Results from Indoor Karting World Championship

[peterjank]

Hi all,

Rick Apichairuk and I raced as team CIR in the Indoor Karting World Championship this past weekend in Phoenix.

Rick drove extremely well, winning one of his four qualifying rounds on Saturday and ranking tenth overall out of more than 80 drivers from around the world at the end of the day.

Rick drew a bad kart for his hour long qualifier on Sunday, dropping him to 19th in the overall standings going into the 90 minute championship race. Unfortunately, Rick's luck in drawing karts did not improve in the grand finale as he ended up changing karts four times on the way to an 18th place finish in the main event.

I did not have enough speed to keep up the leaders but did enjoy several competive races with good battles in the middle of the pack, typically finishing as the first kart one lap down.

[peterjank]

Here is a link to some photos that my father and I took at the event. The couple at the begining are my parents who flew in from California to root us on. Rick's wife Vikki was there cheering for us as well. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures of her.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?...&Uy=y4evzl&Ux=0 (http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=7f29imwp.93ifpxnt&Uy=y4evzl&Ux=0)

[Rick]

A driver from Austria won. Apparently he was supposed to win last year as well, but he drew a bad kart for the final. This year he won by 2 pts.

A driver from the Netherlands won 2nd place.

A driver from the US won 3rd place.

I ended up 21st overall in the Driver's Championship. And I also tied for 3rd in the Nation's Cup. I was the only driver representing Thailand. I tied with Columbia, who had 6+ drivers. Brazil and Austria tied for 2nd. Brazil had 8 drivers. Austria had 5 drivers. The USA got 1st place. USA had 30+ drivers.

A driver from Sweden was taken to the hospital for heat exhaustion.

I am unsure where the CIR team ended up in points. Last I looked, we were 11th.

I got to meet a lot of very good drivers from all over the world and it was extremely fun and competive. It was like racing against 10 Dave Mickelsons, 10 Martin Lenicks and all the track guys at CIR at the same time. I learned alot just by following some of the drivers around. The organizers could have done a much better job of managing everything.

The racing started out very polite. There was no contact. Then came round 3. The races turned into NASCAR. There were yellows, reds, blacks, restarts, regrids, punting, karts going over barriers, karts losing wheels, etc. Basically, a punt fest. The track staff and organizers did a really good job of tightening down on this after many drivers complained. For the remainder of the races, they black flagged immediately (no warning) for any contact at all and that resulted in 30sec penalties (an insurmountable amount of time considering the competition). After that it was relatively clean racing.

Overall, I'd highly recommend the experience if you get the chance, unless you like to bump (You guys know who you are ;) ).

[peterjank]

Hi all,

Here are the official results from the indoor championships:

http://indoorkartworldchampionship.com/IKW...006_results.php (http://indoorkartworldchampionship.com/IKWC2006/2006_results.php)

and an article on the event from the speedtv web-site:

http://www.speedtv.com/commentary/30634/

[Rick]

Originally posted by peterjank@Aug 11 2006, 07:33 AM
Hi all,

Here are the official results from the indoor championships:

http://indoorkartworldchampionship.com/IKW...006_results.php (http://indoorkartworldchampionship.com/IKWC2006/2006_results.php)

and an article on the event from the speedtv web-site:

http://www.speedtv.com/commentary/30634/
1984


So are you going back next year Peter?

[Rick]

Originally posted by peterjank@Jul 31 2006, 09:21 AM
Rick drew a bad kart for his hour long qualifier on Sunday, dropping him to 19th in the overall standings going into the 90 minute championship race.* Unfortunately, Rick's luck in drawing karts did not improve in the grand finale as he ended up changing karts four times on the way to an 18th place finish in the main event.


Now that I think about it, I should have just stayed with the bad kart. I would have probably done a lot better. Oh well, that's racing! :rolleyes:

[peterjank]

Hi Rick,

I'm not sure if I will go back or not. On the one hand, I certainly enjoyed the racing and would look forward to the challenge of improving on this year's finish. On the other hand, the poor organization and administration of the race was very frustrating.

What I am going to do is monitor their web-site and see if they introduce any format changes for next year. I'll also stay in touch with the manager at F1 Race Factory to see if they decide to exert more control over the event. If Race Factory takes a more active role, I would be inclined to go back.

[Stambata1]

Good job ! Pete and Rick....you could've done better : :) :P Next year I am coming with you . We gonna put CIR on the podium :4:

[Rick]

Who are you? :blink:

[peterjank]

Hi Rick,

I believe it is Stanislav Youchev who races with us in the monthly Track3 Grand Prix. The screen name on the message matches the e-mail address I have for Stan.