Smokey

NASA sent an email stating their Memorial Day event is now in limbo with more news expected next week. Surprisingly Chin still says they’re all-go at Mid Ohio the weekend prior to that.

On the Karting front our club cancelled our May race and won’t try to pick up until mid June at the earliest. New Castle in Indiana had a race over the last weekend, but now has been shut down.

Supposedly KilKare had a race over the weekend and are facing fines from it, but that’s the rumor mill no first hand knowledge.

Bob, good to see you doing well. Any details on the offers from Prohibition? I didn’t see anything on their site as to what other cocktails/drinks might be available. Or is it just old fashioned?

I’ve been drifting back to Scotch lately in my whiskey drinking. My wife bought me a bottle of GlenLivet 18 as well as recently picked up GlenLivet 15 French Oak, GlenLivet Enigma, a couple of the GlenFiddich experimental series, and a solid Balvenie 12. All have been great but I think the most interesting has been the Enigma; check that out if you get the chance.

I drove by the bike trails at Alum over the weekend and there were definitely groups of more than 10 people all close together, but if you’re not charging for admission I guess that isn’t going to get anyone’s attention.

There’s no easy answer, and any activities we participate in will put us at increased risk. Rest assured that no matter what happens, someone will be pissed about it. Most people won’t care either until they’re the ones who can’t breathe.

Yes, it continues past May 1st, no end date on that yet. The prohibition makes no mention of indoors/outdoors -- "All public and private gatherings of any number of people occurring outside a single household or living unit are prohibited... Any gathering of more than ten people is prohibited unless exempted by this Order."

 

Auto Interests has said they won't hold in-person driver's meetings. Classroom sessions are also going to be streaming, I think. There's also provisions about instruction (lead/follow, etc) but I think it all hinges on what counts as a "gathering." If we all show up, stay in our respective squares in the paddock, and don't co-mingle, is that a "gathering"? That's the kind of shenanigans I worry about that would put me in a spot.

 

I got the same email about Memorial Day, I'm planning on doing the TREC race that Friday and whether or not that event proceeds as planned determines how concerned I am about the engine not being in the car at the moment....

Yeah that’s a bummer for sure. Even with virtual meetings car and karting events sure still seem like 100+ people in one area at one time. Now, it sure seems like the same thing could be said of a Walmart parking lot on any given day, but that’s just my observation.

So obviously the big question is track days, I can't see anything resuming with this "no gatherings over 10 people" prohibition still in place. A couple of CDIs have reached out basically trying to get a feel for who's willing to instruct still, I was waiting to respond. My position has been that I'll do whatever the governor says, so this pretty much means I'm out, but I hadn't considered what I'll do if even organizers push ahead despite the guidance.

I hadn’t seen the continuation of the 10 person max limit outside. Does that continue past May 1? If so then that’s hard to get around for track days and races. If not I think they can implement social distancing with some changes. Some of the organizers I’ve seen are moving to advanced drivers only so no in-car instructors.

I’ve been waiting to hear how we might be able to get back to kart racing. Newcastle, IN ran a race this past weekend with changes for social distancing, but obviously are held to different rules.

FWIW I got an email from NASA Great Lakes over the weekend that they were planning on their Memorial Day weekend race to go forward.

Not that I want to be involved in this conversation, but surprised nobody posted this poor bastard. A victim of the worst irony.

https://www.nbc4i.com/community/health/coronavirus/marion-mans-social-media-posts-against-coronavirus-go-viral-after-he-dies-from-covid-19/

That seems to be the case, like I said I was surprised to see money in my account last week so I looked it up.

Thanks for the link Greg. They still taper the amount for child payments based on income, but I found that calculator to be spot on. They do increase the top end cutoff amount based on number of children too. They used our 2019 tax info/numbers FYI as we had already filed.

Pm Sent

If that PM was a yes, shoot one my way.

Go full retard: http://www.crpracing.com/nikakidkaroc.html

I assume no liability for your broken wallet

I’ve used water/meth for years as others have mentioned. Similarly I didn’t tune for it and used it solely for lower intake temps and detonation resistance.

Upgrading your fuel system is likely better if you want to specifically tune for more power. If you’re doing a tune/upgrade your current fuel system can handle and want extra insurance then water/meth is a great option.

Karting again as the primary. Bought a small enclosed trailer to help haul stuff. My son moves to a new class and we are going to test with my daughter in the kid kart so may have 3 karts Racing in a given weekend! I’m going chasing on a Yamaha masters championship again so it’ll be another 14+ race weekend year.

The FD i’d like to drive it. Hoping to do at least one track day with it too. I have parts sitting on the shelf for an intercooler upgrade and better water tank for the water/meth injection. Also would like to relocate the battery and put on the upgraded fuel pump wiring I’ve got for it...but all of those take 2nd priority to karting.

Other big thing will be finding a replacement for my wife’s daily that we can both agree on....probably the biggest hurdle of anything I’m listing. Hahahaha

It does have the booster option but haven’t thankfully had to try it on a completely dead battery yet.

As predicted I’ve had to use this twice already and I’m very happy with the function. Charged it, threw it in the trunk, and it was ready to rock. Looks to use about 20% of the battery life of the jumper for each of the times I’ve used it so plenty of juice.

For any curious about why I haven't spent as much time/money on the Rx7 this year: we did 15 kart races this year with my brother and son and that eats up an enormous amount of time. It's been tons of fun though. Ended up 3rd in the Master's class points championship and Andy won. Not too bad for our first full season of competition.

I finally started mounting my go-pro for the last event. Here's the final race on-board. Got pole and won the pre-final so starting pole for the final. Got beat to turn 3 and had some iffy driving the first part of the race until the kart came in and was able to gain back some time. Found out afterward I had broken a seat mounting tab which I think was contributing to some of the unpredictability.

Final event of the year was Sept at Mid Ohio which is always good. Weather cooperated for the most part except some overnight rains and rain on Sunday. Was able to get in a lot of track time though so no complaints.

Friday was going great until I parked the car for lunch and then went out in the afternoon and the boost response was suuuupppper slow and not making full boost until very high RPMs. The car was noticeably down on power....bummer. After letting the car cool and poking around for a while I was finally able to figure out the wastegate actuator arm on the turbos had popped off. I had lost the little circlip that holds it on. I had one back in my spare parts bin but that wasn't helping me. I was able to PAINFULLY remove the head shields (real pain in the ass with the downpipe still on) and get a loop of safety wire around it.

Went out to test and was pleasantly surprised to have it working as intended again! My reaction when driving the car afterward:

Here's a good run with my brother on Friday as well. He was only running Nittos this weekend and they were old as dirt but still working. I was on my slicks so I SHOULD have had a major advantage, but at least this weekend it seemed to make us much more even than I'd like to admit. Either way made for lots of fun. He had more motor and brakes and I had more grip.

We had lots of these back and forths all weekend which was great fun. I also had a great run with another friend in a 991 GT3, but unfortunately was testing out my son's action camera and the video is all washed out, so no video.

Hoping to again try to tackle some improvements/updates for next year, so we'll see how motivated I can get over the winter or not. Also have lots of kart prep to do over the winter for next season.