September 30, 2012 Portland, Oregon

2nd PLACE AND A CRASH!

After setting his personal best lap time at Pat's Acres Racing Complex, Ethan was involved a rather dramatic crash.

Qualifying went well for Randy, taking 2nd overall and 1st in class. Ethan wasn't able to get a clear run (stuck behind slower karts) and only managed 7th overall with a time that was four tenths of a second slower. This put Ethan in the middle of 14 karts for the start of the first heat race. Middle of the pack is not the best place to be as it seems to have the majority of incidents. Unfortunately it was one of these incidents that caused Ethan to loose several positions and eventually miss out on the final event.

After the big pile-up in turn one, Ethan managed to get the kart started back up and going again. Surprisingly, even with a bent steering shaft, bent tie-rods, bent spindle, bent chassis, and side pod bent up at a 45 degree angle, Ethan managed to turn 39 second laps (very fast time on this particular track configuration, even with a "perfect" kart setup).

After the first heat race, we had a very short period of time to repair Ethan's kart for the final event. Unfortunately we were not able to complete all the repairs. Mike, from Rolison Performance Group (RPG), was able to quickly get the chassis back within 8/1000's of spec on his alignment table – thank you Mike! Ethan, his friend Daniel, and Randy all worked feverishly to replace the broken parts, but there wasn't enough time.

In the final event, Randy started in 2nd alongside RPG's Luke Selliken. Randy had a relatively poor start and Luke's teammates worked well together to bump draft up the inside, placing Randy back in fourth position after the first corner. However, once again Randy was able to quickly make up positions, moving to 3rd after just a lap or two going into turn 1, and then into 2nd place another lap or so after that - with a nice move up the inside going into turn 3. Randy may have gained some time chasing down 1st for a few laps after that, but then Luke was able to pull out a fairly sizeable lead. This placed Randy in 2nd overall, and 1st in the TaG Senior class of the SKUSA Northwest ProKart Challenge.

A good result for Randy, and a personal best lap time for Ethan, made it a successful weekend for Word Racing. After the main event, race announcer Terry (from ProSound Audio Services) interviewed Randy. Once again, Terry gave our sponsors some excellent exposure to a large crowd, with humorous questions such as "Is it the Joy Teriyaki food that makes you so fast?"

Our final race of the season is October 14, in McMinnville.

NEW WEBSITE

Check out our new website at www.wordracing.com

Sincerely,
Randy Word #71, and Ethan Word #77
WORD Racing
Portland's Father & Son Racing Team
Web Site: WordRacing.com
Phone: (503) 869-4970

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