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7-2-10 Come see what all the buzz is about.
LAKC Round 5
Los Angeles Kart Club June 13, 2010, Race 5
of 9
Race #5 of the LAKC season kicked off under
perfect weather conditions. With a Gulf of Mexico feeling in
the air the unusually long driver's meeting took place. The
previous months winners were recognized for their win, or
wins as was the case for Jake Craig and Jake drew, hey
what’s with the Jake name? After last month's event where a
plethora of penalties were handed out drivers were reminded
of the rules once more in case they forgot. “We are a family
fun competitive kart racing series, let’s not lose sight of
that.....peace”, said the little Mexican race director David
Jimenez who pulled double duty as Guy Kesee had to miss
this event. Bayan Salehi was the lucky winner of a free
entry for July's LAKC race after Gatorz MC, Chappy drew the
winning safety test from over 70 completed tests.
Racers soon took to the track for the day's
action running the CalSpeed Kart Track Nuevo configuration
in the clockwise direction. Following a flawless two
practice sessions qualifying led to the heats, and the heats
were just a prelude to the mains.
Heat Race Highlights:
Heat one for the Junior 1 class was maybe the
best race of the day with the top 5 trading the lead until
Justice Lepe edged out a celebrating Christian Brooks for
the win. Then a red flag in masters as coming onto the front
stretch #84 Bradley Anstis had a slow roll over. The
ambulance would stay putt as he was ok. Dzurilla made it
boring and Jarrod Bradley fought for a second. Hayden Wagner
took the kid kart heat, Jesse Huaman and Dane LaTorre had
nothing for Jake Craig. KPV-1 saw a good fight for the win
with Brooks on top, for now. Chanler Campbell started 8th
in her first Rotax Senior race, but it was Zeen all the way.
2pm main events:
Short handed because a miscommunication with
the flagging team left LAKC short handed, but their fine
members stepped up to share the duties until the official
corner workers arrived just in time for the mains.
Jr. 1 – Justice Lepe (in a new BA-1 chassis)
led the first two circuits of the final followed closely by
Christian Brooks and Chase McDaniel. Brooks slid by on lap
three to grab the lead but it was short lived as Jake Drew
took over the point a few laps later. Drew's time out front
didn't last long as Lepe regained the top spot. The running
order of Lepe, Drew, Brooks, McDaniel and Cooper Whitbread
remained unchanged for a few laps, but soon the villagers
became restless again. McDaniel started picking off
positions one by one as Drew fell back with Brooks. In the
end we saw a fabulous photo finish with McDaniel inching out
Lepe for the win by a scant .040. Brooks was right there
only 2 tenths back to finish 3rd. Whitbread came
away with a solid 4th and a strong performance by
Ian Wesolowsky earned him 5th.
Masters Rotax – If DW (announcer Dave
Williams) was in attendance he would have said it was a
snoozer for everyone but Steve Dzurrilla. The mighty
Dzurrilla went flag to flag taking yet another win. Larry
Hayashigawa picked up a few positions to finish in 2nd
place while poor Bradley, who started up front got dropped
back to 10th. Dave Rivera too turned in a solid
run finishing 3rd.
Kid Karts – Justin Hodge led the first lap of
the final before handing the reigns over to Hayden Wagner.
Wagner was on fire and easily bested the field by an
impressive six seconds. The challenge for 2nd
place between Myles Farhan and Anthony Willis early was
exciting to see. Willis who hails all the way from Arizona
went home with the 2nd place trophy. Farhan
maintained 3rd place while Brandon Eshom had a
good showing for 4th. Damon Bustamante back from
a little hiatus rounded out the podium with a pleasant 5th.
KPV2- Once again Jake Craig was the man to
beat in this challenging class, and once again he took the
green, took the white and cruised to the checkered flag.
Jesse Huaman was best in class, solidly running to a 2nd
place finish and well ahead of the dynamic battle for 3rd
place. Alec Karas, Willem Elsdon, Cory Davidson and Dane
LaTorre all vied for the position with Davidson eventually
winning out over the others. Elsdon finished 4th
and LaTorre rebounded from losing a battle with a curb to
finish in 5th.
KPV1 – The KPV1 pole went to Jake Drew, just
.052 ahead of Chase McDaniel. Christian Brooks kicked it up
a notch in the prefinal as he and Drew were able to gain a
slight advantage over the rest of the field. Brooks and
Justice Lepe traded the lead in the opening laps before
having to yield to McDaniel. McDaniel didn't have to chase
any more and finished strong with a 3 second buffer and the
win. The fight for 2nd never ceased as Drew
fought back and brought it home ahead of Brooks and Lepe.
Andrew Murowatz
led the field's charge to the line with 5th
place. It was good to see last year's Kid Kart standout
Ethan Barrett and Anthony Sawyer running solidly in the
field.
Shifters – The Shifter classes sported lower
than average turnouts this weekend for some reason. You
would think with all the money up for grabs in the KalGard
Challenge more people would jump on it, but never the less
we saw moments of good racing with Erik “Action” Jackson
winning Spec by a mile and Troy Butts winning in the open
category. Most importantly Butts was the overall winner,
besting all shifter drivers on track.
John Chott
gave Butts all he had, challenging lap after lap but was
unable to make anything stick. Chott had to settle for 2nd
overall and 2nd in Open.
TaG/ PRD – Jason Bunch and Nick Cole had a
dynamic duel in TAG while Devon Lindsey and Elliot Skeer
went at it for PRD Sr. supremacy. Qualifying set the tone
for the rest of the day with Bunch just edging out Cole for
the pole and Skeer doing the same in PRD. The prefinal
continued with the same story line except for Lindsey
getting the better of his rival and finishing first in PRD.
The finals were as close as you can get with Bunch beating
Cole to the finish by just .121. Skeer was finally able to
drop Lindsey but only after a valiant effort to score his
win and 3rd overall behind the two TAG drivers of
Bunch and Cole.
JR Rotax, MiniMax, PRD Jr – At some point
Jake Craig has to get tired of running all alone out front,
maybe not, and I'm sure all the first place trophies help
ease his burden. In the combined PRD Jr, MiniMax, and Rotax
Jr. Craig was once again in prime form.
Breanna
Miscione
and
Emmanuel Mestre
were the ony fellow Rotax Jr. drivers able to even stay
remotely close to the #00 of Craig. Once the green flag flew
there was little change in the running order and Craig
inched his way out to a small lead over Miscione and Mestre.
They ran like that for the entire duration of the final with
Craig earning another win. Good efforts on the part of his
rivals but they are going to have to do some extra credit
work to catch up at the next event. Time Desilva and Nova
Brown rounded out the top five in Rotax Jr. MiniMax saw Noah
Grey led the way and run virtually unchallenged to the
checkered flag. Behind him two Nicks, Ramirez and Hays
scrimmaged for the runner's up position. The first have
Ramirez led the charge against Grey, but eventually Hays was
able to get by and secure 2nd place. Liam
Winston, Joey Ritorto and Austin Schrader finished things
off.
Rotax Senior – Adam Zeen had some competition
this month in the popular Rotax Sr. class. With the pole
things looked bright for young Zeen, but hot on his heals
were Neil Alberico and John Crow. The top 13 drivers had
less than a second separation. The prefinal saw Alberico
take an early lead and never give it back. Zeen was right
there to pounce, but settled for 2nd. Michael
Graves and Troy McCall got around Crow and set the order to
start the final. Alberico once again got another great start
and sped off into the lead. Zeen and McCall jumped into his
slipstream determined to not let him get away. Alberico
pased the field until just past halfway when Zeen made the
move for the win. McCall and Brett Sheffer still ran close,
but were a few lengths back in 3rd and 4th.
Zach Woodslord held down fifth on track and was clear of
Bayan Salehi and Graves. Zeen brought it home with Alberico
waiving tech from 2nd so he could catch a plane.
This bumped everyone up a position so McCall finished 2nd,
Sheffer 3rd, Woodslord 4th and Salehi.
Steve Novikoff did an outstanding job giving room to the
leaders when he got lapped, and although he wasn’t in the
hunt for the win he still finished ahead of some top notch
competitors in the results like Crow and Morotta.
While other clubs are struggling to get 50
entries LAKC leads the way with a constant 125 plus. With
top notch club racing both beginner and pro drivers come to
test their skills against the best racers In Southern
California. LAKC regularly sees drivers from neighboring
states like Nevada and Arizona make the long trip to race
with the best.
“Come see what all the buzz is about” and
join LAKC for their July 25th event at CalSpeed
Kart Track in Fontana,CA. Like the saying goes, “rain or
shine, you are going to have a good time”. For information
on everything LAKC please click on www.lakc.org.
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