We rolled down Interstate 10 twice in the month of June, full of optimism and good intentions. We cruised home cursing the Goddess of Racing luck, reminded of what a humbling sport this is.

First event was the IKF Region 7 race at Adams. The old track is challenging, rough, dangerous and , still has no pit space, but we went anyway. After pretty good practice sessions, we were close to being fast, but not quite there. Starting towards the back, Carl got a great jump to fifth place at the start but the unfortunate exuberance of a competitor who forgot to brake took him out in the mini-monza. In the main, we made a gear change which seemed to help as Carl was able to move up from last to fifth and was chasing down Wade for fourth with 5 laps to go. Eric had checked out, but 2 through 4 were in a tight pack and Carl was intent on getting to and through them. Then the aforementioned gear decided to let go, leaving him powerless and coasting to a stop in just past the mini monza. Another DNF that cost several places in the season standings, leaving him fifth overall.

Second event was the joint SKUSA Mission Region and SCK race at streets of Willow. Having been told we would run the sprint configuration, it was a pleasant surprise to find that SCK didn't want to bother with changing configurations and dictated that we all run the road course. Thrill for all as this is a fast, challenging and safe track where we were seeing peak speeds in the high 80s.

Given a chance to actually practice and tune on Friday, we tried an experimental pipe that has more peak HP than our normal Banke. It made a big difference and we were lapping with the leaders. Unfortunately, this pipe came back to bite us as it broke in Saturday morning practice, sending us scrambling back to our normal configuration with on track time to radial the setup. How do you spell slow? In the heat, Carl could not keep up, being significantly down on power, but had a lot of fun drafting and racing with another back marker while Dominique was stinking up the show at the front. For the second final, we made some engine changes, but Carl pulled in as it would not run at all. We later found that the pipe had pulled out of the header, making for serious power loss.