Senna Was Last On Saturday But Wins On Sunday!
Intro
The weekend was full of tears and eventually lead to cheers and smiles. It was a pretty epic journey and a huge life lesson was learned. I started off the weekend by telling an old racing mantra: “In order to finish, first; you much first, finish.” Eventually the addition of “never give up” would play a huge part of how the weekend would end. This is the race recap of OSCKS rounds #5 and #6.
Friday Practice Day
We arrived mid afternoon and unpacked the trailer to get ready for an evening of practice. We took the week to prep the trailer and get all the trailer tweaks streamlined to make our pit area as efficient as possible. I’ve been really working hard to get our process efficient as possible to make the value track time the highest of priorities. From the start of the practice, the kart looked good and Senna was doing well for not having driven for a month or so. Having just got back from our Disneyland vacation, it was time to focus and hope that his conditioning wasn’t impacted too much. Senna was doing ok with our goals set early on as we were seeing that we were well behind some of the other competitors who also showed up. Senna was about 1.5 seconds off the pace but we didn’t panic as we knew what we needed to work on to get that time down.
Saturday Round
We arrived at the track at 7-a.m. and it was already warm for that time of day. Fortunately, the forecast showed that it wouldn’t get to be too warm and parts of the day would be overcast. We looked over the kart several times in preparation for the days events. At 8:30 we had the drivers meeting and then at 9-a.m. the engines across the paddock were allowed to be cranked up. I started Senna’s engine and it roared to life. I also went over tire pressures and cleaned up the kart for it’s debut practice for the day. We got to the grid within our timeframe and then… I notice that the engine exhaust bolts had been worked out of the block. Upon a close look, the bolts had been stripped completely out and therefore we were not allowed to run the practice session. I took the kart over to CMC, since they did the work on the engine and I got the look of, “I’m sorry but you are done for the day.” The day hadn’t even started and we were already out?!?! My neighbor Gary Baldes has always said, “it’s not over till the race has started. We had time to come up with a solution. Frustrated with everyone so easy to give up, I took things into my own hands and thought of a way to resolve the problem. The threads were stripped but only from where the bolts could bolt onto. The threads actually go deeper than the studs did and the threads at the bottom of holes were still intact. So I got longer bolts and also ran washers and spacers to fill in the gap to keep the exhaust bolted down to the engine. By the time we got to the second practice, an hour later, Senna’s kart was able to get to the grid and practice. The problem is that we had planned on doing some additional testing and compare them with the second practice. That program got cancelled, so it was just about to learning the track and making what we could of the session.
Qualifying went as expected. Senna’s times consistently kept him in third place, as first and second were all about battling each other. Senna was not able to hang with them and there was losing time and space each and every lap. Finishing the qualifying session third was where he was and looked to be for the entire weekend.
Heat one, ran with the normal positions where he started off in 3rd place. The decision to run the Junior 1 and 2 classes together would have a huge impact throughout the day’s races. Senna spend most of the heat race in no-man’s-land where he wasn’t able to keep up with the top two drivers but also was faster than the rest of the field. It was obvious that he was able to keep up with the top two drivers until turn-5. Every lap he lost a little bit more time until that time added up and he would end the session almost a half-lap behind the front runners. His final weigh-in on that 322-pounds
Heat two, was a “reverse grid”, which means that they put the slowest driver up front and then the fastest driver at the back. This was a great opportunity for Senna to try and get to the front of the pack and hopefully the faster drivers will be held up by the slower drivers again. When the green flag dropped this time, he did pick up one spot and there was able to get into the lead a couple of corners later. He then started to build a gap to the field as everyone else was fighting for position amongst each other. However, it wouldn’t be enough as in the closing laps of heat two came to a close, both of the top drivers passed Senna leaving him in the third points paying position. His session ending weight would be 320-pounds.
The finale, started off as expected, in third place on the grid. The entire gird still consisted of both Junior 1 and 2 drivers. At the drop of the green flag, Senna had a horrible start and by turn one, he had dropped to fourth. However, after a couple of corners, he regained his position and held station for a couple of laps. Then tragedy struck when he spun exiting turn-five, his most troublesome corner. He was able to work to get his kart back onto the track but by then he was a lap down. Still continuing on to try and make up that lap, he pushed on till he caught up with the Junior 1 lapped traffic. During his efforts to move forward to improve his position, he spun again to avoid hitting the Junior 1 driver. This spin also put him an additional lap down on the leaders, making him now two laps down. Soon after the race ended and this put him in last place for the final race of the day. I was proud that he didn’t give up but his mannerisms was telling me otherwise. I asked him if he was okay while waiting for the final weigh-in and he just shook his head no and then looked away.
The day concluded with a gutted and dejected young driver. I dismounted the engine to give to Don at CMC, to do repairs to the stripped out exhaust studs. I also, had some time to do some clean up of our pit area and clean the kart. After a half hour or so, I decided to track down Senna and found him alone with his thoughts and feelings. I wasn’t upset and I let him know that as I sat next to him. After a few moments, I asked the question, “do you want to quit?”. He just shrugged his shoulders. I have a personal rule that I will ask three times. If on the third time, then I go with that answer. On the way home, he said he wanted to race again tomorrow.
Sunday's Events
We got to the track early and with a new outlook for the day, I picked up the engine from CMC who had also just got there. Don was kind enough to not charge us for the work that he did because he felt the work that he did on it before should have done the job. I really appreciated that and that’s what makes Don at CMC a great vendor to deal with. After I mounted the engine and got all the fuel lines, drain lines and throttle cable connected, we were good to test the engine. I had to wait till after the 9am “loud time” so I utilized the extra time to clean Senna’s kart and put a different gear that had one more tooth (57 tooth, versus the 56 tooth that we had the day before). The added tooth for the gear would help with getting up to speed a touch faster and hitting the rev limiter sooner by fifteen feet or so. This change is not much but it really seemed to help with him getting out of troublesome corners for him and therefore he would experience less of a drop from the front runners. We also planned to run a pound more of starting air in the tires. The idea behind this was to get the tire temperatures up sooner and the grip would come in sooner. The downfall though is that the tires would fall off (grip level would drop) sooner too, especially in a longer race. We did this to help prevent early lap spins due to lack of grip.
Practices one and two went without a hitch. We had expected to be in third again and this was the case. However, there was a HUGE improvement form the previous day. By the end of each session, Senna was within striking distance in both sessions. He was feeling better and his attitude has also improved. Smiles were coming back and there was a hop and urgency in his step. He wanted back on the track more than ever. Both sessions ended in third place and his weight was at 322-pounds and 321-pounds respectively.
Sunday Qualifying
Qualifying, started with a significant change in the class. Instead of the Junior 1 and Junior 2 classes running together, the organization made the decision to run the Junior 2 (Senna’s class) with the Senior LO206 classes. This meant that the classes running together would be closer matched in times and therefore would be less likely to run into lapped traffic, especially inexperienced lapped traffic. This again would prove to be an important decision, ruling in Senna’s favor. As the session continued on, Senna was able to stick with the two fastest drivers of the session and would only be a handful of seconds off their pace. More importantly, his lap times had not really improved but his front running competitors had also not improved as much. He would start the first heat race in third position on the grid but with a fast lap time that was only about 0.5 seconds off from pole position. His heat race weight would put him at 323-pounds.
Heat race one, started him off in third position which would keep him there for the entire race, however, with a couple fast senior drivers, he got passed by Jeff Lewis (Senior LO206 champion) and Senna was able to stay with him and learn the fast lines. Sometimes following someone faster can result in a faster time for the follower too. This turned out to be the case for Senna and soon enough, he was able to improve the distance to the front runners. Although they didn’t catch them, you could see the gap close. Senna finished third in the session and ended with a weight at 321-pounds
Heat race two, had a reverse grid like the previous day. As with the theme of the day, Senna was third again but with one of the drivers not comfortable being in the front, Senna would actually start in the second position. After the green flag dropped he was able to eventually get around the driver in front but then the two faster drivers in the class was soon able to catch and pass him. The difference was that Senna still was not getting dropped as much like yesterday and more importantly we didn’t scramble the whole day to try and chase down an issue. After every session, we just made sure the fuel level was where it needed to be so we could come in over the minimum weight of 320-pounds. Much like head race one, the grid was still close and Jeff Lewis was not able to pass Senna. The session-ending weight was at 323-pounds.
The finale race would be a longer format race that lasted 18 minutes long. With the grid set and Senna starting in the third position, Senna had a great start but unfortunately had to lift going into turn one, unable to make the pass into second or first place. He was patient though and stuck with the front runners for a couple of laps. However, by then Jeff Lewis wanted to pass and this put Senna slightly off the line as Jeff bumped Senna slightly off line to get by. Shortly after another Senior LO206 driver went by and Senna now how two drivers were in the way of the front two. Enzo and Grayson (Senna’s competitors) were fighting the whole race. I was telling Joe Filipanko, one of the team dads that we pit with, that if those two keep it up, they will take each other out and Senna can be close enough to jump into the lead. On the final lap with two corners to go, that’s exactly what happened. Grayson tried to overtake Enzo and they both went off the track. However, since Senna had been somewhat held up by the Senior LO206 drivers, he was a couple of corners behind. This was enough space for Grayson to re-enter the track just ahead of Senna and block him to the finish. Senna had finished second in the race. However, by the race end and a heated protest, the organizers issued a penalty to Grayson for causing the accident with Enzo. This promoted Senna as the winner of the finale! Unsure, we did not celebrate till we confirmed the results with the podium finish. We went through “tech” (post-race procedures to ensure that the top three karts are within regulations of the rules of the class) and then back to the tent. We packed up and smiles were all throughout our pit areas. What a contrast from the previous day.
Sunday's Conclusion
The entire weekend was full of crazy events for us. We experience everything from frantically trying to fix a race ending issue from the exhaust, spins and tears; to confidence building and celebratory smiles and cheers. These are the types of come backs where stories come from; to never give up. I remember smiling at Senna at the end of the race and reminding him, “in order to finish, first; you must first, finish.” How true those words were and who would have thought that it would be the theme for the entire weekend.
As always, thank you and we hope you enjoyed this race recap!