Whoo! What a Race!!

Wow! I haven't seen a race this close in a while!! Our little karter, Hunter, did great last night. He was running 55 second laps during qualifying and running really good. This was his fourth race under rookie status, so we have two more to go and then he'll be out of rookie in this class for the rest of the year. Which means, he'll be able to start where he qualifies instead of a the back of the pack. But with Hunter, that doesn't seem to make too much of a difference.

For some reason, even though he doesn't have the speed on the straightaways that some of the others do, he has the speed and pickup on the starting line. During the pre-final heat, Hunter bolted off the starting line and caught up with the others and was in 3rd position for a while, but eventually got caught by another and ended up in 4th.

But the final heat was the race. It was under the lights and was a real race! Hunter, starting from the back, bolted off the line and passed 1, 2, 3 kiddos to get up to 3rd position and held on to it for the entire race! Reilly and Parker were battling out 1st and 2nd and that was a good show to watch, but a couple of seconds back from them was the battle for 3rd between, Hunter, Aryton, and James. Oh my goodness! These three boys were stuck to each other like glue and Hunter was not giving up his spot. They couldn't catch and pass him on the straights and he owned the corners with them. I was so excited for him!! I became that mom standing at the fence yelling "tuck down, tuck down, faster, faster, go faster!!!!" And when he crossed the finish line in 3rd I jumped in the air cheering along with several others around me who were cheering for our boys!

Wow! All Kid Kart class kids are awarded first place ribbons and trophies so we have a new ribbon to add to the wall. It was so cool to see him run like that. I hope more of you can make it out sometime to watch him run!

Oh, yeah, one of the coolest things is watching the boys (and girls) before and after the races. They are the best of buddies. They all can't wait to get to the track to see each other and play together all day. But when it is time to race, they are competitors. But they aren't out of the tech barn and their karts before they are high-fiving each other and off to run and play again.

I love this sport.

(picture: Ella, Parker, Reilly, Hunter, Aryton, and James - Kid Kart class 5/30/09)