June 15-17, 2012 IKF Gold Cup – McMinnville, Oregon

ETHAN PREVAILS AT 3-DAY GOLD CUP EVENT

After the dust settled from three days of intense racing, Ethan came home with his biggest trophy yet – Northwest Gold Cup first place! This was Ethan’s first IKF (International Karting Federation) Gold Cup event victory!

The weather was perfect for practice on Friday, but a chance of rain was forecast for the weekend. We made sure to bring rain tires, rain coats, waterproof shoe covers, etc…so of course it didn’t rain. We’ll make sure to bring our rain gear to all the races so we can enjoy sunny blue skies every time!

The factory ItalKart team (importers of our Parilla racing motors) was scheduled to be at this event. One of their drivers had won the Mid-Ohio Grand Am Sports Car race the previous weekend in a Prototype Corvette (see picture, blue #90). We were looking forward to this elite professional competition in our class, but due to scheduling conflicts they weren't able to make it. We were disappointed, but on the bright side, we most likely wouldn’t have come home with the first place trophy if they had been there!

Saturday consisted of two practice sessions, one qualifying session, and one heat race. Ethan qualified on pole a mere six hundredths of a second ahead of Randy. The heat race was close; Randy was able to catch the draft off Ethan’s kart and attempt to pass Ethan at least three times. Randy came really close on one occasion, but Ethan was just too fast and held on to take the win.

Sunday started out with two morning warm-up sessions, and a heat race, followed by the main event in the afternoon. In the morning heat race, Ethan had a slow start and Randy took the lead. However, it didn’t take long for Ethan to come from behind, pass Randy (and another competitor), to win by over three seconds. In the main event, Ethan got a much better start and took the lead. However, Randy was determined to win on Father’s Day. Just over three laps into the race, Randy got a great drive coming out of corner six going onto the back straight and pulled up alongside Ethan, taking the inside line away going into turn seven. This gave Randy the lead, but the race wasn’t over yet. Shortly after Randy and Ethan passed a couple of the shifter karts, the (brand new!) header pipe broke on Randy’s kart. Once it broke the drop in horsepower was very noticeable and Ethan easily took the lead back and went on to 1st Place in round three of the IKF Gold Cup series! No Father’s Day “gift win” for Dad, but we couldn’t have asked for a better Father’s Day race weekend.

We are tentatively planning to attend the next Gold Cup race in Tacoma, Washington, June 29th – July 1st. Then it’s on down to Medford for the next SKUSA ProKart Challenge, before heading to Canada for the 5th round of the IKF Region 6 Gold Cup. Stay tuned for more breathtaking race action as we head into the second half of our most exciting racing season ever.

Thank you for your support!

Sincerely,
Randy Word #71, and Ethan Word #77
WORD Racing
Web Site: WordRacing.com
Phone: (503) 869-4970

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