August 25, 2010 - Andersen Racing's summer season of competition karting is drawing to a close. As we approach the final batch of races, we are optimistic to conclude multiple championship bids. This last weekend, we contested the fifth and sixth rounds of the Rotax Pan American challenge at Homestead/Miami Speedway. Andy Dunne and myself entered in to the Rotax Senior Max and DD2 class, respectively. While it was a trying weekend at certain stages, we both were able to hold strong positions in our championship fights.
As Andy left the weekend in strong contention for a qualifying spot to the Rotax Grand Finals in La Conca, Italy, I now look back and see that we were quite lucky to have a shot still heading in to the final round in Cal-Speed. Andy began the week testing on his Birel Ry-30S2 and struggled to find pace on the track. While driving with him in a Birel Ry-31S2, I noticed that he was having difficulty discovering the rhythm of the Homestead surface. We had scheduled to test the Arrow chassis through Eric Jones and his new company, KartSport North America. He was slated to show on the Wednesday leading in to the racing weekend, but through complications was only able to arrive one day later. While we gave the Arrow chassis a try on the track, Andy and I both felt it best to race the Birel. Of course, we will be giving more testing time to the Arrow brand to better learn its characteristics, so that for possible future races we are comfortable with what the character of the Arrow chassis truly is. I also was scheduled to race in the DD2 class aboard an Arrow chassis, and unlike Andy, I chose to keep with the brand for the weekend. After all, the DD2 class is far less competitive at the moment than the Senior Max class, so it was possible the learn the chassis better through the middle of the racing weekend without too much risk of a poor finish.
Friday, August 20 was official practice for Andy and myself and I can say that it was a rough day. While my kart suffered electrical issues, I didn't make it on for practice. Andy began working with the Birel in the afternoon, and held decent pace in preparation for Saturday's race. We had a very comfortable work area to make changes to our karts however, as this race was the first where Andersen Racing exhibited its newly designed 30ft x 48ft attached race awning for its national team drivers. Its needless to say that by the picture above, Andersen Racing's National Karting division has received a significant facelift.
I believe that saturday was the warmest of the entire racing event, and we completed first practice with Andy cutting in to the top five and me bringing up a slow pace for my first on track session. We then moved in to qualifying and missed out greatly on Andy's setup. He kept it in the top ten for a ninth place starting spot, but would have a high contact remainder of the day. Andy would end up parking his #216 Birel in the middle of the main event as a result of a faulty rear bumper from contact from another driver a few laps before.
My race on Saturday would be a little brighter as I recovered from a slow pace early on and came through with a main event victory. I was still getting used to the Arrow chassis and I must admit that it was a handful for the entire Saturday. I went to Eric Jones, Team Head for KartSport North America and communicated the difficulties I was having with the chassis, and we came up with a few good solutions for the following day. We also had a fairly large discussion between Andy, Jake Mottaz and myself about a better approach for Sunday's race. Andy took a large hit on the championship and we needed to make sure that our Sunday would help reclaim much needed points for the podium in the Championship.
On Sunday morning, Andy posted third fastest in morning practice and fourth in qualifying. This was a good thing as a top five in qualifying allotted Andy much needed points to help close back on his competitors. I missed the top spot by .018, a fraction slower than pole position. But as I've said before, the pressure of class strength was on Andy, not me. For the start of the pre-final, Andy suffered very heavy contact resulting in a non-finish. He would start near last for the main and manage seventh overall for the end of Sunday's final. I would finish second in the pre-final and with a gear change for the main event, set sail for a clear victory to add to Saturday's accomplishment.
As it stands now, I am securely in a qualifying position to attend the Rotax World Final in La Conca Italy this November to represent team USA in the DD2 class. Andy is in a precarious position, he is slightly behind and needs to do a little catching up in California for the Pan American Championship's final round. If we are strong enough and can produce a little good luck, Andy can theoretically qualify for the World Final as well, as long as we can keep him in peak condition for this last championship effort of the year.
I know, I know, its been a few weeks since I've updated this blog, but I have a few good reasons. As the Andersen Racing regular season ended this past September, we were all hard charging in to this autumn to get caught up on engine performance and chassis selection for the 2011 racing year. As such, I've just completed about 25% of what needs to be done in regard to development on our rotax motor program. Although we are not modifying anything internally with the engines, we are matching up all of the components to better optimize each of our engines' performances. As the rotax program continues to grow worldwide, the material selection criteria of each engine package with Andersen Racing has become more crucial. We simply have to have the best for our drivers, and it's going to take a little searching around. Later this year, I will be visiting Swedetech racing to continue our 'development' for both our team and along side Swedetech's personnel. Needless to say that so far, I've found some remarkable things based on the data shown and will look to find a lot more when I return!
