Greetings Texas F-chatters I Just wanted to send you a message and let you know how things are going in Florida and my quest towards a karting world championship. Last week before arriving at the track in Ocala we visited my friend Edgar who has been working at an advertising agency over the summer in Miami. We only had a day to visit the city, but we made the best of it. We were able to visit south beach, taste the 'best pinacola's in the world' by Geno's , and thanks to Edgars father VIP passes were arranged for us to visit the Latin Teen Music awards presented by Univision (the mexican channel to most of us). It was really excited to be at this event and get to walk in back stage with the performers. Most of which I had no idea who they were, but I can assure you the girls are gorgeous. After the event it was off to bed so we could wake up and make the five hour drive to central florida to reach Ocala. On Saturday my race tuner/mechanic/transport driver/cook Cole Lake (of Texas Driving Experience) and I made our way to the track in the super transporter (aka my moms town and country mini van loaded to the hilt with karting stuff). We lucked out and were allowed to pit under an awning and stay out of the sun. I think this saved our life as it was between 93-98 degrees all day with humidity around 180% (trust me). During the day we did about 50 laps of practice but weren't sure how we stood up to the competition before qualifying. Many of the other drivers in this 'warm up' event were from all over the country and preparing for next weekends race. Drivers traveled from as far as Mexico and Boston for this practice race. Once qualifying got under way a lot of our questions were answered. We qualified 1/2 second ahead of the second place driver. For you racing critiques the race might be considered uninspiring as we drove off to win the 25 lap race by 12 seconds over the second place driver. We event lapped the last 4 drivers in the process! Although it was just a warm up race we are feeling very confident that we will be in a good position for next weeks race. The Arrow factory team is set to arrive this evening so we will be able to do a couple days of practice/testing with the factory mechanics before the event begins. We will be qualifying on Thursday, with 3 heat races on friday, and the prefinal (23 laps) and final race (30 laps) will be on Saturday. Hope everything is going well for you, wish me the best, and hopefully I will be home on the 23rd with good news! Best wishes Michael Johnson,
Keep the bits in the cart that need to be in the cart but hang the rest out and RUN BABY Also email me pix you want posted
Michael; Excellent job! Although my karting experience was subdued compared to yours a 12 second win is still a big deal. Keep up the good work, keep us posted and we look forward to talking to you when you return.
Hey Everybody, Thank you for the kind words. I will keep you posted as the week progresses. Today and tommorow is designated for testing. We will be running a different compound of tyres for next weekends event so we will run through a couple of sets and find out what they like and do a staged qualifying practice. Thursday evening will be a 10 minute open track qualifying session. Our class of 42 drivers will be split into two groups and you have ten minutes to lay down the best time. With 21 drivers on the track things can still get pretty crowded so it will be important to get a good lap in early before things get too busy. I will do my best to keep you guys updated on how things are going when I can make it to the internet. All the best Michael,
Hey Everyone, Today was a busy day with not so much action on the track. The track was closed for practice and called a 'set-up day' for the teams that haven't been here already for a week. We spent the day making the final major prepartion to the kart; tyres, engine, and some final changes to the chassis and gear set up. I found one of the other members of the Arrow team has a digital camera so I will try to get some photos up in the next day or so. Best wishes Michael,
Just got off the shoe phone with Michael, he sends greetings and a bit of an update. Things have gotten rough, his cart engine has developed an untraceable fault that causes it to bog down when coming out of a slow speed corner. He passes 3 or 4 on the run but when they come out of the apex they can pretty much pass him back. The fault has caused him to miss getting a By into the final round so he had to run the other races inorder to just barely qualify. They have rebuilt everything on the cart but the engine is still giving him fits. He managed to find another engine (someone either had a spare or they are already out of the race) and they are putting it in now. Shake down in the morning then into the heat races. He is going to be starting mid to back of the pack in the next round. Best is to get up into the top 10 so he starts better in the later races when the heat (and importance) is amped up. Also variations on the track temp from 100+ in the afternoon to mid 70's in the night are giving set up issues. He says HI to all and thanks for the support. Jim
Hey Everybody, Sorry for being so quiet the past few days. Thank you Jim for making an update. It's 2pm in Florida and we are just getting back to the hotel room (and not because we have been having fun with the beautiful florida girls). On practice in Tuesday we developed a problem with the motor that we have not been able to correct. Out of the slow corners (there are three) the motor is completely out to lunch. I don't have a spare so we have been thrashing changing out every other component that I can find or borrow to try and fix the problem. Because this series runs a sealed engine we have not been able to open the motor and look inside to see if it is the problem. Even with the bad motor I was able to place high enough in the three heat races we had today to earn a transfer spot into the final race. After the 'cuts' had been made I was able to find a motor that we are going to use to replace my current motor. We expect this will cure the problem and we will be back in the fight. Tommorow there will be two races. A 23 lap pre-final race, and a 30 lap final. The prefinal race will decide the starting positions for the final. I will start 27th in the prefinal, so hopefully with a replacement motor I will have good power and I can start bringing it to these guys. At this point my immediate goal is to get into the top 15 so I can transfer into the United States championship race which will be in September. If the prefinal goes well and I can work my way into the top 10 whether through attrition or massive speed (with new power) hopefully I can make a charge for the top spot in the long 30 lap final. Thank you again for all for the support! Best wishes Michael,
Just made it back to the hotel after a tough finish for a week that started out in such a promising way. Even with the replacement motor we weren't able to figure out the low speed 'bog,' with the engine. I expect to find some minor fuel blockage or electrical problem once we get the car back to the hq. Quite a shame because the chassis was fantastic, and we were exteremely fast (except said low speed corners). I was able to fight my way to a 21st finishing position.... just not justice to the potential of the package. A special thank you to my friend/co-worker from Texas Driving Experience Cole Lake who took a week to help make this possible. One of the magazine photographer caught a great shot of me passing another driver during and is going to email it to me soon. I will post here when available. The Texas racing sprit is off to bed.... All the best Michael,
Thanks for the updates! I'm sorry it didn't turn out better for you. I hope that problem is found and remedied in short order. Keep us posted on your races and successes!
Michael - Thanks for all the updates, it allows those of us with less talent to live vicariously through you. Sorry to hear about the results of the weekend. Will there be another opportunity to qualify for the September race?
