This was a tough day.  We were both still tired from racing at Gateway the week before, followed by two baseballs games and one baseball practice during the week.  Not to mention work, school, homework.  Jason knew he was tired but understood what needed to be done.  The travel to and from races is starting to take its toll already.  He really loves to race but does not love the travel.  It is going to be very hard to find the balance this summer with 20 races scheduled.  In the next few weeks I am going to make some “home” time with him and the family and his friends.   The worst thing I could do is to suck the fun out of something he loves and I love too.

He skipped the first practice because he was tired and not really focused.  This was a mistake.  You can skip later practice sessions, especially if you need to conserve the driver or the kart, but not the first one.  In the first practice you can figure out if there there are any issues with the kart and then have ample time to fix them.  To make matters worse, we were late to practice the rest of the practice sessions, so we really did not get to see how Jason and the kart were running in comparison to the rest of the field.  If we(I) had been better organized I would have been able to see that he was having performance issues.

With 4 racers this week the first heats lineup was Brandon, Chad, Jason, and Dylan (Brandon’s little brother).  At the start he was not on the gas, so very quickly fell back and never caught up, the kart of off and he was off.  He pulled off early in frustration, and that could have been it for the day.  But I knew that the kart was off too, that gave him some encouragement to keep going and get ready for the next heat.  I had left the 59 gear on the kart from Gateway thinking it would work better, but clearly it did not. So, back to the pits to get to work.

Having put the 57 gear back on the kart, a close second heat was expected.  The order was reversed with Dylan on the pole, followed by Jason, Chad, and Brandon.  The boys did not disappoint.  They got off to a great start and stayed in that order for a few laps.  The younger boys gave Brandon a harder time and it took him 3 or 4 laps for him to get around everyone.   Once he did he took off but the Dylan, Jason and Chad stayed close together and in that order till the end.

The feature started with Brandon, Dylan, Chad, and Jason in the 4th position.  Jason is quick on the start and beats Chad to the first corner.  From then on Chad make move after move trying to get by Jason, while Brandon and Dylan pull away.  If you watch Dylan you can really see where Jason’s line is different and is slowing him down.  Despite this Chad is not able to get by and Jason finished in 3rd place.

We both had to work though our tiredness.  I know I did not have much energy for working on the kart or taking pictures.  Jason still ran around with the other boys, but did spend more time then usual under the awning resting.  Yet once the day got started we did have a good time.  He put in his fastest laps ever at 1:01.  June 1st and 2nd will be racing with CES again at Blackhawk Farms and look forward to seeing our friends from Badger Karting Club again.

Thanks to GoPro our new sponsor, to Jason for playing with me this weekend and to my wife, who will be running a 10 mile race in Chicago on Saturday, GO KAREN GO.