Luca’s race weekend was compromised by a bad maneuver from a fellow driver. As shown in the video below, Luca was in 2nd place, somewhat off the pace but still full throttle down the straight into turn 1 at close to 70mph, when he was bumped 3 times in quick succession by the 3rd place driver resulting in him spinning at the fastest part of the track. Luca somehow managed to keep the kart out of the dirt. In fact, the spin was so violent that he was almost thrown from the seat as he came to an abrupt sideways stop. He was then nearly hit by the 4th place driver, who himself did very well not to lose control and spin out.
I was not impressed. It was a dangerous, premeditated move by the driver to take Luca out of the race. He’s known to have done this before and I gently but sternly told him what I thought of it after the race. He knew what he had done and acknowledged my criticism. Unfortunately, the maneuver went unnoticed by the track officials who should have black-flagged him. To Luca’s evident frustration, he also lost a place before he regained his composure and full racing speed. He fought back to a very respectable 4th place finish and I was happy with the result considering the circumstances. It was a close call for sure and an unwelcome reminder of how things can change so quickly for the worse in motor racing. Luca was lucky today …
The configuration was Track 3 “Laguna Seca” – a demanding track on the drivers requiring both speed and smoothness in driving style. The track as usual was extremely slippery and racers had to negotiate it with both care and courage with little scope for error. Overtaking remains the biggest challenge.
Luca was about 1/2 second off the pace all weekend which was down to the new engine. This was its 4th race since it was purchased and it proved to be one race too many. It should have been torn down and rebuilt prior to the race weekend but for whatever reason it didn’t happen. The rebuild would have replaced the standard piston configuration to a custom tightest fit resulting in much more efficient combustion, power and ultimately top-line speed.
Notwithstanding the double setback, Luca actually performed very well as he had to push harder and closer to the edge to extract a competitive performance from the kart. He was naturally frustrated by the posted slower times as he is very competitive but that was offset by his happiness and satisfaction from simply driving the kart.
He wants to race – that’s all he thinks about! I caught him again the other day in a motorized shopping kart chasing the apex in Vons!
A good weekend considering what happened. We have a hiatus at the speedway with the next race weekend almost 2 months away – May 12th – 13th. It’s going to be a test of patience for Luca. I will need to take him down to Grange Motor Circuit in Victorville, CA to get some seat time. It will be the first time that I take the kart out without the support of the pit crew … should be interesting.
See you all soon … GO LUCA!