John Michael and I went out to the Campo track on Saturday, while kc was in Nice with Mary Pat. His coach was not able to be there at the last minute, but he arranged for John Michael to borrow a kart (or two) from one of his friends, Pat.
John Michael did the warm-up stint on a four stroke 212 kart. When Pat asked him what he thought about it, John Michael said something like, “Well, it’s slow.”. Pat and his friends tried to remove the limiter and adjust the throttle control, but felt that was not improving things much. Pat asked John Michael if he had ever driven a 125 cc cart (two levels faster than what he normally drives). The answer was no, but when Pat asked if he’d think he could handle it and would he like to try, he said “Yes!”
We had a lot of frustration that John Michael handled very well. First, the kart flooded on the grid of the qualifying race, so he never got to the track and was placed at the back of the grid for the main race. Second, in the main race, during the warm-up laps, the kart died and John Michael sat in the infield. It was a one in a million (Chinese part) failure of a completely new spark plug.
Pat and his friends really liked John Michael so they scrambled and got the organizers to allow him to race in the “Race what you brung,” no limits race.
It was really quite amazing to see how well he handled this high-powered kart. He had no spins nor did he clobber any cones (both which are common in these races). He finished second to a guy with a dual-engine, four rear wheel Franken-kart. Then we learned that John Michael was first in his class (age).
On top of all that, John Michael was one of the winners in the Halloween best costume competition, which was held by everyone driving around the track in their costume. See the cool video. It was very fun.
