1fasttiller
Member
Hi ladies and gents, I don't do this often but I felt compelled after this weekends mess that we suffered through... (kinda long I know)
For 2+ years now we've ran the Florida Karting Series state races put on by Vega tires. This is my sons first year stepping up from Jr classes to Med and Heavy to run with all the big names and gain some valuable experience.
Saturday we attended the 3rd race held at Original Speedway park in Fruitland Florida. Gates open at 7am for tech and tire check in. Due to rain the night before we the track was quite wet and we didn't turn a single lap until after 1PM. We were entered in Clone heavy and Clone Heavy Pro. Total entry fees with transponders was $150. Not counting parking, 3 sets of new tires, fuel etc. They ended up cutting practice sessions from 2 10 lap sessions to 2 3 lap sessions, then cut qualifying from the standard 3 laps to an all field qualifying 6 lap session taking fastest times of the group, if you got stuck behind slower karts you were screwed. Either way, we qualified 4th out of 18 in both classes.
By 5PM another small rain storm came and soaked us again, they should have called the races but decided to do another roll in and wait. Track lost all groove slowed down by 2 seconds. Heavy is the last class of the running order and of course the Pro (Money) races aren't until the end of the night. Fast forward to 11PM they announce a made up "curfew" and said that any classes that haven't ran by 11:59 would not run and would be awarded points per qualifying, fine OK, we'll take 4th but the pro races were for $1000 cash, cost was $75 to enter. They kept our money and we didn't get to run a SINGLE lap in a feature race. I asked for my $75 back and said I was fine with the 4th place points for the regular trophy races but was NOT accepting that for the Pro race. Was I wrong???
I held the transponder hostage and demanded my $75 back, needless to say my son and others looked at me like a jacka$$. In the practice sessions we were the fastest kart on the track so I felt we were robbed any chance at the $1000 prize money. Vega made their pockets fat and didn't care one bit about the racers!
For 2+ years now we've ran the Florida Karting Series state races put on by Vega tires. This is my sons first year stepping up from Jr classes to Med and Heavy to run with all the big names and gain some valuable experience.
Saturday we attended the 3rd race held at Original Speedway park in Fruitland Florida. Gates open at 7am for tech and tire check in. Due to rain the night before we the track was quite wet and we didn't turn a single lap until after 1PM. We were entered in Clone heavy and Clone Heavy Pro. Total entry fees with transponders was $150. Not counting parking, 3 sets of new tires, fuel etc. They ended up cutting practice sessions from 2 10 lap sessions to 2 3 lap sessions, then cut qualifying from the standard 3 laps to an all field qualifying 6 lap session taking fastest times of the group, if you got stuck behind slower karts you were screwed. Either way, we qualified 4th out of 18 in both classes.
By 5PM another small rain storm came and soaked us again, they should have called the races but decided to do another roll in and wait. Track lost all groove slowed down by 2 seconds. Heavy is the last class of the running order and of course the Pro (Money) races aren't until the end of the night. Fast forward to 11PM they announce a made up "curfew" and said that any classes that haven't ran by 11:59 would not run and would be awarded points per qualifying, fine OK, we'll take 4th but the pro races were for $1000 cash, cost was $75 to enter. They kept our money and we didn't get to run a SINGLE lap in a feature race. I asked for my $75 back and said I was fine with the 4th place points for the regular trophy races but was NOT accepting that for the Pro race. Was I wrong???
I held the transponder hostage and demanded my $75 back, needless to say my son and others looked at me like a jacka$$. In the practice sessions we were the fastest kart on the track so I felt we were robbed any chance at the $1000 prize money. Vega made their pockets fat and didn't care one bit about the racers!