From the Seat!

Team Rapid Racing spent this past weekend at New Castle Motorsports Park (NCMP) with the Stars of Karting series. Wow! Where do I begin? Impressed is the first word that comes to mind. This writer has attended scores of National, Grand National and assorted high level races over the years including being a fixture at Daytona's Kartweek for nearly thirty years and I have never seen deeper more competitive fields, period. The level of commitment in the few classes offered (ICC 125, ICA, JICA, 80cc Jr. Shifter, Easykart 125 and Cadet) was above anything I have previously seen. A crisp program (not perfect) and thunderous racing resulted in an awesome show.

Are the headline drivers like Alex Speed, Jonathon Brannam, Josh Schreiber, Kevin LaCroix and seemingly a cast of thousands as good as their Hype? Yes! Hard fast and clean racing was the order of the day.

Looking at the results it would appear that young Mr. Speed mopped up the headliner ICC events, the truth is he never had a lead bigger than two car lengths and a hungry horde of pretenders to the crown were relentless in their pursuit.

The 100cc ICA races were quite a show in their own right with several machines running underneath what had been the absolute lap record at NCMP. A healthy pack of these 20,000 rpm beasts at the end of the nearly 1000 foot NCMP straight made a noise that could bring tears to your eyes. Certainly not a class for everybody but very, very cool machines.

I know, I know, what about the ever faithful Gooseman (?)?

As always the illustrious Gooseman (?) was in tow and also as always made some very sharp observations regarding kart setup, but that's not what I am going to talk about. There was a film crew from MTV on hand all weekend. Most noticeable was a rather large black fellow with a smile as big as all outdoors putting his self in harms way over and over getting what had to be some fascinating angles on the racing. Late in the weekend the previously mentioned MTV crewmember visited the palatial paddock area set up by Team Rapid Racing. The media giant (I told you he was big) filled us in on some details on what they were doing. It seems that MTV is following the entire Stars of Karting Pro circuit in order to put together a compilation program from the reams of footage they were taping and market it to their (MTV's) audience. Talk was made about corporate sponsorship and possibly truly some big bucks available at the Pro level in the future. This could be huge for the sport. After a pleasant and informative conversation The MTV crewman turned to the attentive Gooseman (?) and asked his name.

"Gooseman" replied the mysterious Gooseman (?). Flashing that blinding smile the crewman said "Gooseman! I'm Spyderman!" and with that he turned and disappeared into the crowd.

Until next time, Race Hard, Race Safe and God Bless America!