KART S. S. race #1 Denton,Texas  March 11-12

By: White Motorsports Racing

(March 14th, 2006) -- We left late Friday afternoon for the first race of  the year. When we arrived early Saturday morning we discovered that the gate to the track was locked! I guess that's what you get when you arrive at 2 in the morning! The only thing we could do was pull in line and wait. When we woke up around 7:30 on Saturday morning the track gate was open and we were able to pull right in to get our pit spot. After getting the kart out of the trailer and getting the pit all set up a light rain storm moved in putting a little water on the track. While the KART crew was out drying the track off we got to
work on preparing the new kart for break-in sessions. To my surprise the entire morning went smooth as we made last minute adjustments to the kart.

When we got the kart from R P Motorsports it was already set up for the North Texas Kartway. Around 3 in the afternoon I was finally able to get on track for the first of 4 break-in sessions. I was totally happy with how the kart was handling and from what i could tell the motor was going to be really really strong. Before I knew it the sun was going down and the days practice was over. After practice we talked things over with Rusty Mitchell(www.rmkartracing.com). After checking the kart over we noticed some things that we needed like more water pump belts! I had one break earlier in the day and didn't even notice! So after spending an hour removing the axle to replace and add more water pump belts to the axle and cleaning the kart up i finally got to eat some dinner. Man I had a tiresome day!

I awoke Sunday morning to the sound of kart engines, NOT GOOD!!! That meant practice had already started and we were late to getting up. After switching to practice tires and making a slight chassis adjustment we ran down to get our first real practice session in. It went really well from the seat but we weren't for sure how good it was on time because our my-chron wasn't picking up the timing beacon. For the next practice we went back to the set up we had on the kart when we first arrived. The best time for us in that session was a 39.70. We didn't know if that was good or bad as there was only
three karts in our class this weekend. Our competition was Irene Rose of Fort Smith, Arkansas on a intrepid/BM Jaguar, Erin Sims of Waco, Texas aboard a Margay/Rotax, and White Motorsports Racing with our Birel/BM Jaguar. When we sat the kart on the ground before Qualifying I noticed that the right front tire was flat! My Dad rushed over to assist in replacing the air and checking for the proper air pressure. Good thing we caught it in time because if we hadn't we would have not run a 39. 74 for the pole position. The qualifying order was;
Caleb White - 39.74
Irene Rose - 40.31
Erin Sims - 41.22

After qualifying came the pre-final where we ran away to a 13.7 second victory over our other two competitors. We finished the way we qualified. Then we checked the kart over not once but twice to make sure absolutely nothing could go wrong. The only changes we made were to go up one PSI in
the front and 2 PSI in the rear tires and up one tooth on the sprocket as we were running conservative to ensure a good break-in on the new motor.

At the start of the final the first attempt was aborted due to me getting maybe too good of a start. when we came around the second time my start wasn't so good but then again Irene got a little better start. When we got to turn 1 were almost side-by-side with Irene about 1/4 kart length up on me. Then I got up on Denton's"MONSTER TRUCK CURBS" and the chain popped off!!! I immediately pulled off track into the pits and was very upset as we clearly had the best kart and were in good position to win the race. During the heat of the moment I felt as Irene kept coming down on me while i was trying to give her room more and more until i ran out. Then after having time to cool down and review the tape I realized I was a little too aggressive in my driving that early in the race and it ultimately caused me the race. Over all it was a good weekend and I am very happy with the new karts performance.