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 Friday & Saturday 7/ 30&31 - Vintage Kart Weekend
Sunday Club Race #10 - Aug 1

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7/26/2010 - Sunday was a great day for racing - and for vacations. The field was a little smaller than we have been getting lately, but for those in attendance the racing was just as challenging as ever.
 
The Yamaha Pipe class continued to be the largest class this weekend with Robbie Little pulling down the win. Hot-shoe Shane Morse was conspicuously absent this week and I heard they are still having brake problems. As I mentioned last week, there's lots of good equipment in the area if you are interested in getting into the mix.

WKA Black plate was a dog fight as usual. Ryan Bavineau took the win on the strength of a controversial pass over Mike Fauci in T-2 in one of the early heats. No flags flew however, and the pass was allowed to stand. Tyler Orlop and McAndrew Gamrod filled out the top 4 for the day. I didn't see any of what happened, but heard Mike was quite frustrated by it. I also heard that he handled it quite well though - not letting it get the better of him. Gotta admire a guy that can get knocked down, brush it off and not let it get in the way of coming back and running just as hard as ever in the next heat(s). By the end of the day, I saw him smiling and joking around in the pits.

We had a nice field of Gold plates this week. Both the stock Gold Plate and the WKA Gold plate classes were combined in a heat group. With 7 Karts on the track, there always seemed to be someone to race with. At the end of the day, Mike Leo took the win in the stock class while CJ Leturneau took the win in the WKA Class.

The Chicken BBQ is planned for this Sunday. We are a bit short of people signing up for it. If you would like to sign up, Call Dale Glitch. She will be checking with the caterer to see if he can do it for the amount of people we have - if not, then we won't be having it. The cost is $9.

This weekend, GVKC welcomes Vintage Karting enthusiasts to the Avon Kart Speedway. Scott Kneisel has been organizing the event for quite a while and has received some preentries with several verbal commitments from Vintage Kart owners in the mid-west and Northeast. With this being the inaugural event, we hope to provide an enjoyable event for the visitors and learn ways to make future events even better. The track opens at 8am Friday with registration. After a Drivers meeting at 9:45, practice will kick off around 10Am. There will be a half-hour break for lunch and then the track will be open all afternoon for practice. - Saturday is very similar to Friday's schedule with the addition of Vintage Kart shows & displays. We will also be hosting a cook-out dinner for participants at the end of the day.

 Obviously, as a result of the vintage show, we will not be having Oval racing or open practice on July 31st. This doesn't mean that Oval racers and sprint participants shouldn't come out though! Any spectators that come out will be treated to some of the best restored and maintained equipment available anywhere in the country. These guys take great pride in their karts and it shows. Many will be amazed to see how the sport started and how different the racing style was from then to what it is today. The concession stand will be open and karts will be on display in a "viewing corral" that will be free to spectators. Entry to the hot pits will require purchase of a pit pass.

Sunday August 1st will be Club Race #10. If any of the Vintage Karters have not had enough yet, they may just join us on Sunday as well.

The next track clean-up day is Tuesday, August 10th. If things go like they have all year, it will probably be raining..... just the same, try to save the date - we always have things to do and the more help we have the more we can accomplish.

7/18/2010 - Week 8 is in the books! We had an especially nice day for racing - no rain and very warm temps. Although we had 8 groups today, the staff conducting the races did well to keep the program moving in an effecient manner so that we could be finished by mid afternoon. Nice job - We don't think about it as often as we should, but it takes quite a few people to keep an event on track and moving along - Thanks Colleen, Corine, Roday, John, Chris, Brian, Josh and Al!

I need to put in a plug for our Chicken BBQ being held on Sunday, August 1st. As Al mentioned during the driver's meeting, we need to guarantee at least 50 dinners and we have not got near that many signed up. August 1st is only a couple weeks away and we got a little behind in advertising, so I'm hoping we can get some interest in the next week or so. We need to let the caterer know next week. I believe it is around $9/plate. You can call us here at 323-2822 and we'll put you on the list, or sign up at the track next Sunday. 

The celebrity race that we had planned for next Sunday never materialized unfortunately. Maybe we can pull it together next year. We will have Club race #9 though - hope you can make it.

Our monthly track work-night was last Tuesday. When I showed up at the track, I couldn't believe how hard it was raining. It figured though... I think we have had rain on every one of our track clean up nights this year! Luckily, it did stop after about a half hour and we had several members show up to pitch in with painting the inside of the tower, mowing around the south end of the track and arranging the tires and blocks, cleaning up under the grandstands, mowing the hill by the pits, working on the PA system and a few more things that I just can't think of right now. Also, the expansion tank in the rest room sprung a leak last weekend and Jeff Stark came in on Friday and replaced it with a brand new one. Thanks Jeff.

We had nearly 30 racers on hand today with the largest classes being The Briggs Animal Black plate, sealed Gold plate and the Yamaha Pipe class. The points have been updated and posted and the transponder timing results can be found here.

In the Black Plate class, Ryan Bavineau took the win with Mike Fauci 2nd. The Gold plate class was bigger than usual but despite that, Jeremy Uderitz was able to take 1st for the day over Mike Leo. There was a freak occurrence during the second heat of this race when Brett McManus bumped his ankle in the kart and had to pull in. I talked with his father a while ago and after xrays were taken it appears nothing is broken, but his ankle is hurting. Get well soon Bret. By the way... Mikayla Meyer continues to lead in points for this class.

We had another good field of Yamaha Pipes this week - 7! Again this week the class provided a lot of exciting wheel to wheel racing. After 3 tough, tough heats... Alex Salsbury came out on top with Robbie Little hot on his heels. Bruce Pogue had another steady run finishing third. 

We'd gladly welcome new competitors into any of our classes here at Avon, but I will mention that I saw some nice looking karts with Yamahas on them available locally on Craigslist this past week. If you have been considering joining us, this could be a good time to check it out. Besides Craigslist, I know of a couple other Yamaha set-ups available from former competitors. If your interest is in 4 cycle engines, Rich Gamrod or Bill Barkley could point you in the right direction.

We had another nice crowd of spectators today. Thanks for coming out - Hope you enjoyed the racing. I heard one of the visitors was in from Florida! Nice!

Next Saturday, we'll be opening about 9:00 or so to welcome the oval racers for their weekly event as well as any of our sprint course racers that want to come out for practice.

Sunday will be a regular Club race (#9) - Practice at 10am - racing about Noon.

John

7/11/2010 - Before we get to today's activities, I'm going to start out by reminding everyone that we plan to have a track work night this Tuesday 7/13. Please come out and be a part of making Avon Kart Speedway one of the finest kart racing tracks in the Northeast. We will be arriving around 5:00. This is a good opportunity to meet with other members in a noncompetitive environment. There are a lot of good people in the club - come and see for yourself.

Now... about today... what a good day for racing - almost a bit too hot, but no chance of rain. We had 31 karters on hand and were also pleasantly surprised to have a couple motorcycles come out to try out the track. Hopefully, they'll come back and bring their friends.

The Black Plate Animal class continues to be a Battle Royale as Mike Fauci wrestled the win away from the other 6 Black Plate racers for the day. Taylor Ness also had a fine race day. Taylor had a consistent performance finishing up with three 2nd place finishes in his heats to nail down second place overall.

Did anyone watch Ondrea Wagner putting it to the Sr Animals? She's really starting to "get er done". You go girl!

The Yamaha Pipe class is really picking up and people are taking notice. We had 9 Yamahas come to the line for the biggest class of the day and people were coming to the fences to see what was going to happen. Last week we had them climbing on top of each other and this week we had lots of nose pieces getting banged up and ripped off! This is tough, close racing and it's fun to watch! We had a new member join the class this week - Matt Bennett - welcome! FYI - I have been hearing of a couple more Yamahas that may be showing up within the next few weeks. If you are reading this and have a Yamaha pipe kart - you should be here! 

It was nice to see quite a few spectators on hand today. I think they were treated to some exciting racing. We will hopefully be working on the loudspeakers Tuesday and also try to cleanup around the grandstands to improve the conditions for our visitors. Once we get the loudspeakers 
under control, we'll do some more announcing to help people have a better understanding of what's going on throughout the race day.

GVKC continues to grow.... I already mentioned Matt being a new member.... , we also had a new Kid Kart member today.. Welcome to Trevor Vargo. Hope you had fun today. Most members probably don't realize it, but we have just over 100 members. That's pretty good considering that karting is having a hard time right now in many areas of the country. 

Former WKA President Randy Kugler paid GVKC a visit last week. Randy is now working with Championship Karting International (CKI). Randy is heading up an initiative to create a "consortium" of local kart clubs and tracks from around the country. The idea is to be able to share common concerns from  local tracks and share ideas that have worked to address  problems. They (CKI) also have been able to assemble several sponsors that can provide goods and services that are commonly needed by the clubs. GVKC has joined this effort.

The points have been updated and I'll get the transponder results posted to MyLaps in the next day or so.

Next Saturday, The track is open for practice along with the morning Oval racing. For those racing in the Regionals, Cherry Valley will be hosting the 4th race of the series on Saturday. Good luck to all that go. For starting times, see the WKANESS.com website.

On Sunday, we'll have GVKC club race #8

See you then!

7/1/2010 - Points have been updated - have a Safe & Happy 4th of July!

6/28/2010 - Wow! it was sure hot and humid last Sunday, but at least it didn't rain. We were happy to have members of the Batavia Kart Club on hand to join the race day program. They are a fun group to watch with their close, clean racing. Their next scheduled stop at Avon is August 1st, but of course they're welcome to come back when ever their schedule allows.

The Animal Black plate class has had solid participation so far this season. The class is made up of several of our former Gold plate racers from the past few years (Tyler Orlop, Taylor Ness, McAndrew Gamrod, Ryan Bavineau) as well as a couple new members for this year (Colton and CJ Leturneau). Add to this mix the return of veteran racer Mike Fauci and we have the makings of a highly competitive class that produces some hard-nosed tough racing every week. A win in this group is well-earned. 

We have also had a pretty good showing from the Yamaha pipe and Master class the past couple weeks. It's good to see 8 or 10 of them taking the green and with the close wheel to wheel racing we saw this past Sunday, you never can tell what might happen or how far they might end up in the weeds by the end of a heat! Pretty exciting stuff!

Did anyone else notice Joshua Stark this past week? Don't tell anyone, but I think he's been practicing ...... Lookin' good Josh - keep up the good work - you are looking fast!

I also want to mention that we have a weekly competitor running the "Clone" engine on the road course every week. I think Chase Ackerson has only missed one or two races this year. Chase usually goes out with the sealed Red Plate jr class and I'm sure he'd like even more people to join along with them. The clone classes are designed to be very affordable, so if your reading this and have thought that maybe karting is too expensive or that the clones are just for the oval guys, take another look. There are tracks around the country that have full fields of clone- powered karts racing on road course tracks. Engine rules and specs are available right here. Bill and Sandra Barkley should be able to provide more specific information about the clones if you have interest. Otherwise, come out to the track on Sunday and check it out.

As long as I have mentioned the Oval karts, I must admit to being somewhat slow to announce that Jerome Peck has taken the initiative to build a web site for the Avon Oval racing. To visit it, click here. I'll put a more permanent link to the site up shortly. Thanks for doing this Jerome, the oval guys showing up weekly are appreciated and deserve the recognition and the "home" you are providing them.

I'm going to drop another reminder about the work-evening planned for July 13th. We'll be there around 5 - 5:30. As mentioned in the driver's meeting, we'd like to see some better participation than we've had for the past couple work nights. If you can't make it due to a conflict or transportation problems (live too far away etc...) that's understandable, but it just seems too much of a coincidence that we keep choosing nights that only 2 or 3 people are available to help out. It's your club and its future direction and health depends on our members' participation. 

I'll try to get the points updated with the WKANESS bonus points from Oswego as well as the race results from Sunday later this week. I'm having some vehicle problems I have to attend to and I'm out of town on Wednesday, so it will probably be later in the week. 

The track is closed this weekend for the July 4th holiday. Call Al Gutberlet for the latest information about track rental availability. Racing will resume on July 10th with the Oval series and open practice along with GVKC Sprint race #7 on July 11th.

That's all for now... 

6/20/2010 - The points have been updated. Thanks to everybody that came out to share their Father's day with us! We had some great weather and great racing today. I may post something later this week, but am kinda tired right now.

6/13/2010 - Drat! Another rainout today! After a decent Saturday, we woke up to heavy overcast and fog, followed by intermittent rain that just kept coming. We had plenty of karts on hand to have a good race day, but after waiting it out as long as practical, the race was finally called off around 12:30. Due to the loss of 2 straight races, a vote was taken among the people in attendance to see if they wanted to race on Father's day - which was previously an off week-end. The vote was overwhelming in favor of racing. So we WILL be racing on Fathers day! We will have time trials and 2 heats. Scoring will be determined based on the combined total of the 3 runs.

Here's another reminder of the work night scheduled for Tuesday evening. Bill Glitch said he can be there around 5pm and I can get there about 5:30... If anyone wants to go down earlier, let Bill or I know and we'll make arrangements for for getting access to the track. We plan on getting some more painting done and some general edging and mowing. We have paint and brushes and rollers available. Hope to see you there!

6/7/2010 - Good news and bad news for this past weekend.... The good news is that the WKANESS/Valley Challenge series races were held in very pleasant weather on Saturday. The bad news is that Sunday's club racing was a complete wash-out.
We couldn't have asked for a better day on Saturday. Thanks to all of the racers that showed up to support the event and the organizations involved. The finishing positions will be posted on the WKANESS.com website (if they aren't there already). All GVKC members participating in the event will be awarded 25 bonus points for their local club racing championship and the bonuses will be posted on this site later this week. 
As mentioned, Sunday was a complete rainout. Despite the bad weather we had around 15 hearty individuals show up to race. At about 10:45, with a steady downpour and no breaks in the clouds on the horizon , the decision was made to call it off. 
Many racers had been looking forward to last Sunday's races since we were going to have time trials for all classes. As a result of this interest the time trials have been rescheduled for next Sunday. We had also planned to have a track cleanup day for tomorrow, but have decided to postpone this for one week to give an opportunity to remind everyone about the cleanup day (both here and at the driver meeting next Sunday). The track is looking better than it has in quite a few years. Many of the jobs we now have are more maintenance than repair work. Please help if you can - we will be meeting at the track on Tuesday June 15th about 5:30 - we have some general picking up and painting to do. We might even be able to squeeze in a little socializing if all goes well!
This next weekend we should be getting back to a more "normal" schedule with  Oval  racing starting back up on Saturday morning after a 2 week lay-off. As usual we will alternate between Oval practice and heat sessions and sprint practice. 
Sunday will be a regular Club race except that heat number 1 will consist of time trials for all classes.
We plan to use the transponder system - no charge for the use of the transponder, but we'd like to get everyone to get a transponder bracket mounted on their kart if possible. You can get them online or buy one at the track for $10. The bracket will help protect the transponder from flying off the kart and getting damaged or possibly bouncing up and hurting someone else. We can upload weekly race results to the "Mylaps" site so everyone can see the results along with lap times and such. You can view the results from the race held on May 23rd here (I hope). If the link doesn't work, browse to Mylaps.com, select the results page and search for GVKC . The link for the 5-23-2010 event should come up.

That's it for now - have a good week and hope to see everyone next weekend.

John
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