From the Seat!

It is less than five days until the first day of spring as this is being written. As I look out the window of the Palatial World Headquarters of Rapid Racing Inc. near the heart of beautiful downtown Clermont Indiana the medieval landscape of gray and brown is beginning to turn green. This can only mean one thing, racing season is near. In a very few days once again the scream of racing engines will echo across the fields and prairies that contain most of the world's race tracks and all will be right with the world.

Motorsports in general including kart racing has been somewhat stagnant during the last couple of years of war and recession, but I see a clear rebound in the works. I am seeing a level of excitement that I have not seen in a long time from the visitors here at the shop. At the recent Kart Expo (What a show!) the same excitement was in evidence. In my humble opinion people are ready to quit worrying and go racing. So, what's hot? Judging from the action here at the shop Shifter racing is continuing to grow strongly, and TAG? Well if the number of TAG engines and karts that are going out the door here is any indication, this user friendly category is like Topsy and is just going to grow and grow fast.

I had the opportunity last week to take a couple of laps (on foot) around the Dismore owned New Castle Motorsports Park and frankly I'm impressed. Wide and smooth with a neat mix of high speed sections, point and squirt technical sections and some cool elevation changes thrown in as well easily make this one of the finest purpose built kart racing facilities ever. Located less than an hour from the shop I have to admit that even this dedicated road racer is leering at this new track like an AARP member at a wet T-shirt contest. Team Rapid Racing including the amazing Gooseman (?) will be testing "Lucille" at New Castle in the near future.

Team Rapid Racing's location here at the world center of auto racing gives us the opportunity to meet and mingle with many of the heavy hitters in the pro racing world. Most of the Champ Car, IRL, and Pro Drag Racing teams are building new facilities near us and I would like to take this opportunity to welcome new neighbors John Force Racing, and Vance and Hines Motorsports to the neighborhood. Due to our location we find ourselves in the unlikely position of being shifter kart mentors to Indy Car drivers and we had an interesting visitor a couple of days ago. Tomas Sheckter stopped in for supplies and advice and despite the media's representation of Tomas as being arrogant and confrontational we found him to be one of the most congenial of any of the "name" drivers that we deal with. IRL testing is limited this year and Tomas like many others is honing his skills with a kart. (Yes it's a TonyKart!) I have made many friends over the years in the Indy Car community and I will definitely be pulling for our new friend Tomas.

Well that's enough drivel for one month, until next time, Race Hard, Race Safe, and God Bless America!