Galletta's Karting Club

Galletta’s Karting Club – 2010 Season, Event #11 – Sunday, August 15th, 2010:

[COMPLETE RACE YOUTUBE VIDEO IS FORTHCOMING ABOVE! HIGHLIGHT REEL IS BELOW]

Per usual, other than posing pictures, all in-action race snapshots are screen captures directly from our weekly race DVDs, which document the entire race from usually two camera angles, usually are anywhere between 1 – 2 & 1/2 hours, and are only $5 each, in higher quality resolution than our YouTube vids which they are made from. Just like the donations that run all of the karts, all proceeds go back into the club (in this case the DVDRs and the website). Every regular season race has been videotaped since mid-2005-and-up, and every Galletta’s Karting Klassic has been videotaped since 1998-and-up. Order any DVD directly from Chris (email, phone, in-person, mail) anytime.

1ST HEAT:

2ND HEAT:

45-LAP FEATURE EVENT:
Per usual, every regular, non-Klassic race at Galletta’s begins with a handicap start. Over the years we developed a system that often seems to give everyone the best opportunity for a good, competitive race, and it rarely disappoints. I occasionally re-post it to those that are sometimes bewildered by it. This is how it works: (A) Up front contains a group of regular drivers who have never won a feature event at Galletta’s, inverted via their established points-per-race this season. After that, it is (B) regular drivers who have won a feature event in prior seasons but not yet this year, inverted via their established points-per-race this season. Next is (C) regular drivers who have won at least one time this season, inverted via their established points-per-race this season. They are followed by (D) drivers who have competed in prior seasons at Galletta’s, but not yet this season until they are worked into the current seasons handicap (and their order is determined on inverting weight or prior wins). In the very back are (F) novice rookies learning the ropes until they prove that they are competitively ready to be handicapped up front (run a solid line, not spin or be too easily wreck-prone), and/or drivers who has waived his/her handicap and wants to start in the back (not comfortable, trying new kart, ect.).

The battle of the night saw Matt Stevens attempt to pass 8 competitors in the slower low-groove via attempting to trap them all behind early-leader Larry Phillips, whose motor was a little off but he was holding a good groove from his pole starting position.

The battle was very impressive with Chris, Mike Howell, and Matt all passing each other back and forth side-by-side (and even at one point 3-wide) for several laps.

Well… as seen above, this was a good battle. That was until Matt showed a wheel to Larry in the back stretch, and then it was over, as Larry backed off and Matt was able to take off leaving everybody else way behind. After this point, the only thing worthy of note was the excellent, closely contested battle for 2nd after Larry Phillips retired from 2nd place: Russ Hockey, Mike “MC” Howell, and Chris Stevens put on a huge battle for that spot. Russ had nothing for Matt, but he did a good job holding the duo of Chris and MC as they passed each other back and forth a few times behind him. But late in the game, with Russ 2nd and Mike holding a strong 3rd, the trio came upon lapped traffic on the very last lap when MC chose to take a lapped kart low which enabled Chris to get outside of him and MC spun the #9 in between turns 3 & 4 after Matt already crossed the checker, meaning that he dropped from 3rd to 7th on the final turn of the race! Bad luck for MC, who ran good enough all day to possibly even win the feature if not for a few chance happenings, primarily Matt sneaking by the fast-groove train and never looking back en route to his 2nd victory of the season.

Also deserving mention was Shadoe Russell, who passed a few competitors late in the action and showing weekly improvement. Everybody was happy to see the Doe-man making great strides all season and now pulling off passes, something that in previous years many thought was impossible due to Doe’s nerves and his struggles in finding the fast groove and staying in line. He has a new motor built by Matt and finally upgraded from the standard box stock cam to our standard Dyno 94-SS race cam, giving him equal power as everybody in the 200-lbs.-and-under category.* He is also being temporarily allowed to run around 30-40lbs. light in that category — which is why he hadn’t upgraded sooner — until he can get a better handle on things. Due to his two passes, Doe-boy is now boldly predicting a Klassic Victory in his Doe “Rubbin’ Is Racin'” #26!

(At Galletta’s, in order to make our races more exciting and meaningful [we do not like most how tracks have countless weight classes that means winning means little to nothing, as there can be 6-10 winners on any given night, meaning no true champion is ever resolved] we do allow different weights and gears based on a progressive power-for-weight scale. And this season, it has clearly proved to be better than ever showing the amount of different winners and the bumper-to-bumper closeness of the races thus far, and making wins and high point scoring more meaningful in a weekly 10-15 kart class than a weekly 2-8 kart class. It also proves our philosophy correct, as our class was barred from a track because our rules aren’t the same exact cut-and-dried distinctions that are found in most other pay racetracks.)

Oddly enough, and only at Galletta’s — since we are surrounded by countless acres of woodland, ponds, streams, and even a few farms — wildlife comes out to visit. In addition to the usual suspects — squirrels, bats, deer, chipmunks, frogs, turkeys, coy-dogs, foxes, turtles, field mice, toads, cats, the occasional racing sasquatches, TrOgres, and – everybody’s favorite – tens of thousands of mosquitoes — a lost Canadian Goose was attracted to the racing header pipe on the Sid Harvey #54. It also seemed to take on a special affection for Matt, whom it watched testing the #54 after the feature race.

DVDs are available of every single Galletta’s Karting Club race held since mid-2005 at Galletta’s (including every Galletta’s Klassic since 1998, and every Oswego Kartway race between 2007-2008) and are of DVD-Quality (far superior to the YouTube videos, which are edited and compressed for time) for $5 per disc. Each disc contains between 1-2 hours of racing action, usually from two camera angles, complete and unedited. Most of the pictures on this website are lo-res screen captures from the DVDs. Contact Chris for your copy today, and he can make any copy from our archives, just ask. Here is the menu of this week’s DVD volume:

2010 Galletta’s Gas Flathead Dirt Karting World Championship Point Standings: