Tuesday, November 9, 2010

All Sports All Weekend in Dallas

I've recovered from a fun weekend in Dallas with Ali. We left straight after work on Friday with the trailer and hustled to Fort Worth to watch the NASCAR Camping World Trucks race to 147 laps under the lights at Texas Motor Speedway. Unfortunately, we had to listen to the start of the race on the radio as we rolled into the gigantic (everything's bigger in Texas right....so cliche) parking lot. All in all, we missed the first 20 laps and we arrived under caution starving and glad to not be driving. The race wasn't too exciting as Kyle Busch clicked off another victory, but it was still cool seeing race trucks average 180mph around the 1.5mi oval two-wide at night.

TMS on Friday night with Kyle Busch's burnout smoke lingering after 20 minutes

After a few hours of sleep, we trekked backed to TMS early the next morning to watch Sprint Cup practice, peruse the pits, and watch the Nationwide Series 200 lap race. Carl Edwards won an exciting afternoon race. Here are some pictures from Saturday:

Fried PB&J for Ali

Penske Racing Pitbox

The Great Clips Nationwide team getting their car to grid

NASCAR Spring Cup Garages and Haulers at TMS

Carl Edwards mid-backflip after the race

After the race Saturday, we went straight to The Kart Shop in Sachse, Texas to pick up some race fuel for the kart, grabbed dinner, and headed to the American Airlines Center to watch the Dallas Mavericks play the Denver Nuggets with Ali's sister and friend. Thanks for the tickets Brian! Sunday Morning we were up bright and early again to drive to North Texas Kartway in Denton, Texas for some testing in my Stock Moto Shifter Kart. I ran 40 laps over 4 sessions on the day but struggled with fuel pump issues. My fuel pump-around system which pumps fuel out of the carb and back into the tank was not pulling enough fuel causing me to run very rich and bog coming out corners with lower RPM exits. I ran new MG Yellow tires (SKUSA and NTK spec tire) on my kart for the first time to prepare for my race next weekend. I needed to get a feel for the kart on fresh rubber to start tuning and really lowering my lap times around NTK. After the 4 sessions, I was 1 second quicker than my last trip to NTK 5 months ago, so I was pleased with that. However, I still have lots of work to do to be competitive with the top NTK shifter kart pilots who happen to be some of the best in the country. For my next trip to NTK, I will be tuning the the chassis to be more balanced on corner exit. It's current setup too knife-edged and not very forgiving. I also need to work on smoothing out my inputs, slowing down my hands, and clicking off consistent laps so I can better tune the kart.

Shifter Kart with fresh MG Yellow sneakers


Video from Sunday's Shifter Kart Practice

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