Carl Sweeps the State 9/24/2000

Friday night in Tucson and Saturday night in Phoenix produced a pair of wins for Carl, pushing  his 2000 record to ten wins in 16 finishes with 5 DNF.  

The Friday speedway show was a barn burrner with the usual crowd of a dozen Junior 2 drivers out in full force contesting for season points.  Starting from the pole in the first heat, Carl stroked to a second place behind Jeremy Payne who clearly had the better setup on a dry slick track.  Major changes to our Kart helped Carl scratch out a fourth place after starting dead last in the second heat.  Once again, Jeremy made it look easy as he cruised to a victory and pole position for the main.   More major tuning on the old Emmick and a stroke of our Superdyne power and Carl starts third in the main.

Show time!  A great jump at the green put Carl on Jeremy's bumper into turn one, setting up a four lap pursuit.  Going into turn three on lap four, Carl glued himself to Jeremy's bumper giving him just the jump his Superdyne engine needed to pull inside at the end of the front straight and slide into first place.  Clean, hard racing by Jeremy made it close, but safe as he gave the minimum racing room.  Leading Jeremy through traffic for the next ten laps, Carl lapped three karts with Jeremy finding a way each time to stay in contact.  However, the fourth time Carl succeeded in sticking Jeremy behind the laped Kart and pulling out a comfortable lead.  But it wasn't to last as the flag man spied some debris in a dark corner that needed clearing and threw the yellow, bunching the field for a two lap dash for the cash.  With Jeremy once again on the back bumper, a great restart was needed to open a gap and Carl cruised to the checkered flag for his second straight Tucson win.  Of course, post race tech was an adventure with the local tech crew making sure everybody knew that they had been beaten by a perfectly legal, but very strong, Superdyne engine.

Saturday Gearbox racing at PKRA provided driving challenges due to new engine teething problems.  We were testing a brand new Superdyne CR80 engine that is radically different from our normal strong ride.  Needless to say, we didn't get it right with only two test laps before the race. However, our engine problems were not enough to keep Carl from winning the first heat with a bold last lap pass in the big Monza and then cruising to an unopposed main event victory.  Carl stayed alert by practicing some dirt track passing on the senior 80s he was lapping, but unfortunately Chris had been taken out early in the race trying to pass some of the seniors.