very confusing because both our cranks were well under the service gallons but such is racing.

Really sucks because Grattan is probably my most competitive track and my best chance to give Willhelm any pressure. In my limited running I did figure out some of my new parts seemed to be working but will have to continue the tests at MO. Hope to see everyone at MO and hope we have a little warmer weather for it.

[Robert Lawson]

JB,
Got the report from Dennis at the track. When I didn’t see you start F-125 I figured something must have happened to Dad as well. I feel for ya!

I wrote a post yesterday but must not have submitted it???

Eric Chappell (my testday brother!) was absolutely flying on Saturday! Awesome job Eric! Best lap of 1:21.034 in Victory with a WHOPPING 33 second gap according to Race Monitor scoring in CIK 125…..WOW you are the man!!!!

We’ll start taking pre entries for Test next Spring very soon!!!!! ;)

Good run in Unltd as well. Brian took the win there with Mitch second. What impressed me was Al Hollinger finishing 3rd!!! Good Job Al looks like you got that thing figured out.

All heck broke loose in F-125, all my boys failed to complete the first lap!!!! Pops did get out and turn the last 6-7 laps but Harry was off in the grass just 1/2 way around the course.

Tough weekend for many. Were watching practice now and look forward to the Unltd race later today.

Safe ride home everyone!!!!

RPM

[patricia hechler]

Thank you very much, DKC for a well run weekend.  From Suzie in registration to Jerry and Chuck on-grid to Jim in pre-grid to Gene and his family for race monitor and other things to everyone else who gave their time volunteering, you all made this race weekend happen for us all.  Chuck, it was great to share a laugh with you.  I thank you all for making this weekend a success when mother nature appeared poised to make it something else.  Thank you for giving us this opportunity to hit the track and do what we love and live to do.

[Robert Lawson]

Dennis,

Even though I didn’t see it, you just don’t see that (big gap) in the CIK classes. Ted and Joe are no easy bunch to leave either so it must have been extra special!

It MUST have been that extraordinary “Test Day” that made the difference!!!! ;) :)

Awesome job, ya’ll deserved it!

RPM

[Robert Lawson]

Overall the weather looks promising.

Friday, High in the upper 50’s-cloudy with a 30% chance of precip.

Saturday and Sunday look like the conditions we had at the Test.
Mid to Upper 60’s-mix of sun and clouds with just a 10% chance of any precip.

It is early yet, the following week looks really good so if it ends up pushing out the weather will just get better. Although Friday isn’t a fantastic forecast it is just 30 of 100 times with those conditions that any recordable amount of precipitation was measured. I’d take that bet, you’ll definitely get some practice on Friday and it may just be all day.

Either way, the morning rounds of practice will be a bit tough as it will be cold overnight. Tuning for the later races from an AM set-up will be required.

Got a call this morning from Jamal who is at the track this weekend with his bikes. Raining there now so he will head back but did say the track surface had gained some grip from our April Test.

We’ll have more this week!

RPM

[Robert Lawson]

Gene,

That’s good news! I know of a few guys who watch the Race Monitor when they can’t make it to the events. You really get a feel for what is happening right at the pit wall!!!

We have an “optimist” and a “glass half empty” outlook on the potential weather! Everything must have balance :) !!!! First glance it looks terrible, but knowing Grattan, and the chance being at 30%, it’s still a good bet we’ll sneak it all in.

JB, yer nuts!!! :)
I’m a clean freak when it comes to the car and no way I’ll put myself through that much work. Don’t care how much it cost to get there. I won’t drive it all dirty and rusty!!!!!

Guess I became a fair weather fan after freezing my tail off (literally, OFF at T6 sat for 20 min) at M-O back in the day!!! That was anything but fun.

I like it hot….hotter the better! On the other hand the cold weather suits my set-up, even though I’ll be freezing in 50 and 60 deg weather!!! It ran very well in that weather just a month ago.

With all the rain this week ya’ll better not get off the blacktop. Man that will be a mess!!!!!

Safe trip everyone, see ya Thursday.

RPM

[Dennis Chappell]

Robert

Thanks for the kind words. We had a good weekend bad weekend thing. Crowd was down a little I think weather had something to do with that.
The good thing bad thing was Maxter ran good Sat. with the big win. Honda was also fast for second race BUT broke the spark plug electrode off and droped into motor after Eric had chased the field down to get the lead. Done with only few laps left.
New top end for Sunday and again chased field down to lead and put on a good show with Bryon Rothenhoefer swapping the lead back and forth each lap until 2 laps to go motor over heated and had to pull in.

Both karts ran in the low 1:20:00’s. Happy with that.
Thanks to Danny Alden for the go fast Silencers.

Again thanks to Grattan for new bathrooms.

See ya for Grattan CES race.
Dennis

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