May 31, 2008
Team News: Extreme Karting/KLS Racing - ProKart Challenge South Willow Report

On Saturday May 31st, SKUSA held the third event of the ProKart Challenge SoCal 2008 season at Willow Springs kart track in Rosamond, CA. The .6 mile circuit is fast, technical & smooth and with SKUSA running the track backwards for the first time it provided at least three legitimate passing zones. The Friday practice & Saturday race days were absolutely picture perfect providing “chamber of commerce” weather with sunny skies, mid 80’s temps and the normal afternoon wind

S1 & TaG Senior saw a significant drop in entries with many PKC regulars attending the Stars of Karting Race of the Americas at New Castle Motorsports Park Stars race in Indiana. This goes to show the strength of the drivers in PKC!!!

Extreme Karting (www.extreme-karting.com) owner Doug Sorenson had, Marty Henderson (S3H/31x), Grant Westmorland (S3H/65c), Ken Schilling (S4H/21x), Jeff Krueger (S4H/11c), Robert Morales (S4H/278x), Peter Abba (S1/69c) & Eric Ortega (G2/72x) under his “tent” representing his shop. Doug provided his services as mechanic/tuner throughout the weekend.

KLS Racing (www.klsracing.com) owner Greg Sawyer had Zach Dericco (TaG S/32y) under his tent.

Extreme Karting, KLS Racing and Team Aluminos provided a “sea of blue” GP chassis that simply dominated the paddock.

Marty Henderson (31x) came into this race with a very slim 10 point lead over rival Phil Conte (8c). Both Marty & Grant Westmorland (65c) would struggle in qualifying coming in third & fourth respectively. Phil Conte would have no such problems qualifying and spanked the field by a full .4 sec. H1 saw Phil take the win but by only .6 sec over Grant and Marty would DNF after only 5 laps. H2 had a different result with Grant having the measure of Phil to the line but by only .3 sec with Marty close behind by another .4 sec (tight racing!). In the main, Marty came back to show his speed besting Grant by just over 1 sec & Phil another 4.4 sec back. Marty & Phil left the track deadlocked in a tie for first place! Grant is a close third only 40 points behind the leaders.

Freshman Stock Honda driver Ken Schilling (21x) showed up at the track with a comfortable 130 point lead over Marc Segal (71c) in the championship earned by winning the first two races of the season and he hoped to continue his good results. Bill Cox (36c) was able to return to racing after sitting out what would be his longest lack of seat time due to some serious eye surgery. The class would see some new faces, both Lloyd Putnam (24u) & Scott Clark (164u) making the long trek from Utah. In qualifying, Lloyd would show the way for pole with Ken a close 2nd only .2 sec back. A resurgent Mike Goebel (86x) would qualify an excellent 3rd with Bill in 4th. Jeff Krueger (11c) struggled and qualified 8th with a continually improving Robert Morales (278x) in 9th. H1 (as well as H2 and the main) would see carnage at the beginning of each race. This would drop Ken to the back and have him immediately go into points strategy mode rather than looking for the outright win. Ken did well to make up two positions by the end of H1.

In H2, Ken would again suffer at the start being shuffled to the back but was able to make his way through some of his competitors finishing right behind his points rival Marc Segal (71c). In the main Ken made it through the start without any major issues and set sight on the leaders and on lap Ken was able to get by Marc. On lap four however all ?&*% broke lose in turn two with six karts getting together sending Ken to the back again! After four more laps Ken was able to get around Marc (again!) and set his sights on Mike Goebel. On lap 14 both Mike & Ken were able to pass Alex King (27k) with Mike finally getting around Jeff Krueger (11c) and Ken finishing right behind Jeff. Ken would miss the main fastest lap to Bill Cox by just .01 sec while working his way to the front.

Talking with Ken after the race he would state, “Even though the results don’t show it, I had a good day. I was able to maintain my points lead losing only two points to Marc Segal and learned a lot regarding race strategy, racecraft, passing, patience and points management”. It was later found out that during Friday practice Ken’s drive sprocket had worked itself loose which significantly damaged the transmission output shaft. He was fortunate to be able to nurse the engine through the race day without causing further damage and/or DNF’ing. Bill Cox would also suffer mechanical maladies during Friday practice with his engine “swallowing” a ‘C’-clip and ruining his engine (ouch!!!). However, Rob Soares, team manager of Aluminos stepped in with an engine and noted turner George Tavares to help Bill on race day!!! Bill would qualify a strong 4th only .2 sec off pole. In H1 Bill would hold station finishing 4th. H2 saw Bill put on a driving clinic finishing 2nd just 1 sec behind the winner Scott. The main would see Lloyd working his way through the field finishing 2nd behind his Utah buddy Scott. Bill would finish 3rd which is a fantastic result considering his lack of recent seat time and Friday engine woes. Jeff Krueger (11c) would show excellent speed throughout the day running within .2 sec of the fastest lap times and finished a strong 5th in the main.

We’re hoping to see some racing videos with him having a camera mounted on his radiator! Robert Morales (278x) is constantly improving with Doug Sorensen’s help and was within ½ sec of the fastest lap times of the day. S4H is an extremely tight & close fought class with over half the field covered by less than ½ sec!!! Marc Segal maintained his 2nd place in the championship with Mike Goebel only 4 points behind! Jeff Krueger is another 25 points back of Mike. All told, the championship is far from over with 5 drivers with a shot at catching up to Ken.

Perennial PKC “Top Gun” Slava Prikhodko (46c) had to cancel his entry due to a motorcycle accident. It was later found out that it wasn’t too serious and that Slava will rejoin the championship hunt at the next race. Peter Abba (69c) would hold the GP flag high by qualifying a sold 3rd. In H1 Peter did a fantastic job to finish 2nd but just barely held off Vivek Tandon (4c) by just .3 sec. H2 found Peter in a race long fight for 2nd but fell back to 4th at the line. In the main he would take the third step on the podium and consistently posted lap times within a few tenths of the leaders. Peter left the track solidly 3rd in the championship and only 21 points behind 2nd.

Eric Ortega (72x) dominated the previous race at Buttonwillow by winning H1, H2 & the main and left the track with the championship lead. This day was to be much more of a challenge posed by Steve Donia (46c) & Blair Chang (181c). Blair grabbed the pole by .2 sec over Steve with Eric just .01 sec behind Steve. In H1 it was Blair & Steve battling over the win with Blair coming out on top and Eric maintaining his solid 3rd place. In H2 & the main however it was all Steve Donia who put the hurt on the field leaving only scraps behind. Blair would finish in 2nd & Eric in 3rd in H2. Eric & Blair would put on a fantastic show in the main all race long. Eric made a nice pass on Blair on lap 15 only to be hounded by Blair the remainder of the race finishing only .7 sec behind. Eric would have his points lead sliced in half to 45 but looks forward to the next race to try and extend it again.

Zach Dericco (32y) would fly the KLS Racing colors and came into the race with a solid lead in the championship. Zach would make his presence felt throughout the day and continued his championship lead. He would just miss the pole by .04 sec to Ryon Beachner (5c). In H1 & H2 Zach cruised to almost a 3 sec flag to flag victory with Ryon not starting H1 (this would turn out to be very important later). In H2 Ryon seemed content starting from the back and picked his way through the TaG Master drivers. In the main a first turn shuffling of the deck found Zach coming out on the bottom. By lap four however the race was basically over as Ryon shot to the front and stayed there finishing with over a 5 sec victory. Sitting out H1 worked to save Ryon’s tires which really showed in the main where no one had anything for him. Zach would not go down without a fight however and fought his way back to second place by lap seven, but by then was out of reach of the win but finished a solid 2nd. Zach goes into the next race with a solid 110 point championship lead.

The SKUSA gang looks forward to the 4th round of the 2008 ProKart Challenge series on Saturday June 28th held at CalSpeed Kart track in the parking lot of the famed California Speedway in Fontana.

February 06, 2008
at WinterNats Championship Series

This past weekend SKUSA held the second event of the inaugural WinterNats Championship Series (www.skusawinternats.com/eleven) in the West parking lot of Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego (home of the San Diego Chargers football team). After having Mother Nature play havoc with the first race of the year in January at CalSpeed, SKUSA was hoping for the normally beautiful Southern California weather to cooperate. The Saturday race day was absolutely picture perfect with sunny skies and a gentle breeze. Sunday however brought a huge change with pouring rain and driving wind providing quite a challenge for the drivers and crew. The 1.1 mile track proved to be challenging, technical, FAST & fun with four legitimate passing zones. In fact, the Stock Honda drivers were hitting 90 mph on the long downhill front straight!!!

Extreme Karting (www.extreme-karting.com) owner Doug Sorenson had Peter Abba (S1/#69c), Marty Henderson (S4/#31x), Ken Schilling (S4/#21x), Bill Cox (S4/#36c), Jeff Krueger (S4/#11c), Justin Krueger (S3/#14c) representing his shop. Doug provided his services as mechanic/tuner throughout the weekend.

KLS Racing (www.klsracing.com) owner Greg Sawyer had Marc Elliott (S1/#49y) & Imran Hussain (S1/#32x) under his tent with Alan Sciuto on hand to provide wrenching & tuning service as well as driver coaching. Marc also pulled double duty as a mechanic/tuner for the KLS gang.

Creating quite a stir in the paddock was GP chassis owner “Pepe” Cavaciuti & his SuperPro driver son Gian making the trip all the way from Italy to show support for the new WinterNats series as well as provide chassis tuning support & advice to all the GP drivers throughout the weekend.

Tom Kutscher, SKUSA CEO, added even more luster to the event by bringing in Rob Howden of EKN to provide world class race announcing and online coverage.

(for the full article, click here...)

September 8, 2007
Pro Kart Challenge at Moran Raceway

There was a great turn out for the final race of the season. A number of Stars of
Karting drivers were entered to practice for the final Stars race the following week. After all the hot weather the previous weeks, the weather was great, topping out in the low 90’s .

Quite a few of the class championships were still open to be decided.

First final of the day was S4. Kyle Zirkle found the key to his GP’s handling and was strong all day, taking the win and the championship (by two points). Bill Cox
finished 2nd in the Heavy class to conclude a strong year and finishing third in
the championship.

S3 was up next. In Light, Jeff and Justin Krueger both fell out of the race about half way. Justin was running his GP8 for the first time but had contact with another kart. In Heavy, Marty Henderson had more bad luck and retired when the front hub moved giving him a oval track setup, unfortunately on a road course. Marty finished 2nd for the year.

TAG Master 2 had a new GP participant in Brett Menzie ran his first ever kart race and finished third. Congratulations, Brett.

The S2 race had a familiar order to it. Eric Ortega finished second after Craig Caringella and in front of Cameron Parsons. Look for S2 to get folded into S1
next year.

S1 and G1 were the final race of the day and the year. Marc Elliott from Colorado
Finished 4th in S1 with John Chott in 7th after his first year in S1. John finished 6th for the year after winning S2 last year. Sergio Machado from NorCal finished 3rd in G1 and got 2nd for the year.

See you at the Winter Series in January 2008.

May 12, 2007
Pro Kart at Willow Kart Track

Over a hundred racers showed up for round six at Willow Kart. Friday was hot and windy. Race day brought a light cloud cover to help keep the temperature in the 80's for great racing weather.

S4 was up first for the 20 lap final races. In Heavy, Bill Cox took pole and followed that up with a great 1st place in the final. Bill has been a steady performer and is now getting quicker and should continue to contend for race wins. Tim McClanahan is gaining speed every race weekend and finished a strong second. He has a third and now a second this year, so only needs that first win to have all podium spots. Gary Westerfield is gaining some speed and came home in tenth in Light.

S3 Heavy had the same old winner. Fernando Diaz was not only the class winner, but was running times to be in the top of S3 Light, even with a 30 lb. weight penalty. John Espinor from KLS Racing drove to a strong second, Grant Westmoreland overcame some early motor problems and finished fourth with Marty Henderson coming home in fifth after numerous issues during the day.

After the TAG races, S2/G2 was up. Eric Ortega was battling some motor issues during the day but still came home in third. In G2, Dave DeGraw was figuring out his new GP8 and finished sixth.

S1/G1 was the last race of the day. Lorenzo Mandarino from KLS took the lead early and held off Fritz Leesman for most of the race. These two tangled late in the race and third place Nick Halen collected Lorenzo. Slava Pridhodko took the win with John Chott coming home in fourth. Lorenzo and Jon Allen of KLS were both DNFs. KLS's Sergio Machado came from the back after qualifying to take a well deserved win, Sean Bond got the handling right on his GP8 and finished third with Chris Painter in sixth.

4-21-07
Pro Kart Race at Grange
Over a hundred racers showed up for round #5 at Grange. Friday was cold and windy. It rained almost everywhere else in So. Cal. but the track only received a few drops. Saturday was warm and sunny with just a light breeze. Great racing weather. The GP racers who showed up this weekend had fun and good results.

The day started with S4. Bill Cox kept up his hot streak in S4 Heavy with a solid 2nd place. Tim McClanahan (Mr. Big O) got caught up in an early accident and had his first DNF of the year.
S3 was next up. Fernando Diaz in Heavy again ran with the front of the Light class. He placed 1st with Marty Henderson in 2nd. Justin Krueger finished 9th in a strong Light field with his dad Jeff in 12th.
Eric Ortega ran a strong 2nd in S2, again chasing Craig Caringella.

In S1, Nick Brinkman found out how to make the GP8 work for him and recovered from a heat race accident to pass the field to a impressive 2nd place. John Chott had a strong showing in 6th. In the G1 category which runs with S1, Nick’s buddy David Nickols found the same sweet spot in the GP8 and walked away from the field. Sergio Machado finished 5th even with back problems followed by Chris Painter in 6th.

We pack up and go to Willow Kart Track on May 12th for round six. See you there.