Vegas.  Temporary circuit.  Tecpro barriers.  Huge entry counts.  Best shifter kart drivers in America.  Walk to the hotel.  Punctual schedules.  Excellent audio system.  SpeedVision coverage.  Racing don’t get any better than this.

Every year Murley raises the bar for the SKUSA SuperNationals, and with 320 entries this year was even better.  Sprinkle in a little rain for practice day and late Saturday night, and the desert climate track stayed green.

As usual, the SuperNationals is more of a glimpse of what the following year brings.  It’s chaos in the classroom as drivers often move to new classes and classes are changed or introduced.  Driver changes include Wesley Boswell, Wade VanHooser, Ryan Kinnear, Mark Vielgut, Kyle Wiegand and Wade VanHooser in SuperPro.  SuperPro now uses only ICC motors, where S1 & G1 allows Moto or ICC power.  Three new classes were introduced, TAG, TAG Masters, and 80cc Novice.

The 5-day schedule began on Wednesday with practice sessions that turned from damp to wet in the first ten minutes, damp to wet in the second ten minutes and wet to soaked by the end of the first half hour.  Most teams opted to skip practice canceling the second of three rounds of practice.

Thursday brought partly cloudy skies and packed practice sessions.  A slight change to the track by removing a chicane on the back straight gave even the veterans of 2002 a tough time finding the right gear.  Moreover, the track puts a demand on dialing in grip while losing every last bit of binding.  Even top names were struggling with set up on the green track.  Afternoon qualifying took place for semi-pro classes of Novice, TAG, and K1.  A final practice round for SuperPro wound up the day, but with a twist – transponders and scales were in effect to split them into two groups for qualifying.

Friday was another spectacular day for racing with the remainder of qualifying and semi-pro heat races.  Paul Tracy dropped by for a while (parking his superb canary yellow Ferrari 360 F1 in the “free parking lot…..)  At the end of the day on the track, a low speed, low altitude flyover of a Fokker Bi-Plane, a P40 Mustang, and two Phantom Fighter Jets

Saturday racing began to get revved up.  SuperPro, S1, and G1 had more entries then available grid positions splitting them into groups for Pre-Final and Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ) races.  Basically the top ten finishers from each Group in the Pre-Finals are automatically moved to the Finals, with the last 14 positions decided by another runoff race among only those who did not make the Finals, as the LCQ race.  The plan was to limit classes to 34 maximum entries for the Final.  Due to the large number of entries in some classes, this was expanded to 40 for SP & S1 with 38 for G1.

Alex Tagliani treated everyone to the “2005” version of SP (not!) a twin ICC powered kart with 90 HP.  After several laps Alex finally knocked off some fast laps with peak speeds probably 10MPH faster on the straights than anything else – yet his pal times were about equal to mid-pack S1.

International flair was evident as tuners and factory owners came from Italy and Australia to support their products at the SuperNationals.

Sunday the rain clouds obscured the sunrise.  The rain let up about an hour before racing began, with plenty of last minute bartering on rains “just in case”.  At the start of the first race at 11:30, that track was nearly dry, and completely dry by the third lap.

Part of what makes the SuperNats so fantastic is the ambiance that only Las Vegas provides.  The Rio Hotel is a natural given the architectural beauty, the ample sized parking lot and the amenities offered.  As the night divides the day, many teams can be found in among the lounges, restaurants, theaters, or even at some of the games but all enjoying themselves.  Rivalry is left behind at the track.

Quotable Quotes

"Will Scott Jessup please stop at the Eventlab Tent"?

"It only rains 5 days a year in Las Vegas"

"$300?  What does $100 get?"

"Will Scott Jessup please stop at the Everyone's Tent"?

"Anybody got $300?"

" Parlate inglese?" (Italian for "Do you speak English?")

Racing results by class

Semi-Pro                 

• 60cc Novice

• *80cc Novice

• *TAG Sr

• *TAG Masters

• FMX

Pro

• Formula K1

• Formula 80Jr

• Formula G1

• Formula S1

• SuperPro

* Denotes new classes

More coming from the SuperNats at KW

Kartweb Reports Videos

We are producing a 5 minute program on each class that will be available to subscribers in the KW Theatre.  Some spectacular footage includes on-track action from all days.

Photogallery

We took over 800 photos and will be posting the best 50 in the coming weeks.

Missle-anyous News

The SuperNationals gave us a chance to meet with some of the product manufactures with some revelations of what's coming for 2004.  For example the ICC 2004 Homologation - what's changing in some of the motors, what's needed to update a 2001 model, and much more coming over through the end of the year.