Before
I get into the race recap. I want, one more time to show you why we do
this. Most people think it is for the money. Ha!! Money cant buy the
story this picture tells......
It tells a story of two friends since
almost birth. Clay Caldwell (left), his friend Gavin Bishop, and Clay's
dad, Dean.
Clay and Gavin compete in the
same class and this night was to be very special for them both as they
finally got to race each other. You will just have to read on to find
out how it turned out.
By the way....all the money in
the world is not worth as much as those smiles!!!
What a night huh?? Yeah we went
till just before 1 AM, but if *I* had not had a problem or five, with
my computer operator (me), we would have made midnight and we will next
week. I guess its an age thing cause I realized, my computer is older than ANY of
our Novice Champ Drivers. Sad huh?
The grandstands were packed, a lot of
activity in the pits, and the track surface, it was awesome for a first
season's test.
But what a night of racing. 131 entries and speaking of the Dogs; those
Animal Heavy's showed us that the horsepower-to-come is just around the corner. If
you got a chance to go over and look at one you saw it was quite
impressive an engine and you just wait, you'll see more and more in the
coming months ahead. It is the sport's destiny and, grow we all will into
the next level of Kart Racing; only we will do it with over head valves,
and electric starters.
Not that this is an omen, but if ANY of you are old enough
(?) to remember
when all there were, was 2-cycle powered karts; everyone had electric starters
back then; and now, we seem
to be going full circle again!
Our Congrats go out to Don Fike, who took the Animal Heavy victory. Don
is in the record books as the first feature winner in the Heavy Animal
Class at ARP. We must come up with an award for this at the banquet??
I think the real theme of the
night had to be the new faces of new fans and racers. And what impressed
me a lot were the *Graduates*, our juniors
moving up into their next classes. Awesome to see them take the next step
up towards the adult classes with maturity and determination.
But what about the Novice
Sportsman Champs? If you missed this race then you missed out totally on
the whole night. Lead swapping, back and forth, traffic, and some very,
very nervous parents of these young racers. It was only three karts on the
track, but you would have thought it was a full field as the crowd saw
some very wide-eyed young racers taking the track in competition for the
first time. In the end it was first time racer Clay Caldwell, taking the
victory over Gavin Bishop and Austin White.
((Flashback time))---In 1998 I
spent my first year at ARP working as your humble announcer. That also was
the year these three drivers were born!! Puts it all into complete focus
doesn't it? This class was a dream of mine and it has come true for me in
such a huge way!!
We had a total of 38 champ karts combined; ten in the Senior class,
another growing class for sure.
To all who came out, I would like to extend you our very sincere
gratitude for supporting us and giving us a chance to offer you some great
family fun and some exciting racing at the same time. I hope it is warmer
this coming Saturday, as it was a bit too cold during the feature races.
This is a shortened version of a race recap, but due to the non points
status and my late design mode, I am going to add the mylaps.com listing
here so you can click on any race and see the finishing order and times.
Watch for continuing updates and
track news and we will see you this coming weekend for race #2!
Danny Davis
