Driver's Parade	Super Pro Practice	Norway	SKUSA Hospitality	Colin Braun at grid

The dog days of August settled in the rural village of Norway adding to physical demands of the most professional karting series in America.  Norway is a tough challenging track that places an emphasis on driver skill.  With the heat and humidity at record levels, the opening ceremony formats were changed to allow drivers to save their endurance and only the hardy volunteered to attend Saturday's driver's parade.

The Norway facilities, located 60 miles SW from downtown Chicago are very nice.  The facilities are ample for such a prestigious event, and the track layout includes high speed sweepers, low speed turns and chicanes, and a hill turn over a drainage culvert that adds to the vertical axis of travel - a little air time with every lap.  It is the home of Intense karting who gets to enjoy this track all 52 weeks a year - at least when it's not under a blanket of snow!

The Norway facilities have some neighbors nearby, and for that reason require a CIK approved airbox. The airbox had an obvious affect on the overrev ranges of the OEM ignition controlled Formula 80's.  This track rewards those with both a wide power band and low end grunt.

Track records for every shifter class were broken, some shattered by over a second.

Eastern Pro-Moto championship titles were decided in this final round of the series.

• Michael Giessen was crowned the Formula Junior Eastern Division Champion.
• Alan Rudolph was awarded the Super-Pro Eastern Division Championship for 2002 having a string of consistent top finishes in the series.
• Nick Bussell took home the honors of  S1 Eastern Division Championship continuing his dominant performance this year.
• Chris Jackson posted his fourth win of the series to lock down the K1 Eastern Division Championship.

In addition to the Super-Pro/Formula Junior/S1/K1 classes, G1 and FIC exhibition classes were also brought the best of the eastern series out.  Typical to the professional management style of SKUSA, the event was run with flawless execution.  Its no wonder that some of the top racing families in America have chosen SKUSA Pro-Moto as the place to start the racing careers of their offspring.

Rob Howden of Shifter Kart Illustrated was on hand for award ceremonies and handles the microphone with the talent that Tiger Woods handles a golf club.

Top three results will be posted below.  To see the official scoring and times, please visit the official site for SKUSA Pro-Moto Norway Results.

Formula Junior

In both Saturday and Sunday races, Formula Junior provided some of the best racing of the weekend.  With 31 entries the top ten were posting times within a half a second in Sunday's final, with nearly all 31 competitors within a second of the winner's times.  These young lions also demonstrated exceptional levels of professionalism on the track.  Colin Braun, Graham Rahal, Michael Giessen, Kyle Rahal, Kevin Lacroix, and James Hinchcliffe lead notable battles at the head of the long pack, providing some exciting video coverage coming soon to Kartweb.com.  The action was evenly distributed throughout the pack with all competitors deserving honorable mentions.

Colin Braun was in particular a delight to watch.  His style showed a clear intent to size up the leaders weaknesses and test his strengths to devise his passing strategy.  Colin's passes were carefully calculated and executed with a rare precision.  Driving a Birel this year, and powered by Woltjer, Colin has set a winning streak in several other series, so the win among the best 80 drivers in the country was particularly sweet.

Michael Giessen dove a spectacular set of races knowing that the Eastern Division Championship was his with finishes ahead of the runner-up James Hinchcliffe.  Hinchcliffe clinched the Eastern Championship runner-up with CR Crews close behind in points.  CR was involved in a high speed off road flight going into the Monza turn in practice trying to avoid another competitor who stuck a motor.  Driving in considerable pain, CR still stayed the course to remain in the championship battle the best he could.

On the podium for Saturday was Colin Braun, Graham Rahal, and Mike Geissen.

On the podium for Sunday was Colin Braun, Mike Geissen, and Kyle Rahal. 

Super-Pro

Some wondered if Bobby Wilson was actually part of a 250 class of Super-Pro as he simply pulled away from the rest of the pack.  His 1st-Kart chassis lived up to its name as did the Hi-Tech motor.  On a track that demanded low end torque, the Hi-Tech power pulled very cleanly off the corners, yet revved clear into next Tuesday.  But it wasn't all motor that gave Bobby the 10 second victories on Saturday and Sunday.  It was excellent driving and careful attention to detail all at their best.  On Saturday the train of Matt Champagne, Joe Janowski, Josh Schreiber, and Alan Rudolph rounded out the top five.  With Saturdays qualifying times very close, the order was very different from the finishing order.

Sundays race resulted in the same dominant win by Bobby Wilson, with Josh Schreiber claiming the silver medal, and Alan Rudolph taking the bronze.  More important though, Alan Rudolph also claimed the Eastern Super Pro title while proving that the Yamaha power was up to the task.

17 entries came into the cahallnge representing the fastest shifter drivers in the eastern division.  On Sunday Michael Marjaba made the prudent decision to withdraw as a result of pain from previous surgery, despite coming off a 6th place position on Saturday.

S1

Whenever twenty-eight fast 125's get together for a race, the starts are nothing less then exciting. Through 3 of 4 races, these hard chargers were very well behaved with clean starts and lots of close clean racing.  Saturdays main was the exception as a mid pack spin exiting turn 1 choked up the pack taking out 3 drivers and delaying about a dozen others.  In the 30 lap main, Nick Bussell took the lead and never looked back, until the "31st" lap.  In Post tech it was decided that Nick had a slight fuel discrepancy and he was DQ'd.  Nick's DQ promoted Phillip Johnson to the win, with Brandon Marsell taking the place and Nelson Phillppe taking the show.

Nick was not to be offended.  Phillip Johnson made a spectacular start aboard his Arrows factory ride with SRS power and gave Nick work hard for a pass about midway of the race.  Once in the lead, Nick showed that his win the day before was not due to any fuel irregularities finishing ahead of Phillip by nearly 8 seconds.  On Sunday the finishing order was Nick Bussell, Phillip Johnson, and Brandon Marsell.

Even with the DQ on Saturday, Nick clinched a well deserved Eastern Championship title.

Brotherly love was evident in Saturdays main after Phillips older brother Michael was caught up in the start incident at turn 1.  Michael Johnson, driving the Evolution RT featured in Kartweb's tech articles was cheering bro Phillip on even with Phillip driving the Arrows Factory kart.  Both of these drivers are very talented and should be considered among the stronger of the Eastern contenders at the Worlds Final.

Nick Brussell clinched the Eastern Championship in S1, with Greg Gleisner taking a close second and Mark Vielgut in third for the S1 Championship.  For sure, the World Finals will be the most exciting for S1 yet with Gary Carlton, Tad Funakoshi, Jake Thompson and all the other talented western S1 pros mixing it up with the Eastern pros.

K1

Chris "Action" Jackson put together a strong drive aboard his TMAC powered Maranello to win every race.  Ryan Kinnear put up a strong fight to stay in the battle on Sunday for about until about halfway until he fell slightly off the pace of the Action Jackson juggernaut. Saturdays finishing order ended with Chris Jackson on top, followed by Ryan Kinnear, and Kyle Ray 3rd. 

With Saturdays qualifying times close for K1 with a 1.1 second spread across the 9 competitors, Jackson was the only one to better his time in qualifying on Sunday, and at that with a bent axle from slapping the curbing off the last turn.  Everyone else on Sunday added a few tenths to their Saturday qualifying times.  In the Sunday Final, Ryan Kinnear gave Chris everything he had to stay with him and even tested the waters at an attempted pass once, but it was not to be.

Jeff Carter struggled with grip over the weekend not quite finding the precise balance needed to stay with the charge.  On Saturday overdriving a bit Jeff spun in the main and dropped to 6th before continuing on.  On Sunday Jeff brought his Champion Interkart home on the podium.

Chris Jackson collected the Eastern K1 Pro-Moto Championship, with Jeff Welch and Kyle Ray runners up.

FIC Exhibition Race

For 2002 SKUSA added two exhibition classes, and the rumor on the streets is that one of them may become a full fledged Pro-Moto class in 2003.  The FIC class utilizing the European version of shifter motor have been slowly gaining numbers in SKUSA competition.  This meet saw 9 FIC entrants, the same number that K1 drew.  Not bad growth considering that just 2 months ago at the SKUSA Amateur Nationals only one FIC had shown up.

Racing was not as close as was predicted given the spread of 3 seconds among the 9 competitors in Fridays qualifying. Thomas Buckley qualified on the pole with a time that put him about 12th in either SP or S1 classes.  Kyle Wiegand and Thomas Buckley put on a good show until the 8th lap when Thomas pulled off having ejected his silencer.  Andy Rossetto looked to be in for a podium but was DQ'd for a driving infraction.  On the last lap the order past the checker flag was Kyle Wiegand driving the Team Fury CRS followed by Craig Allen, and Tyler Thielmann.

G1 Exhibition Race

Grandpa's class did not appear to have any grandpas, in fact some of these competitors may still be getting carded at the local pubs...

A field of thirteen G1's brought their 125cc machines to do battle, and  truth be told, they came for the fun not the glory.  John Spindler had the cleanest suit at the whole facility (including the new ones hanging up in the store for sale) brought his TM powered CRG home fisrt.  Asked how he kept his suit so clean before the race, he just smiled.  It helps when you don't have anyone in front kicking up dirt.

There were some close packs that split off, but they were not as interested in putting a battle for position as much as finishing their 24 laps in the sweltering heat.

Ine the end it was John Spindler, Lyle Longly, and Jeremy Buck taking the podium.