SKUSA Red River Region                                                            Home of the 2003 SKUSA Champions!

RAce 1 Report

March 04 - Red River opened the season in Houston on the challenging 7/10 mile layout in the expansive Greyhound Park parking lot.  This course has a long straight with S1 speeds over 90MPH, with several tight 1st gear turns.  The track surface begs for throttle control on turn exits to conserve tires.

Some problems with the AMB timing computer were encountered, resulting in a back-up system being deployed.  However the data that was transferred from this PC was corrupted on the diskette, so we were behind a day in getting the reports on-line.

Race Director Rodney Berryhill also recruited some excellent help for the series this year with Jon Anderson and Terry Clements acting as Assistant Directors for the series.  Oscar Aguilera a skilled Race Announcer, managed the Flag and Microphone.

Coming to the Red River Region from California, Wade Van Hoosier was the center of much of the S1 attention.  Making the US Debut for the Intrepid with one of the agile California motors Wade was up against some very fast contenders in S1.  Motor problems flared up relegating Wade to a "Frankenstein" motor that would not make it to the last heat.  Wade was not alone in motor problems as Derek Denman also suffered motor problems.

Two SuperPro entries included Preston Peebles and Ryan Kinnear.  These two were head and shoulders above the rest of the S1 field proving the skills in driving and tuning are the crucial ingredients to the otherwise equal S1 field.  Times among the 9 S1 entries were still close where it was anyone's race in the final.

Friday practice opened under cloudy skies with cool temps in the upper 50's.  Air Density was good, but very hard to nail jetting.  Saturday and Sunday had much of the same for weather.  Friday evening brought the 2002 Banquet with several folks coming just for the Banquet.  A Report and Photogallery on the Banquet can be seen here.

Saturday introduced several challenges to competitors as they were literally shaking down their equipment.  The track tends to favor gearing for acceleration over speed despite the long straights.  The track also has a few bumps that tend to shake loose motor mounts and rub belly pans.  If you set up the chassis for grip on the sweepers, you loose the exit grip, and vice versa.  Set-ups were not easy to figure out.

Qualifying ran pretty smoothly thanks to the help.  The usual suspects posted the best times in their classes.   Sunday racing went off without a hitch from an organization standpoint anyway. 

Final Timing & Scoring Results - Note 80 Jr under Protest

60cc Novice Andrew Martz stated his season off pretty well taking a win in the Final.

Formula 80 Jr went to a consistent Weston Flynt with Reid Miller turning the fastest lap of the race second.   Xan Rose came home to show.  Also turning heads this weekend was Britt Patrick from Phoenix making his debut in the CRC Racing Arrows.  Justin Hill qualified on the pole for the first race but went out on the pace lap with mechanical problems.   Close racing action, especially mid-pack made this a great show to watch.  The Formula 80 Junior finish is under protest, so keep watching for any final judgments that may change the outcome.

The TAG class was small but proved to be fun for the competitors.  Ken Johnson on-board a Parilla Leopard came to the checker first in front of Jordan Blisset (2002 Most Improved Driver) in a Rotax Jr. 

ICC and G1 ran a combined race with some of the old G1 guard missing.  Rich Phillips has definitely put some seat time in as he has gotten to be very fast.  CR Crews ran away in the first two races, but in the Final Cody Hadley was right there trying high, trying low, braking late and generally looking for any place he could to power his Intrepid past the Arrows of Crews.  Just as Cody pounced, it was little too late and a little too hard on the brakes, locking and sliding into a stack of tires.  This gave CR some breathing room to back off to a fair pace to conserve energy for the S1 race.

S1 featured the SP entries of Preston Peebles and Ryan Kinnear with 7 closely matched S1 drivers behind.  Wade Van Hoosier would have started 4th, but after a weekend fraught with motor problems took the DNS for the Final.  In the Final, Derek Denman broke traction on the roost due to the water running out of the cooling system.  Flat out on the straight Derek stuck a now overheated motor spinning him 180° at 90mph!  (Where is the on-board camera when you really need it!)  He described the oncoming traffic as "the Red Sea" (rather then the Red River).

Reed Froelich took the launch and passed 3rd place starting CR Crews.  The battles for 1-2, and 3-4 were shaping up, while Chris Story kept a steady pace in 5th.  A few laps later CR sized up the best opportunity to pass Reed reclaiming 3rd.  As the battle with CR was tough, Chris Story now moved in on Reed.  Pushing his Tonykart to the limits, Reed's tires fell away surrendering 4th position to his friend Chris Story. 

In the closing laps it was Ryan Kinnear barely holding on to the leading Preston Peebles.  Ryan was clearly saving the rubber for a last few lap assault on Preston, and it worked.  After the two traded the coveted doughnut-makers position a few times in the last laps, Ryan got the holeshot coming off the last turn to slip half a nose (3-4") past Preston at the checker.

We shot a short video of the S1 race, just something casual after thrashing all weekend on the kart.

S1 Race Video

Meanwhile at the back of the pack Brian Morgan began to reel in a slowing Rickey Elder who was down to a few gears.

There is just no action like Red River racing!

The turnout was very small, about half of what was expected.  We hope to see our entries double at Norman, so help us to encourage a few more to come!  Kartweb will also have a complete video crew on hand for Race 2 in Norman.