Fontana, Ca. at California speedway on February 4th & 5th.
Brayden had a tough weekend at Buffalo Bills in Primm, Nv this past
weekend. We went over Thursday with his new chassis ready to go and
got a great day of practice in on Friday. The track was a temporary one set
up in the back parking lot of Buffalo Bills. It was a good track.
Unfortunately, Brayden didn't get any time on his new car prior to this race
so Friday's practice was very important. He took to his car great and
turned in some times during practice that were within one second of the
fastest drivers out there. That was big. We tried a new motor but it was
slow so the motor builder took it back home to work on it. We went into
Saturday feeling like we had the third or fourth fastest car & driver out
there (out of 24).
Saturday came around and it was time to race. It was cold and the track
was very slippery for the first two practice rounds that morning. I had a
feeling that we shouldn't send him out for the first round due to the
conditions but did anyways and his slid in a tight corner and went through
the hay bales. He was o.k. and the kart was fine. His second round of
practice he went around the same corner and a kid had spun and stopped
and Brayden had no where to go and he hit him. This caused the front
plastic to come off and he had to stop that practice round as well.
At this point we also started to realize that Brayden needed to slow down at
that corner to keep his car under control so that's what we were coaching
him to do.
When qualifying came around we really thought that if he could negotiate
that corner that he would qualify in the top five. Instead, he qualified 8th
due to that fact that during one of his earlier crashes his rear axle shifted
to the left enough to cause the brake disk to rub against the right brake
shoe. However, this didn't matter because I forgot to check his tire
pressure and his tires were over the 20 pound limit and he was not allowed
a time and instead had to start in the back (major screw-up by me)
Brayden started the pre-main 20th out of 24 cars. Our goal was for him to
get close to the top 10 for the main. He did great and finished 12th.
The main came and there was a major crash on the first lap and they had
to do a complete restart which was unfortunate because he had passed
about 7 cars already on the first lap. The restart was great and he had
passed about 4 cars on the first lap. He was running strong and on the
third lap he made a move and passed btwo cars at once and then had too
much momentum on the next corner and slid a little, but it was enough to
allow the two cars to get by him again. He then went after them and forgot
to slow down going into the sharp corner and his momentum caused him
to slide through the hay bales again. His chain came off and he wasn't able
to finish the race.
It was a tough weekend but also a great weekend for us. Brayden has a
handle on his new car and we are so proud of the way he's driving. He is a
wild man. It's hard to believe that we now have to try to get him to slow
down a little.
We'd like to thank the friends and family that came to Stateline to support
and help us this weekend: The Roybal family: Uncle Frank and cousins
Ryan & Rosanne and Courtney (Ryan's girlfriend). Grammy & Papa, and the
Huff family: Jeff, Jennifer, Sarah, and Emma.
We're going to get him out there more so be sure to check the schedule
often to see what's next.
