KART Sprint Nationals. Tulsa, OK

By: White Motorsports Racing

(May 16th, 2006) -- WEDNESDAY - We didn't actually get to leave Grove, OK until about 6:30 pm. We got at the track around 8:45 and managed 2 practice sessions. After making some major changes to compensate for the amount of rubber on the track the second session was very good. But even after getting good practices and valuable information I was still not pleased to say the least.

In bed by 2 am.

TURESDAY - Awake at 6:45 am.

I got up to have pancakes with my mom and dad. It was a good way to start off the day except we got up WAY to early. I cleaned the kart and messed around until about 10 when some friends showed up. I got to meet Myles Bland, a TaG Sr. driver whom I'v talked to several times on the internet. It is always fun to put faces with names.

After a pretty uneventful morning, a rain shower hit the track. It delayed the day's events by a couple hours.

Around 8 pm they were able to start qualifying which had been scheduled to start at 6. I was busy helping my friends James Cypert in his Jr. Sportsman kart and Jake Beasly with his Rotax Jr.  In practice Jake's rear bumper came off as a result of it being loose to help with the handling. They then had to borrow rear bumper bolts off a Rotax Sr. for the remainder of the event. Trust me it was a hectic two minutes between changing those bolts from one kart to the other and trying to get the kart on the grid.

Later in the night I volunteered to be the pit steward after the current one had to leave. The first class I had to line up was kid karts. It would have been normal except for the timing had messed up so I had to go around and let all the dads know it would be another couple minutes before they could get on track. Ok, one class down tons to go. Next class, Jr. 1. All 19 of them. Talk about stress. They continued arriving to the grid at odd times. So lining those drivers up was somewhat of a challenge. Alright 2 down! Next class, Jr. Sportsman. Well, at JRP, fans can watch the race from the infield. One dad started up their kart without me giving the "start 'em up" signal. So while people are taking their own sweet time crossing the track the drivers were burning up their clutches, in turn I have 5 dads going berserk yelling at me to let them on track. My response was "you shouldn't have started your kart." Tough luck. The rest of the classes went smooth. I now have a newfound respect for the pit steward.

WMR sponsored driver Jake French took home the Triad for his class, Rotax Mini Max. GREAT job Jake!
(Here is a News Story from this Site about Jake)

Asleep by 3:30 am

FRIDAY - Awake at 9 am.

I finished cleaning the kart and was making final preparations for tonight's racing when we were hit by another rain storm! So I then got the rain tires all ready to go but luckily we didn't have to use them. We did have trouble when we went to get fuel. Apparently I lost the fuel ticket. But I asked our
neighbor Matt and he had found one. So to get our fuel ticket back I had to mount tires for him because he saw how easily I had done ours. Vega Blues + Douglas Mags = no problem. So I got our fuel ticket back and we were ready to go. We had to wait until about 7 for practice to start, so that was quite a wait that really really tested my patience. Once we got started we knew we were fast.

After qualifying I thought man this is going to be great! I was hoping for a top 5 qualifying spot but I had to settle for second!

Our pre-final couldn't have been more messed up! About 10 minutes before we pushed up to the grid, fog so thick I honestly thought it was smoke moved in over the track. We could barely see the TaG Sr. drivers at the bottom of the hill. Right before we left the grid I wiped my shield off with a paper towel
and hoped for the best. Well the best happened to end half way through the pace lap. I COULD NOT see. I had to constantly wipe my shield and crack it to keep it from fogging. As for the race ....I got the jump on the start and made it to T1 first and continued pushing through the first 4 laps of our 8 lap pre-final. Then Nigel Saurino got by me going into T1 . Ok so I'm back where I started and my kart is handling like crap. I mean it absolutely sucked! So, what do I do? I try a kamikaze move into T2 which didn't work out to well. I ended up losing my nose in the incident and Erin Sims works her way by 2 laps later. I finished 3rd....or so I thought. I was two pounds light at the scales. Which I defiantly could have made up by moving on the scales a little. But I would have been DQ'ed for a missing nose anyway's. It was one of those tough luck things. so after spending 10 minutes alone by myself calming down and getting my head screwed back on straight, we went to work on the kart. We put a bigger gear on and anticipating to start shot-gun on the field. Well it just so turned out that the cops came to shut the place down at 2 in the morning. They then decided to use the pre-final results as the final results because Ether didn't want to run the finals in the morning. A pretty screwy thing if you ask me, AND a MAJORITY of the others.

Asleep by 3:45 am

SATURDAY - awake at 10 am

I woke up more determined than ever to win. I had never been so mad at myself than last night. Then to have them cancel the final it only added to my frustrations. But back on a good note I made some more radical changes to the kart. I once again cannot thank Jim and David Holland enough for all
their help this week. Without their advice I don't know where we would be. As the day went on I continued tinkering with things to try and make our night go as smooth and the best I possibly could make it.

To our surprise the practice started on time and the show was on the road. For practice we were only one tenth off of the previous night's slick track even though we were 20 pounds heavier.

In qualifying we were surprised at how slow we actually were. Even though we weren't really slow, everyone else just picked it up a notch. We actually qualified with the EXACT same time as Irene Rose at a 26.458. We had made a change and went too far with it. Good thing we knew that or else we would still be scratching our heads on that one.

So after going back on the change we made we were ready to rock. In the pre-final we started 4th, right behind Skyler James. In T1 both Skyler and I moved up a place. We then ran 1st and 2nd for the remainder of the heat. We set fastest time of for the pre-final with a 26.09.

Ok the final. to go on the record...I have NEVER been so scared in my life. On the start I once again got the hole-shot and never looked back. Well actually I looked back, once, but just for a second. Then from there on I put my head down and turned some of the best laps of my life. To be honest I could not have done it if I hadn't prayed before and during the race. Every time I came up the back strait I said a simple little prayer asking god to not let me mess this up and thanking him for letting me be there doing what I was doing. It was probably the coolest moment of my life being there winning a national championship with my entire family there. As soon as I crossed the scales I took in the congratulations and hugs left and right. To make it simple, it was AWESOME.

Going back to look at the week now we had lots of ups and some downs. I am personally proud of my parents for making the weekend so enjoyable and just plain fun. I am especially proud of my dad for both his and my cooperation and team work throughout the week.

White Motorsports Racing would like to thank all their sponsors for their continued support to their team as well as to racing. Those include MiSi Racing Engines, RPMotorsports, Walters Web Design, and Photos ext. We look forward to being able to advertise and give all the recognition we can to our current sponsors in the 2006 racing season.

For more information on the WMR Team please visit www.WhiteMotorsportsRacing.com.