2012 Race Report 4

Indoor Kart Racing January 28, 2012

Saturday was the second annual Indoor Thunder Race at the Circle M Ranch in Pelzer South Carolina. After driving all day Friday I pulled into the Circle M Ranch at 11:30AM on Saturday and practice was already under way. The track is constructed in the large indoor rodeo arena as they brought in good red clay and slightly banked then well watered the track. The track is only about 1/10-mile and is a paper clip shape and not too wide. They put boards in front of the rodeo metal fencing and then hay and tires to form the outside walls then placed the steel discs and some cones to mark the inside. The straightaway stands are 11 rows of comfortable cloth padded folding chairs with some additional seating in wooden folding seats above the third and fourth turn. The view from the straightaway seats was hampered some by the support beams for the ceiling and the wooden flag stand. Qualifying started at 1PM for 187 karts in 19 classes with 15-lap features starting at 4PM. The two big money races were extended to 25-laps and all races started straight up by time in single file formation. At the driver’s meeting it was explained that lapped karts would get the black flag and should exit the track as traffic could get heavy on the short track. Clone medium (23 karts) and pro clone (23 karts) were the biggest classes and 12 champ heavy and 13 pro champs were the two countable classes for track chasing. The first 5 races were won by the fast qualifier and the clone medium race was the only one to have a yellow (5). The final yellow was on the last lap and Jason Scruggs lost the lead to Disco Donnie Nall but the scoring reverted to the white flag giving Scruggs the win. The blue lite had only 4 karts but they exchanged the lead 4 times with Colby Horner winning over Cruise Caudell. The yellows became more frequent with some bump and run passing and a 3 wide finish in the gold heavy with Nick Long taking his second win of the day. Colby Horner won the junior sportsmen champs then the 12 senior champ heavy karts took to the track for 15 laps. After a spin on the first lap they ran all green with second fastest timer Disco Donnie first to the checkers followed by Donnie Bryant and Shay Chavous. Nall also won the stock heavy feature from the pole in a non-stop race. The competitive edge class started 12 karts and failed to complete a lap in 5 attempts so a red was thrown and all drivers went to a special meeting with the flagman.  They then restated and went all green with third starter Wes Suddeth the winner. The pro champ race was the 17^th feature of the day with $1000 going to the winner and Bryant again on the pole with fast time. There were two spins in the first three laps then they settled down to some fast racing. Nall started second and got by Bryant with seventh starter Jason Moates coming home third at the finish. However an illegal carburetor screw had Nall disqualified for the two champ kart races so Donnie Bryant was a double winner. The last race of the day was the $2000 to win pro clone race and Nall started in front and led until Justin McDonald took over on the 4^th lap. Nall got back under McDonald about the 18^th lap and held the lead to take the big money with Scruggs coming home third. Racing was done at 7:50PM and I got a good start on the drive home before getting some sleep.