IT Happens

[38supPat]

Well I gotta vent somewhere, but this isn't really a hate so...

I entered a team Go Kart enduro on the weekend. 160 laps, 1 mandatory fuel stop, 5 mandatory driver changes (for a total of 6 driver shifts...40 laps per driver, 4 drivers)

My team cosisted of Me (team captain), Mike Fletcher (crew chief) and a friend who runs AutoX with me Ryan (and a really good driver) and a co-worker of his Pedro.

We devised a pit strategy, Mike did most of the work on that, and got ready to race.

Ryan was in the car first on the grid, his job was to get us near the front then let the pit strategy work its magic. He started 6th on the grid and by lap 2 had us running in 3rd. Mike got in and due to a speedy driver change and our pit plan we moved up to 2nd (out of 12 teams) where we stayed. We changed to Pedro, who would be in the car for the fuel change, and unfortunatly tragedy struck. Our left front wheel came off exiting a turn sending poor Pedro dead straight into a wall, I estimate the speed to have been about 60kph as it was exiting a set of wide open throttle turns. Fortunetly Pedro was unhurt and came sprinting back to the pits to retrieve a backup kart and got under way, but now we were way back in 6th. Pedro finished the laps after the fuel stop, and I got in, I only had a quick 10 laps (part of the pit strategy) before Ryan got back in for 10 (during which ryan got us back up to 5th) then my final stint at the wheel. 30 laps til the checkered flag, I passed another car in the pits to get us to fourth and managed to finish the race just off of the podium.

We had a great time and thanks to everyone putting in a monstrous effort, and some fantastic driving, we ended up fairly well despite a huge setback.

BTW the other team included many great racers, including the team that took over 2nd place from us who had a driver who may be testing for LeMans on it. So we were pretty proud of ourselves.

I guess the moral of the story is, no matter how well prepared you are... happens

I can't believe we lost a wheel!

I can't believe we lost a wheel!!!

I can't belie....oh never mind