July 11, 2010 – Day 36 Kansas City – We get rained out at the track

Crimoney today was a bust. For one thing I woke up a little after 4:00am and couldn’t get back to sleep so after thrashing around until nearly 5:00am I got up and showered. We were going to the track today as Noah had two races to run in the TAG Kart Division.


The weather people said it was likely to rain 50% of the time so I covered Green Girl for the first time since leaving Nevada.

We arrived at the track and got set up with all the support equipment and awaited for the call to the driver’s meeting. In the mean time the sky continued to get darker and we could hear thunder approaching and getting louder. Before long lightning bolts were shooting across the horizon and things were looking ominous.

At the driver’s meeting we were told no one would be allowed on the track until after the thunder had ceased for 20 minutes. The hair on several women was standing straight up because of the high static charge in the air, an indication of impending lightning strikes. The race steward commented on that and told everyone to be attentive as to where they were and try to avoid wide open spaces. Lightning strikes the highest object it finds including people; not exactly a happy thought.

Shortly after the meeting we felt the first drops of rain which quickly turned into a deluge. Everyone went to their covers or got into cars to wait it out. After a couple of hours it was still coming down but had lessened slightly and we hoped to at least get in some practice time if the races were cancelled.

David, ever the positive thinker decided to mount the rain tires which occupied him and Noah for awhile. Then at the advice of George Russell, head engine builder at Russell Karting Specialties we set about constructing a water deflector for the intake air box. This along with the internal sponge filter we hoped would prevent any water from entering the engine. The water deflector was a spur-of-the-moment bit of engineering constructed of a plastic soft drink bottle cut in half and duct taped over the two intake screens. It wasn’t pretty but we were hopeful it would be functional for today’s track time.

Then the rain came back harder than ever and we spent quite awhile under awnings yakking with other kart people and attempting to stay dry. Finally the word came down there would be no races or track time today due to the danger of lightning strikes so we packed it in and headed home.

David fixed an impromptu barbeque lunch of short ribs & corn on the cob. George Russell was there and we all had a nice time recounting old race stories.

We were disappointed about the race cancellation but that’s the nature of beast; no guarantees. Tomorrow I'm going to laundry. That's pretty damned exciting, eh?

Life on the road....