Shifter Kart Testing in Oklahoma Last Weekend

Last weekend was a whirlwind, but provided a great start to my 2011 racing season. I spend all day Saturday at the 3G Karting Dallas shop prepping my 2010 Birel Spirit SP32 chassis. The chassis is immaculate having only one prior race weekend on it back in 2010. The SP32 is a 32mm chassis which should be much stiffer than my previous chassis and be much better suited to my weight and the shifter class. Spirit is an Italian company founded in 2007 by 5-time karting World Champion Gianluca Beggio. The Spirit chassis are virtually identical to Birel chassis and are manufactured by Birel as well. The morning started with a basically bare chassis and after mounting the seat, radiator, engine, AIM Mychron, adding fluids, and routing all the wires and hydraulic lines, it was a ready for a test fire. The engine fired up quickly after its off-season refresh by SRS Engines. After quickly setting the pedals for my height, my new kart was basically race ready.

On Sunday, I travelled 3 hours of North of Dallas with the 3G Karting team to Oklahoma Motorsports Park.
It drizzled the whole ride to OMC, but luckily stopped shorty after we arrived. My goal for the day was to break in my engine, get comfortable with the new kart, adjust any ergonomic problems, and learn the new track. I was able to squeeze 5 sessions in before I had to head back to San Angelo for a total of about 45 laps. My first regional race of the year is at OMC on April 2 and 3rd, so it was extremely beneficial to get some track time, data, and video at OMC before my first big race of 2011. I cured some ergo problems by changing up the radiator mounting as it was interfering with my left arm and shoulder and discovered some interference between my right leg and the exhaust pipe...not good. I will be a making a guard for that soon.

Overall, I was pleased with the practice. My new 32mm chassis feels much stiffer and higher grip than my previous Birel chassis. On the old VEGA tires I was running, the kart was reasonably balanced with some slight corner entry understeer and slight power-on oversteer on the exit which should be a great starting point for tuning when I switch to new MGs for the race season.

Here is a lap around OMC in my new kart:

Got some kart parts in the mail....

I got some kart parts in the mail today fom Shark Shifter and Acceleration Karting to prep my Birel M31 chassis that I am selling and for the new shifter chassis that I am picking up this weekend. I received a new radiator mount for the M31 chassis and a CDI isolator, ignition cover for the CR125 engine, an extra master link, a kart cover, and a heel stops for my new chassis.

Look for a for sale ad soon for my 2008 Birel M31 chassis.

Special Weekend in Austin....

I don't make many non-racing posts, but this one is important. This past weekend I took my girlfriend to Austin, TX for a getaway weekend and asked her to marry me on Saturday 2/12. Being the great guy that I am (cough..cough), she said yes and I couldn't be happier.

Ali and I met at the University of Virginia and have been dating for a little over 3 and half years (yes yes I know it took me a while...) and now live together in sunny San Angelo, Texas. She is the best girlfriend a racer could ask for. She helps me in the garage when needed, travels and even takes vacation days to come to the track with me, bought a pitbike (best purchase ever), and instead of complaining that I race too much, she encourages me to go after my dreams. Most importantly, she is always there to remind me that racing (aka my hobby) is supposed to be fun and shouldn't stress me out. When you are learning to maintain your own racecars, drive, and race, you lose a lot. It's part of the learning process...but it a lot easier to handle losing when you go home with the prettiest girl in the paddock.

Off-season Refresh for my Honda CR125

I pulled my motor off this weekend, cleaned it up, and packaged it up to ship to SRS Engines in Hawkins, TX. John Sefcik at SRS is one of the top shifter kart engine builders in the country and will be giving my engine a quick inspection, top end refresh, and changes to the reed cage and timing for SKUSA rules changes.

Now that the motor is off, my Birel M31 chassis will be up for sale soon and ready to accept your Shifter, Rotax or TAG engine!

Turning on old kart chassis into an iRacing Cockpit

I've had a 1999 MBA shifter kart chassis laying around the garage collecting dust for the past three years, and I finally found a use for it...

I built it over a few nights after work with spare wood and metal laying around the garage. I need to work on the seating position, but it has worked well so far for sim racing battles with my co-workers. The steering wheel is tilt adjustable and the pedal mount is adjustable to accommodate different size drivers.

Pictures of my new shifter kart chassis

Got some photos of the Birel Spirit SP32 Chassis from 3G karting. I'll be picking it up and hopefully running my first practice with it in 3 weeks. Can't wait!

2011 Racing Plans for Ogburn Motorsport

After a few months of number crunching and tough decision making, I've made my final plans for the 2011 season. Here are the basics:

-Run the Southwest Regional Cup (10-race regional karting series) with 3G Kart Racing in Stock Moto shifter class
- Run 2 Bondurant Championship Race Series races in the Bondo Formula Mazdas
- Compete for the 2011 Bondurant Driver Search Shootout

I will be upgrading my kart chassis to a 2010 Birel Spirit SP32 that was used for 1 race day in 2010 by 3G Kart Racing based out of Katy, Texas. The SWRC runs 10 races over 5 weekends at 5 different tracks throughout Texas and Oklahoma. I will join 3G's tent program for the full SWRC series which will help me to focus on my driving and racecraft and get me access to the 3G team's extensive experience for setup, gearing, engine tuning, etc. for all of the SWRC tracks. This will be huge advantage over my previous karting endeavors especially considering I have not driven 4 out of the 5 SWRC tracks. For each race weekend, there is a Friday practice day that I will use to learn the new tracks and dial in my Birel's setup. 3G Kart Racing is a top-notch National karting team and I am very excited to be partnered with them for 2011. Thanks to Mark French at 3G for helping me over the off-season.

I will be picking the new chassis up in late February after I get my Stock Honda CR125 back from it's off-season refresh by SRS Engines in Hawkins, TX. To keep in practice, I will be testing often at Rimrock Raceway in Midland, TX and running club races with North Texas Karters throughout 2011.

Here is a link to 3G's website: www.3gkartracing.com

Photo of the new chassis: My Dad and I will be taking a year off from National Level SCCA Autocross so I can focus my budget and energy on kart racing and road racing the Bondurant Formula Mazdas. At this point, we are targeting 2012 for a return to the SCCA Solo Nationals in our STX Mini Cooper. My Dad will still be autocrossing the Mini locally and may contest an SCCA Divisional or National Solo event to keep in practice for the 2012 Solo Nats so I will post his autocross results and videos throughout the season.

Thanks to my sponsors and supporters for helping me make the 2011 racing season happen!

I want one of these.....

Looks like a strong candidate for a future project car.

Indoor Karting in Richmond

While back home in Richmond, VA for the holidays, I always like to hit up GForce Karts for some indoor kart racing with my Dad and some friends from high school. I blew tons of money (some mine and some my parents) at this place during high school while dreaming of owning and racing my own racecar or kart so it's fun to go back to one of the places that fueled my passion for racing. It's also nice to see how I've made progress on the driving front by comparing results now to results then. I used to struggle to make the Top 100 times, but today was able to run the 4th fastest time overall (26.721) on their reverse track - (www.gforcekarts.com/top100_adultreverse.htm). I will probably head back there so I can run the regular track before heading back to an indoor-kart-track-less city in Texas.

Check out this picture from back in the day. It is of my two best friends from high school, my Dad, and I standing on the podium after a 2-hour enduro at GForce:



If you a racer in the central VA area, I would highly recommend GForce Karts for some not-too-expensive fun. Here is their homepage with some onboard video - www.gforcekarts.com/index.htm.

ClubSport Pedals for iRacing

I got an early Christmas present from Ali a few days ago because the UPS man came while she wasn't home and the product name was written all over the box...silly Germans. I've been iRacing more recently and my old Logitech Momo steering wheel is just not cutting it, especially the braking feel. With the Momo pedals, your braking in iRacing is based on pedal travel not pressure like it would be in a real racecar. This makes trailbraking and passing under braking very difficult to do consistently. I've been wanting the Fanatec Clubsport Pedals for a while now and was quite surprised when the Fanatec box arrived from Germany. The Fanatec pedals use a load cell on the brake pedal so braking is measured by force not travel which makes the sim racing much more accurate, easier to control, and ultimately leads to quicker lap times. I've tried the ClubSport Pedals for a few sessions now and have been very pleased. Thanks Ali!

The ClubSport Pedals are very sturdy and fully adjustable (pedal travel, pedal spring stiffness, braking linearity, pedal height, pedal spacing, and even color). Weighing in at about 11 pounds, they are made out of what looks to be laser-cut or CNC aluminum pieces. In typical German fasion, there is no slop whatsoever in the pedals and they have Porsche-like precision. If you are into sim racing, I would highly recommend these pedals. They will take some getting used to, but will be worth the money when you start lapping faster and dive-bombing people into Turn 1 without crashing.