Dec 13th, 2011 - 4 Hr ENDURO
It is a day later and I'm starting to recover my senses, after the physical beating my body and brain took last night at the 4 hour karting enduro at held at and put on by Dallas Karting Complex in Caddo Mills, TX. I am getting more angry about how the event was run, and how the winning team was randomly picked, as well.
This new track has been open since May but this was their first endurance race - that they put on themselves. The entry fee was $500/team, which could be either 3 or 4 drivers. It was obvious from the very beginning that the DKC owners had never been to or run an endurance race of any kind, as the details on the event format were sketchy; they only finalized the rules the day of the event, and changed several times during the event. So yea, there were some teething problems but I think they will eventually settle on a format that is fair, painless, and efficient.
The sign-up for this event happened 2 months prior, it was only announced on Facebook, and it sold out (to 10 teams) within 4 days. A bunch of us that wanted to do this event missed out, oh well - gotta stay tuned into their Facebook page. Luckily there were a three local autocrossers that had an opening on their team, and after they asked everyone else they could possibly think of, I finally got the call. Lucky again that I had been practicing "night karting" with Cody and Costas for a few weeks prior to the event, so I felt like I could drive that track at night (with 5 street lights out) in the dark.
Our team came up with a few strategies. Having run endurance events before I offered up a few basic ideas: night practice, radio communications, live timing, dedicated spotter/radio person, and a driver schedule. We all got in some night practice in the weeks before the event, and each driver had been to DKC twice before the enduro (I think I've been 7 times now). I found some low-cost 2-way COBRA radios ($40/pair) and then ordered a pair of ear-piece/mic cords ($14/each). That was so worth the money!
The driver's meeting was scheduled for 6:30 pm Tuesday night of the race, with first kart out by 7:30. We were the 2nd team to arrive, right about 6:20. We waited for all of the other teams to arrive (eleven total?) and finally had the drivers meeting and weigh-in at 7 pm. Each driver had to weigh 180 lbs avg (720 lbs total for 4) which were weighed at the same time on 4 corner weight scales. One team came in right at 720, but ours was over by 30 pounds (with me being the "anchor" in that line-up @ 210 lbs, in all my gear). The Red Bull road show was there, with the big "DJ stand party buss" and the local DFW "Red Bull Girls" Mini Cooper. Free Red Bull and LOUD music all night. Yay.
So, driver's meeting... "Turn that music off!" One of the track owners talked about some rules: "no bumping or spinning out other karts, or we might black flag you", and "we will stop the race at the 2 hour mark, bring all karts in, and the DKC crew will re-fuel them". That seemed pretty fair, but was not what we were told weeks leading up to the event ("the teams will have to fuel their own karts" and "these things can only go 30 minutes on one tank"). Again, this was their first enduro and they will figure this stuff out as they go. Nobody ran out of fuel (*see exception below) so the 2 hour fueling window worked. I think it was a total WAG (wild ass guess), but they were right on that one.
These karts use AMB transponders, so I had planned on bringing an iPad, downloading the MyLaps app (see above), and linking into their live timing system. Five dollar app purchase + a link from the DKC folks entered and were were in business! We were the only team to think of that one, so we had a crowd looking over our shoulders at times all night, when we were up on the observation deck (better to spot the track from there, and better radio comms standing high up). Everyone else had to go into the lobby or downstairs to watch the timing readouts. The MyLaps system had more data than "# of laps, best lap, last lap" like the regular displays had, and this is where we started seeing some "timing adjustments" happen. More on that later.
The day of the race it had rained in the afternoon, but they didn't move the event - another lucky guess and good call. The week prior was actually the original scheduled date, but it was 30°F and they called the race the day before. I was bummed, because we had been testing in 30-40°F temps at night, and had planned on a COLD enduro, but oh well. They had each team draw for kart numbers/positions, and we got #7, so were to start 7th. Mid-pack, so I guess it could be worse.
The temps this night were in the mid 60°s F, but with a strong breeze and a bit chilly, so some drivers wore light jackets while others wore driving suits. In my first 30 minute driving stint I wore a dry-fit long sleeved shirt with another dry-fit shirt over that, and it was perfect, except I had no place to put my radio (more on that below) the 2nd stint I wore a tight fitting leather jacket with an inside pocket for the radio. That time I was sweating when I got out, so we'll have to re-think what to wear based on temps. A better radio holder = a must! 2 way comms would be even better but would entail investing in 4 helmet-mounted microphones and a dedicated wiring harness for push to talk feature. We all had real race gloves and shoes, and most brought their own full faced helmets (I grabbed the wrong helmet bag, which had my OPEN faced autocross helmet, so I had to burrow a loaner - doh!).
Our team had 4 autocrossers, all of which had some track experience. Thomas Hiromoto, Nathan Wainwright, Joseph Kan, and me. We chose a schedule of that exact order. So by 7:20 pm they were getting the karts started, and our first driver Thomas noticed that the throttle was stuck - no return spring! We got the DKC techs to "pop the hood" and they re-attached the spring to the pedal box with a zip tie. "Whew!" It was kart #7, which was one of the quicker ones the last time we were there, and I was happy we salvaged that kart. Then they tried to start it... unsuccessfully, for 6 or 7 minutes. The air cleaner went on and off 2 times, and finally they punted and got us a back-up kart, #3 that was sitting off to the side. They only had 13 or 14 karts prepped with new tires for this event, so with 11 teams running we gobbled up the first "spare". Then another one wouldn't start, so I think they were down to one spare kart before the start of the race. Oh boy...
Left: DKC folks trying to fix our assigned kart #7, before the race began. Right: The karts lining up to race
Thomas went out on sticker tires and a damp track, so he took it easy the first few laps - but maintained his 7th place for his whole 30 minute stint. His lap times picked up into the 72 second range by the end, and he was flying. Our radios were working GREAT and we were able to spot for closing traffic from behind, give him a time update every 10 minutes, read off lap times every lap so he could adjust, and let him know 3-4 laps before he had to come in, with a count-down. We had a system of getting the extra ear-piece set-up with the next driver on deck 5 minutes before the pit stop. The ear bud was taped on to their ear, helmet goes on, then neck brace, gloves. During the pit stop all 4 of us were there, and the 2 "spare" folks helped the exiting driver out, then belted in the next driver so they could get cinched down quickly. Once belted in we pushed them the first 20 feet to build momentum and off they went. Worked well and we were averaging a 40-45 second bogey time on each stop. Seems like a lot but there were FAR slower pit stops that night. This ain't F1!
So Thomas had a good first stint, running fast laps and keeping up with serious karting guys. He passed several, had one re-pass him, then got the spot back at the end of his stint. He came in after 30 minutes and Nathan took over for the next 30 minutes, and he ratcheted up the top time by a few tenths. He was knocking off 73s with ease, then 72s, but I think he had one quick spin on track; only lost a few seconds. Somehow by then we were 2-3 laps down, and were never passed on track. WTF? Maybe the MyLaps readout was wonky. We concentrated on driving and hoped the read-out would catch itself back up soon. Joseph got in had some good laps as well, running low 73s. One quick spin, but again, only a few seconds lost. All 3 first drivers made good passes on track, had good times and we had quick pit stops. I think we noticed the lead kart pass one of our drivers on track ONCE, but they were already running 71s by then.
We had one "pit lane speed violation" where they held one of our drivers for 30 seconds - this was a rule they made up on the spot. Maybe we lost one of our laps there, who knows? Amy was watching the timing and kept pointing out we were down laps, but we didn't know how. We noticed one team was doing 1 hour stints, to save several pit stops (4 hour stints vs 8 30s), but most teams stuck to the 30 minute stop windows. Driving these things takes a lot out of you, and not many folks thought they could do an hour long stint. I don't think I could have. We all had to drive the same amount of time for the night "within 15 minutes", and with the 2 hour mandatory fuel stop, we stuck with the 30 minute stops to keep it simple. That might be one strategic change if we ever did this again. I think 8-9 teams probably did the 30 minute stint schedule, too.
So Joseph came in at the 1 hour 30 minute mark and I hopped in and planned on going until they stopped us for fuel. I was sans jacket and had clipped the radio foolishly to my belt. Dumb! With the seat insert (that you have to rent now) and harness tight, the radio popped right off. Nathan used quick thinking and shoved it behind my back, right before I left the pits. Err, so yea... my back kept mashing the transmit button and all I heard was BEEP-BEEP-BEEP! BEEP-BEEP-BEEP! the first few laps. VERY distracting. So I loosened my belts all the way out on the main straight, and for 3 laps struggled to fish the radio out from behind my back. I finally got it out, then drove 2 laps with the radio in one hand, waving it like a maniac to my teammates as I drove by the observation deck. On my 3rd lap like that I tossed it laterally towards the hot pits, at 30 mph, and it bounced off the grass right next to the barrier, where they quickly retrieved it.
I managed to gather myself back up, sort of get the belts kind of tight again, and put in some good laps during this stint. Knocked out a best of a 72.4 sec lap in there, with a string of mid-high 72s and some low 73s, and passed about 7 karts - apparently only one for position? Towards the end I saw another autocrosser I recognized ahead of me, and was working on reeling him in. When I got the white flag before the fuel stop, I was 3-4 lengths behind him and managed to click off a pretty risky pass into turn 1. That's where you brake from 65 mph down to about 25, into a big sweeping turn. I had some rear tire lock-up, a bit of drift on the inside of the corner, a little bit of an accidental bump check to the driver on the outside, but the pass held. He was all smiles and handshakes after that stint, and said that battle was the most fun he had all night, so it was all good. I saw some much rougher bump passes so this one never got a second look. My only contact all night and it was very very minor.
So we come in for the refueling and check the results. We had been down as far as 8th place and I came in at 7th. How the frak are we so far down, we wondered? We were shown at +4 laps to the leaders and 7th out of 11 teams at the 2 hour mark and we were left all scratching our heads. Each driver just didn't get passed much if ever on track, and our avg lap times were no more than .5 sec off the top teams, and faster than some ahead of us. Our second two hours/stints were much of the same, but EVERYONE got faster on our team. More familiarity with the track and fresh tires, I guess? Every single member was running 72 sec laps, with I think a best of 72.0 by me, Thomas had a 72.3, Nathan had a 72.2, and Joseph a 72.5 or so. My last stint was about 40 minutes and I felt good about all of my laps, all but 2 of which were in the mid to low 72s. My very last lap was still a 72.2, so I finished out strong. Could I have gone another 20 minutes? Man, I don't know... an hour straight driving these things at these lap times would wreck a 42 year old body like mine.
So at the end, we were still the same 4 laps down we were at the 2 hour mark, when all of the adjustments happened. Only 1 team we knew of was doing hour long stints, so how did the other 4-5 teams get ahead of us? Well... There were some shenanigans. One team ran out of fuel on track, halfway through a lap. The DKC folks tried to fix it on the spot, but realized the fuel tank had cracked open. That sucks, but that's endurance racing, you know? This team had fallen back several laps, apparently all the way to last place during the off-track stop. The driver ran back to the pits, they got into a new kart, and off they went. Somebody must have done some fast talking because soon after the DKC folks credited them something like SIX LAPS. Yea, that's right, they got bonus laps for having a fuel tank issue. So they immediately leaped into 1st place. I've never HEARD of such a thing. Now all of this was pretty hush-hush but most of the teams were talking about it, and you can see a weird "0:15 min best lap" in the final readout for the top team:
Funky timing anomalies abound? Our team was "Caucasian" - which was a funny, since half our members were Asian
So apparently there were possibly even some additional "lap adjustments" awarded for transponder issues, but I'm not sure. So many rumors floating around. Nobody knows the whole story except for the DKC folks, and after the event they squashed all dissent pretty quickly. One driver from one of the faster teams were pointing out at the awards ceremony that their team had faster avg laps and this "lap adjustment" situation screwed up the results. This was followed by loud announcement from an owner of "LETS WRAP THIS UP!", which put an end to discussion. So, yea, several teams left there pissed off, and we left early during the "awards ceremony" as well. They gave out trophies + custom made jackets + hundreds of dollars of DKC credits + cases of Red Bull + gift karts to local restaurants were given to the top team and other prices to places 2 and 3.
I don't know... it seems like a lot of bitching re-reading what I've written here, but I'm hearing similar chatter from a lot of other teams. We put in $5500 in entry fees to DKC and we all wanted a fair fight, but got this half-baked attempt at a race. I think it stems from a difference in philosophy from the owners of the track/equipment vs a real racing sanctioning body. DKC has a kart track with rental karts for people to come out and bang out a few sessions of laps for fun. The karts' performances are significantly different from week to week (having been 7 times now, I've seen upwards of 2 sec difference from one week to the next, in the exact same conditions - so much depends on the condition of the engines and freshness of the tires), but for "fun karting" it doesn't matter.
To real racers, this DOES matter. DKC announced an endurance RACE, with real prizes, and a lot of RACERS showed up. I don't think the owners took the event as seriously as some of the teams - you cannot just adjust the number of laps to a team in endurance racing! That doesn't happen. Instead of concentrating on Red Bull girls, DJs and the "show", I wish they'd had someone with some experience running an endurance race there to to be the race marshal, teach how the flags work, and police the pits/offs/bumping. They also need to work on kart reliability, transponders, etc.
They announced another "9 or 10" endurance races of the same format for 2012. Will I give them another $500 for an event like this? Honestly, no. I do have a LOT of fun going out to DKC, but this is a little more effort than just spending the $500 entry fee - we practiced for weeks, bought radios, spend time planning, and drove our guts out for a 6th place finish that we don't believe is accurate. Maybe we were really 5th? Maybe 4th? Who knows. They sure don't. Still, it was a lot of fun pretending we were actually racing, even if the results were skewed by some kooky adjustments.
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It is a day later and I'm starting to recover my senses, after the physical beating my body and brain took last night at the 4 hour karting enduro at held at and put on by Dallas Karting Complex in Caddo Mills, TX. I am getting more angry about how the event was run, and how the winning team was randomly picked, as well.
This new track has been open since May but this was their first endurance race - that they put on themselves. The entry fee was $500/team, which could be either 3 or 4 drivers. It was obvious from the very beginning that the DKC owners had never been to or run an endurance race of any kind, as the details on the event format were sketchy; they only finalized the rules the day of the event, and changed several times during the event. So yea, there were some teething problems but I think they will eventually settle on a format that is fair, painless, and efficient.
The sign-up for this event happened 2 months prior, it was only announced on Facebook, and it sold out (to 10 teams) within 4 days. A bunch of us that wanted to do this event missed out, oh well - gotta stay tuned into their Facebook page. Luckily there were a three local autocrossers that had an opening on their team, and after they asked everyone else they could possibly think of, I finally got the call. Lucky again that I had been practicing "night karting" with Cody and Costas for a few weeks prior to the event, so I felt like I could drive that track at night (with 5 street lights out) in the dark.
Our team came up with a few strategies. Having run endurance events before I offered up a few basic ideas: night practice, radio communications, live timing, dedicated spotter/radio person, and a driver schedule. We all got in some night practice in the weeks before the event, and each driver had been to DKC twice before the enduro (I think I've been 7 times now). I found some low-cost 2-way COBRA radios ($40/pair) and then ordered a pair of ear-piece/mic cords ($14/each). That was so worth the money!
The driver's meeting was scheduled for 6:30 pm Tuesday night of the race, with first kart out by 7:30. We were the 2nd team to arrive, right about 6:20. We waited for all of the other teams to arrive (eleven total?) and finally had the drivers meeting and weigh-in at 7 pm. Each driver had to weigh 180 lbs avg (720 lbs total for 4) which were weighed at the same time on 4 corner weight scales. One team came in right at 720, but ours was over by 30 pounds (with me being the "anchor" in that line-up @ 210 lbs, in all my gear). The Red Bull road show was there, with the big "DJ stand party buss" and the local DFW "Red Bull Girls" Mini Cooper. Free Red Bull and LOUD music all night. Yay.
So, driver's meeting... "Turn that music off!" One of the track owners talked about some rules: "no bumping or spinning out other karts, or we might black flag you", and "we will stop the race at the 2 hour mark, bring all karts in, and the DKC crew will re-fuel them". That seemed pretty fair, but was not what we were told weeks leading up to the event ("the teams will have to fuel their own karts" and "these things can only go 30 minutes on one tank"). Again, this was their first enduro and they will figure this stuff out as they go. Nobody ran out of fuel (*see exception below) so the 2 hour fueling window worked. I think it was a total WAG (wild ass guess), but they were right on that one.
These karts use AMB transponders, so I had planned on bringing an iPad, downloading the MyLaps app (see above), and linking into their live timing system. Five dollar app purchase + a link from the DKC folks entered and were were in business! We were the only team to think of that one, so we had a crowd looking over our shoulders at times all night, when we were up on the observation deck (better to spot the track from there, and better radio comms standing high up). Everyone else had to go into the lobby or downstairs to watch the timing readouts. The MyLaps system had more data than "# of laps, best lap, last lap" like the regular displays had, and this is where we started seeing some "timing adjustments" happen. More on that later.
The day of the race it had rained in the afternoon, but they didn't move the event - another lucky guess and good call. The week prior was actually the original scheduled date, but it was 30°F and they called the race the day before. I was bummed, because we had been testing in 30-40°F temps at night, and had planned on a COLD enduro, but oh well. They had each team draw for kart numbers/positions, and we got #7, so were to start 7th. Mid-pack, so I guess it could be worse.
The temps this night were in the mid 60°s F, but with a strong breeze and a bit chilly, so some drivers wore light jackets while others wore driving suits. In my first 30 minute driving stint I wore a dry-fit long sleeved shirt with another dry-fit shirt over that, and it was perfect, except I had no place to put my radio (more on that below) the 2nd stint I wore a tight fitting leather jacket with an inside pocket for the radio. That time I was sweating when I got out, so we'll have to re-think what to wear based on temps. A better radio holder = a must! 2 way comms would be even better but would entail investing in 4 helmet-mounted microphones and a dedicated wiring harness for push to talk feature. We all had real race gloves and shoes, and most brought their own full faced helmets (I grabbed the wrong helmet bag, which had my OPEN faced autocross helmet, so I had to burrow a loaner - doh!).
Our team had 4 autocrossers, all of which had some track experience. Thomas Hiromoto, Nathan Wainwright, Joseph Kan, and me. We chose a schedule of that exact order. So by 7:20 pm they were getting the karts started, and our first driver Thomas noticed that the throttle was stuck - no return spring! We got the DKC techs to "pop the hood" and they re-attached the spring to the pedal box with a zip tie. "Whew!" It was kart #7, which was one of the quicker ones the last time we were there, and I was happy we salvaged that kart. Then they tried to start it... unsuccessfully, for 6 or 7 minutes. The air cleaner went on and off 2 times, and finally they punted and got us a back-up kart, #3 that was sitting off to the side. They only had 13 or 14 karts prepped with new tires for this event, so with 11 teams running we gobbled up the first "spare". Then another one wouldn't start, so I think they were down to one spare kart before the start of the race. Oh boy...
Left: DKC folks trying to fix our assigned kart #7, before the race began. Right: The karts lining up to race
Thomas went out on sticker tires and a damp track, so he took it easy the first few laps - but maintained his 7th place for his whole 30 minute stint. His lap times picked up into the 72 second range by the end, and he was flying. Our radios were working GREAT and we were able to spot for closing traffic from behind, give him a time update every 10 minutes, read off lap times every lap so he could adjust, and let him know 3-4 laps before he had to come in, with a count-down. We had a system of getting the extra ear-piece set-up with the next driver on deck 5 minutes before the pit stop. The ear bud was taped on to their ear, helmet goes on, then neck brace, gloves. During the pit stop all 4 of us were there, and the 2 "spare" folks helped the exiting driver out, then belted in the next driver so they could get cinched down quickly. Once belted in we pushed them the first 20 feet to build momentum and off they went. Worked well and we were averaging a 40-45 second bogey time on each stop. Seems like a lot but there were FAR slower pit stops that night. This ain't F1!
So Thomas had a good first stint, running fast laps and keeping up with serious karting guys. He passed several, had one re-pass him, then got the spot back at the end of his stint. He came in after 30 minutes and Nathan took over for the next 30 minutes, and he ratcheted up the top time by a few tenths. He was knocking off 73s with ease, then 72s, but I think he had one quick spin on track; only lost a few seconds. Somehow by then we were 2-3 laps down, and were never passed on track. WTF? Maybe the MyLaps readout was wonky. We concentrated on driving and hoped the read-out would catch itself back up soon. Joseph got in had some good laps as well, running low 73s. One quick spin, but again, only a few seconds lost. All 3 first drivers made good passes on track, had good times and we had quick pit stops. I think we noticed the lead kart pass one of our drivers on track ONCE, but they were already running 71s by then.
We had one "pit lane speed violation" where they held one of our drivers for 30 seconds - this was a rule they made up on the spot. Maybe we lost one of our laps there, who knows? Amy was watching the timing and kept pointing out we were down laps, but we didn't know how. We noticed one team was doing 1 hour stints, to save several pit stops (4 hour stints vs 8 30s), but most teams stuck to the 30 minute stop windows. Driving these things takes a lot out of you, and not many folks thought they could do an hour long stint. I don't think I could have. We all had to drive the same amount of time for the night "within 15 minutes", and with the 2 hour mandatory fuel stop, we stuck with the 30 minute stops to keep it simple. That might be one strategic change if we ever did this again. I think 8-9 teams probably did the 30 minute stint schedule, too.
So Joseph came in at the 1 hour 30 minute mark and I hopped in and planned on going until they stopped us for fuel. I was sans jacket and had clipped the radio foolishly to my belt. Dumb! With the seat insert (that you have to rent now) and harness tight, the radio popped right off. Nathan used quick thinking and shoved it behind my back, right before I left the pits. Err, so yea... my back kept mashing the transmit button and all I heard was BEEP-BEEP-BEEP! BEEP-BEEP-BEEP! the first few laps. VERY distracting. So I loosened my belts all the way out on the main straight, and for 3 laps struggled to fish the radio out from behind my back. I finally got it out, then drove 2 laps with the radio in one hand, waving it like a maniac to my teammates as I drove by the observation deck. On my 3rd lap like that I tossed it laterally towards the hot pits, at 30 mph, and it bounced off the grass right next to the barrier, where they quickly retrieved it.
I managed to gather myself back up, sort of get the belts kind of tight again, and put in some good laps during this stint. Knocked out a best of a 72.4 sec lap in there, with a string of mid-high 72s and some low 73s, and passed about 7 karts - apparently only one for position? Towards the end I saw another autocrosser I recognized ahead of me, and was working on reeling him in. When I got the white flag before the fuel stop, I was 3-4 lengths behind him and managed to click off a pretty risky pass into turn 1. That's where you brake from 65 mph down to about 25, into a big sweeping turn. I had some rear tire lock-up, a bit of drift on the inside of the corner, a little bit of an accidental bump check to the driver on the outside, but the pass held. He was all smiles and handshakes after that stint, and said that battle was the most fun he had all night, so it was all good. I saw some much rougher bump passes so this one never got a second look. My only contact all night and it was very very minor.
So we come in for the refueling and check the results. We had been down as far as 8th place and I came in at 7th. How the frak are we so far down, we wondered? We were shown at +4 laps to the leaders and 7th out of 11 teams at the 2 hour mark and we were left all scratching our heads. Each driver just didn't get passed much if ever on track, and our avg lap times were no more than .5 sec off the top teams, and faster than some ahead of us. Our second two hours/stints were much of the same, but EVERYONE got faster on our team. More familiarity with the track and fresh tires, I guess? Every single member was running 72 sec laps, with I think a best of 72.0 by me, Thomas had a 72.3, Nathan had a 72.2, and Joseph a 72.5 or so. My last stint was about 40 minutes and I felt good about all of my laps, all but 2 of which were in the mid to low 72s. My very last lap was still a 72.2, so I finished out strong. Could I have gone another 20 minutes? Man, I don't know... an hour straight driving these things at these lap times would wreck a 42 year old body like mine.
So at the end, we were still the same 4 laps down we were at the 2 hour mark, when all of the adjustments happened. Only 1 team we knew of was doing hour long stints, so how did the other 4-5 teams get ahead of us? Well... There were some shenanigans. One team ran out of fuel on track, halfway through a lap. The DKC folks tried to fix it on the spot, but realized the fuel tank had cracked open. That sucks, but that's endurance racing, you know? This team had fallen back several laps, apparently all the way to last place during the off-track stop. The driver ran back to the pits, they got into a new kart, and off they went. Somebody must have done some fast talking because soon after the DKC folks credited them something like SIX LAPS. Yea, that's right, they got bonus laps for having a fuel tank issue. So they immediately leaped into 1st place. I've never HEARD of such a thing. Now all of this was pretty hush-hush but most of the teams were talking about it, and you can see a weird "0:15 min best lap" in the final readout for the top team:
Funky timing anomalies abound? Our team was "Caucasian" - which was a funny, since half our members were Asian
So apparently there were possibly even some additional "lap adjustments" awarded for transponder issues, but I'm not sure. So many rumors floating around. Nobody knows the whole story except for the DKC folks, and after the event they squashed all dissent pretty quickly. One driver from one of the faster teams were pointing out at the awards ceremony that their team had faster avg laps and this "lap adjustment" situation screwed up the results. This was followed by loud announcement from an owner of "LETS WRAP THIS UP!", which put an end to discussion. So, yea, several teams left there pissed off, and we left early during the "awards ceremony" as well. They gave out trophies + custom made jackets + hundreds of dollars of DKC credits + cases of Red Bull + gift karts to local restaurants were given to the top team and other prices to places 2 and 3.
I don't know... it seems like a lot of bitching re-reading what I've written here, but I'm hearing similar chatter from a lot of other teams. We put in $5500 in entry fees to DKC and we all wanted a fair fight, but got this half-baked attempt at a race. I think it stems from a difference in philosophy from the owners of the track/equipment vs a real racing sanctioning body. DKC has a kart track with rental karts for people to come out and bang out a few sessions of laps for fun. The karts' performances are significantly different from week to week (having been 7 times now, I've seen upwards of 2 sec difference from one week to the next, in the exact same conditions - so much depends on the condition of the engines and freshness of the tires), but for "fun karting" it doesn't matter.
To real racers, this DOES matter. DKC announced an endurance RACE, with real prizes, and a lot of RACERS showed up. I don't think the owners took the event as seriously as some of the teams - you cannot just adjust the number of laps to a team in endurance racing! That doesn't happen. Instead of concentrating on Red Bull girls, DJs and the "show", I wish they'd had someone with some experience running an endurance race there to to be the race marshal, teach how the flags work, and police the pits/offs/bumping. They also need to work on kart reliability, transponders, etc.
They announced another "9 or 10" endurance races of the same format for 2012. Will I give them another $500 for an event like this? Honestly, no. I do have a LOT of fun going out to DKC, but this is a little more effort than just spending the $500 entry fee - we practiced for weeks, bought radios, spend time planning, and drove our guts out for a 6th place finish that we don't believe is accurate. Maybe we were really 5th? Maybe 4th? Who knows. They sure don't. Still, it was a lot of fun pretending we were actually racing, even if the results were skewed by some kooky adjustments.
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