Everything it was supposed to be...

[Dale Seeley]

Thanks everyone at MRP for for bringing Raceway Motorsports into your family, making it possible for me to pick up a C28 for my son.

The first karts arrived on Wednesday at the shop, on Thursday evening I was able to make it down to help complete the assembly. Jesse is sort of a prima dona about his seat, so we pulled it from the CRG and Rick placed it where he thought it would work best for Jesse. We're lucky to have had Rick setting up karts for Jesse for a couple years now, he knows how Jesse drives and what he needs to be comfortable.

We didn't get any testing time, the kart went into the van late Thursday night, and on Friday Jesse and I began the trip from Atlanta, Georgia to Ocala, Florida for their RMax races #7 & #8. While Jesse was excited to finally get to drive the only chassis that bested him at the Florida Winter Tour, I was quietly hoping that it was as easy to tune as the day changes as people said it is. In other words, I honestly wasn't very sure of my ability to put up a good showing after struggling with the CRG by myself the previous two races.

Long story short, whenever Timing and Scoring was watching the track on Saturday and Sunday, the Birel was out front. I did have to raise the rear tire pressures a pound on Saturday to tighten up the kart on the 180 degree sweeper, and on Sunday moved the leftside wheels in a 1/4" each as the tires we ran in the March Florida Winter Tour races were finally giving up.

Jesse loves the kart and it's going to be a tough sell for me to convince him that the CRG is going to be the right chassis for the SCCA Solo National Championships this September.

Thanks again MRP, and Rick at Raceway Motorsports (http://atlantakarting.com) for getting us a chassis I can handle by myself in time to make it tough for the Florida boys. Catching a nap between sessions, instead of swapping wheels (but not the marked tires), axles, and hubs all day, makes racing a lot more fun.... I don't mind working hard, as long as I'm working smart. The Birel works for us.

Regards,
Dale

[Marc Miller]

Great report Dale and thanks for the note of confidence. We are proud to have your family on Birel this season. Keep up the great work!

[Dale Seeley]

I didn't really do the race report justice, there's a few things that I didn't really go into that I should have.

Weather and track conditions were changing very quickly all weekend. On Saturday, the final was rained out (rescheduled to run on Sunday after the Sunday final) without more than a couple hundred drops of rain hitting the track. A huge storm was developing during the Micro Pre-Final, that dropped lightning all around the track during the Mini Pre-Final and caused us to bail out for safety considerations.

Although that pre-final we ran on Saturday was eventually tossed out, as the air temp, track temp, and a little bit of rain dropped, we were able to stay out in front with the chassis set up for the ever increasing heat we'd been experiencing during the day. When a similar thing happened at the last race weekend, without the Birel, it was devastating.

On Sunday, the track ran an accelerated program to get practice, qualifying, pre-finals, and two finals run before the next storm hit. Once again, just before the second final, a low pressure 'cold' front rolled through with rain behind it. The other karts seemed to suffer from the unexpected change a lot more than ours, running flag to flag in both finals.

It's important to me that you realize that I'm not here to brag about the boy. Other people do that. We would have likely lost two races if we had our other kart in the van, I'm not smart enough to predict what it will need as often as it needs it. With the Birel, I'm confident that I can travel to tracks without our tuner and put in a decent showing. What I'm really looking forward to is seeing what Rick can do with it when he's actually there to see what it needs instead of working off my garbled translations of what I think it's doing over the phone. We'll probably get the case opened up on the Rotax for us in tech when that happens... :cool:

Regards,
Dale

[angus' dad]

dale! glad to hear you guys like the birel. angus loves the new minimax. we're heading to practice weds, and hopefully to raceway motorsports before practice to get one of our karts scaled a little better. you guys free weds? maybe we could both learn some new stuff - richie

[Dale Seeley]

Can't make it on Wed, we're heading up to Toledo on the 4th for an SCCA ProSolo event to qualify him for the National Championship event in Topeka this September. It's our only chance to run against the Garfields from DC before the Finale so we'll have an idea of how much work we're going to need to do to get in front of them in the medal line.

We do need to get to the shop to scale the kart before the next Rmax race though. I'm anxious to see what it will do after Rick rubs on it a little.

I would have just PM'ed you on the GSKA website, but they banned me again, this time for annoying Chuckles McCue :-) I can't believe they let him sell Birel products, you should hear the voicemail he left for me...

Dale

[angus' dad]

dale, did you guys remove your front torsion bar? and have you only used the stock wheels?

[Dale Seeley]

dale, did you guys remove your front torsion bar? and have you only used the stock wheels?

I removed the front bar and used douglas wheels (with tires from the March FWT event that we've been running all the RMax stuff with) per the baseline instructions on this forum.

We deviated with seat placement most likely, and are running it narrower in the back than the baseline called for (because of the old tires), and don't have the corner weight numbers yet.

Dale

[Jeff Myers]

sorry to jump the thread - what's going on in toledo??? i was unaware of an scca event in our area... details - details....

good to see folks hook up thru MRP forum...

Jeff Myers Sr.

[Dale Seeley]

sorry to jump the thread - what's going on in toledo??? i was unaware of an scca event in our area... details - details....

good to see folks hook up thru MRP forum...

Jeff Myers Sr.

SCCA ProSolo at the airport in Swanton. SCCA.com for all the details. The event is full at the moment, but there is almost always a cancellation late that will get you in, if you have set yourself up on the waiting list.

Regards,
Dale

[Dan Schlosser]

Dale, Richie & Jeff (and others for that matter)

We have 3 mini-max families running with us at BeaveRun now - Garfields, Punsalans and Killens. If there are ever any open weekends for you guys that match up with our schedule (we don't race on any GLSS or Man Cup weekends) I'm sure they'd love to see some more kids to run with. Don't want to pull you from your home track races but if you can squeeze a road trip in, I'm sure the kids would have fun here.

Dan

[Dale Seeley]

Dale, Richie & Jeff (and others for that matter)

We have 3 mini-max families running with us at BeaveRun now - Garfields, Punsalans and Killens. If there are ever any open weekends for you guys that match up with our schedule (we don't race on any GLSS or Man Cup weekends) I'm sure they'd love to see some more kids to run with. Don't want to pull you from your home track races but if you can squeeze a road trip in, I'm sure the kids would have fun here.

Dan

The BeaveRun facility is great too. I've been there a couple times with One Lap of America, even ran one of the kart track configurations with the cars, in a serious downpour...

How good are the Garfields? We're racing Julian and Carson at the Solo National Championships, their KT100's against our Comer 80.

Dale

[Jeff Myers]

hi dan,

thanks for the invite - i truly appreciate it.... jeff jr. had great success at the WKA races at beaverun last year so we'd like to return - just not sure when we'll be able to....

i do have a question: are you in monroe, michigan? or have family racing in/aound monroe? please email me at JSMyersSr@aol.com

meanwhile, will miss the scca event - just can't stay away from MRP, especially this weekend - looking forward to a great event.... who knows, the #40 may return for a one-off.....

Thanks, Jeff

[Dale Seeley]

The SCCA events are very different from sprintracing, most people believe that the very short amount of seat time (about 4 minutes total) isn't worth the time and mone invested. However, every second is very intense, it's like doing 'two lap qualifying', without the warmup lap...

[Rick Zellers]

Hey Dale and Jesse

Glad to see you guys come over to the red karts. Hanna enjoyed racing with Jesse at FWT.

Hope to see you guys there again

Rick and Hanna Zellers

[Dan Schlosser]

The BeaveRun facility is great too. I've been there a couple times with One Lap of America, even ran one of the kart track configurations with the cars, in a serious downpour...

How good are the Garfields? We're racing Julian and Carson at the Solo National Championships, their KT100's against our Comer 80.

Dale

Haven't seen Carson race actually but Julian is always very quick and Brian always has everything very well prepared. Ryan Punsalan is our first driver on a mini-max out of our shop. He put a Comer on for the WKA Man Cup race at Charlote and made the show on time his first try so he knows how to hustle a kart. He and Julian are usually only separated by no more than a kart length.