This weekend the Championship Endro Series held the third race and second visit to Blackhawk Farms Raceway.   Blackhawk is a nearly two mile long race track used for many forms of road racing including cars and motorcycles.  It is a track loved by drivers for challenging 7 turn course and its beautiful woodland setting.  When we visit we don’t even consider getting a hotel room, we know we are going to camp at this track.  Jason has now visited at this track 12 times running some where in the area of 200 laps, that’s about 390 miles.  That’s about 4 hours on driving time averaging 70 MPH.

This weekends competition was regrettably small, with no one in his class to race with he is a little bored.  In the past he has been able to run with some of the other classes but this year everyone is faster then he is and he is often by  him self while others are races up ahead. Its not very exciting for him.  Saturdays race started very well with Jason as usual jumping up to about 4th or 5th place and then as the faster but heaver karts picked up speed he dropped down to 11th of 17 by the end of the race.  Still a good race for him and consistent with his previous races and he won his class.

After the race on Saturday, started working on changing the kart setup to meet the Animal Junior class rules, with encouragement from his older and questionably wiser race buddies.  This class is normally for drivers 12 to 15, but since Jason is a pretty skilled and reserved driver and should be safe.  The Junior class runs without a restrictor plate on the carburetor and the driver and kart must weight at least 300lbs.  The plate prevents gas and air from getting into the motor and limits it to 7 horse power, down from the stock 12.  While adding the approximate 25lbs, I did my best to keep the kart balanced and safe, an unbalanced kart can be difficult to drive.  The only thing I did not do was put 6 in rear wheels and tires on as I don’t have any.  The tires would likely made him a bit faster.  He was given strict instructions to be careful and thoughtful with the new power and speed he when out for his first real Junior Practice.

The race on Sunday was a really good time.  It however did start with a very scary moment of Jason spinning out in turn 6 and almost getting run into.  Thankfully, the guys behind him where very skilled and made the moves to get around him with out incident.  The rest of the race he played catch-up picked off kart after kart.  At one point he picked up a draft partner who stuck on him like glue and only briefly managed to pull in front of Jason, but Jason got him in the next corner.  In the end starting in 11th then going to 17th(dead last) all the way backup to 8th, quite the drive.  Although he was not on the track with other junior drivers lap times right there with the current drivers lap times of 1.33, though in the past 1.28 would be the high mark, with some tuning and practice we could do that.

Thanks all our road racing friends for their encouragement and support.  Karen, the season is starting to wind down, soon we can start to enjoy banquet season.  This race was supported by Glenview’s The Greenwood Restaurant.

Thanks to our 2015 Sponsors for their continuing support.
GoPro, Slick Products, Shorai, Amsoil, EVS, Stardust Memorials, The Greenwood Restaurant, C&M Auto Service, Atomic Decals, Danrr Autobody, T.J. Ross.