The OPMC hosted a joint socializing BBQ picnic and Go-Kart driving event with the Sahuaro Miata Club from Phoenix at the wonderful new P1 Kart Track located in the Motorsports Complex near the Fairgrounds south of Tucson on Saturday, February 9, 2008.  This event included the opportunity for those interested to participate in one or both of two planned on-track programs.  The first was a novice driver training and racing class on the new  state of the art kart road racing track using 9-hp, 45-mph Honda powered Go-karts.  Second, there was an opportunity for qualified individuals to drive 28-hp or 38-hp high-performance racing Go-karts on the track.  The 38-hp high-performance 6-spd sequential-shift racing karts accelerate considerably quicker than a 400-hp Corvette and can exceed 80 mph on the relatively short straightaways at the P1 kart track.

Tucson weather was perfect for this grand event with the temperature in the upper 70s.  We had 16 driving participants for the basic 9-hp kart driving and racing program, and three for the advanced race kart driving program.  We initially had eight who expressed interest in driving the high speed race karts but many participants were exhausted after the nearly four hour basic kart driving and racing program and decided to simply watch the three club participants try their hand at the racing equipment.

In addition to the kart driving participants we had a number of club members who showed up as spectators; and all enjoyed a wonderful BBQ lunch arranged by Paul and Janet Hart, with cooking done by Les Clark and Hal Feldman of OPMC.  Many thanks to Janet and Paul, and Les and Hal for their contributions to making this a very fun club event.  Thanks also to OPMC Vice President Susan Olsen for her great photography and other logistical support during the event.

The final part of the basic kart driving and racing program was a six-lap inter-club race on the west half mile of the kart track involving the four fastest drivers from each club based on lap times during preliminary events.  This exciting race was won by OPMC's past president Paul Hart, and wife Janet Hart put in an awesome drive to finish second for OPMC.  The rest of the finishing order was as follows:  third-Lyle Shall from the Sahuaro club, fourth-Richard Olsen from OPMC, fifth-Elliot Meister from OPMC, sixth-David Sherman from OPMC (Dave was loaned to the Sahuaro Club as their fourth driver because their other participants had to leave early), seventh-Dan Pina from Sahuaro, and eighth with an unfortunate DNF was Rod DiMarco from Sahuaro (Rod had been one of the quickest drivers in preliminary races in the morning).

Below are photos of the three podium finishers, seven of the eight inter-club race participants, and a photo of Lyle Shall of the Sahuaro Club awarding Janet Hart a prize donated by the Sahuaro Club for the woman who completed the most laps during the day.  Photo on far right below shows most of the karting event participants, with one of the track owners kneeling in the foreground.  The P1 Track officials did a first class job of facilitating our event and keeping everyone safe on the track while assuring we all had a good time.  We can highly recommend P1 as a place to have a great time and learn high performance driving from professionals.  Here's a link to the P1 Kart Track website.

http://www.p1kartcircuit.com/home/

click on pictures to enlarge them

The three drivers who still had enough energy to try their hand at driving the high speed race karts late in the afternoon were Lyle Shall of Sahuaro and Richard Olsen and Carl Tootle from OPMC.  Richard and Lyle both drove the 38-hp 6-spd shifter kart and all three tried the 28-hp non-shifting TAG karts.  While both of these very fast pieces of racing equipment hit 80 or more mph on the P1 Kart Track, the shifter kart was clearly faster, especially in acceleration off the corners due to the 6-spd transmission that kept the 125 cc motorcycle engine in the optimum part of the power band.  Richard and Lyle both reported that the shifter kart was easily the fastest accelerating vehicle they had ever experienced, and that it handled the corners like a dream -- this thing was scary-fast.  It did however require much more attention during driving due to the need to shift up and down through the gears while still keeping the kart on the track at what seemed like near impossible speeds.  The shifter kart was reported able to do 0-100 mph in about six seconds, so one can appreciate the out-right speed and the amount of shifting necessary on the race track with the 6-spd transmission.  The non-shifting TAG karts were a bit slower coming out of the corners, but very quickly got up to a speed on the straights close to that of the shifter kart, and they too handled beautifully in the corners.  Both of these racing karts had substantially higher cornering speeds than the 9-hp concession karts used for the basic club event sessions because of their much more sophisticated chassis and the very sticky race tires used. Here are pictures of Lyle driving the shifter-kart, and Richard and Carl in the TAG karts on the west end of the wonderful P1 race circuit -- coming off the last corner and on to the main straight.

Below is a link to a video from the P1 Kart Track featuring an in-kart video clip of a shifter Kart running at speed on the same west half of the kart track we used for our event (this is not one of our folks driving).  To those of you who participated last Saturday on this track in the 9-hp concession karts, you will recognize all the corners here but the video will appear to be running in fast-forward, but is in fact running in real time.  The shifter and TAG race karts really are that fast and this is what 80+ mph looks like on the straight from the drivers seat.

Click Here For Short Shifter Kart Video

Below are additional selected pictures taken by Susan Olsen during the on-track activities involving the quick and very fun 9-hp Honda powered go-karts at the P1 track.

karts grided for standing start of preliminary races

Here are pictures of Paul and Janet Hart driving on the track.  They finished first and second, respectively, in the inter-club race at the P1 track.

Below are videos of three of the 9-hp concession kart races.  A high-speed internet connection is recommended for viewing these videos which are very large files in Windows Media .wmv format.

Click Here For First Race Video.

Click Here For Second Race Video.

Click Here For Third Race Video.

Sorry, but we had technical problems with the video equipment and did not get any video clips of the exciting inter-club race.

CDs with all the many pictures taken by Susan Olsen during the on-track activities are available upon request.  Also, Richard Olsen can provide large-format files for any of the photos available should someone want a large format commercial photo print made, and Richard will also do cropping and other editing if needed.

Richard Olsen, P1 Kart Race Coordinator

OPMC