Today’s track day and write up is brought to you by TB Kart USA.
Today I spent time at the BlueMax Kart club in Davis, CA. A few key people organized a great non-racing event filled with good memories, great food, and a lot of laps followed by smiles. For me, I wasn’t apart of the organizing or set up and I was planning on breaking my package in. I wasn’t able to prep properly and have my TB Kart and Honda CR125 ready, but I went out anyway to enjoy the community.
I’m so glad I made it out there. For those that know me, I love food. “Big Rich” Bacchi of Trackmagic lore was on hand with a TrackMagic crew. He brought to the party a platter of beef brisket and pork ribs and a delicious sauce to top it off. I was a bit disappointed that we did not discover this guys talent for cooking during the SKUSA ProTour prime era of the late 1990’s to early 2000’s, OR the TrackMagic team tent kept this guys mad food skills under wrap. Either way, I tried Rich’s BBQ for the first time today and I went back looking for more ribs, but they were gone. If you are curious about his culinary skills, go visit his shop in Pacifica, Gorilla BBQ – Pacifica.
I haven’t seen Rich in a long time, so it was great catching up. A couple of other guys that I haven’t seen in awhile were Damon Meek, factory driver from the CTS shifter efforts, and George Barros from the dominant TrackMagic era.
I was able to corner both of them in between their track sessions to do a quick interview. You can listen on our page by clicking podcast on the page menu or click each link below.
Damon talked to me about 80cc and Norcal, his favorite Norcal Kart Track, and shared a driving tip. Full Damon Meek interview can be listened to right now.
George Barros is someone I’ve known about before karting. He was my driving instructor at the Jim Russell Driving School in 1994 at the Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey. What kind of driving instructor makes you lose your lunch in the famed corkscrew or e-brakes a rotating slide entering turn 11 (in a POS Passenger VAN!!) George shared a few fond memories, a couple of thoughts on karts vs cars, and his favorite Norcal Karting tracks. Full George Barros interview can be listened to right now.
I tried to drag Jon Ban into an interview, but he said he didn’t want to be on live video stream. I said, “No problem, its all audio”. I was denied a second time around.
Why did I want to interview Jon Ban?
Simple, over the past few years he has been a very integral part of promoting local Norcal Karting, and more specifically the shifter segments. He shares events, coordinates with other drivers, and helps bring the shifter community together. He focuses on the 80cc platforms, which are still everywhere in Northern California, just not at our tracks. One day, he might warm up to the idea of being the face of Norcal Shifter Karts.
Today, I posted a few live audio and video broadcasts on facebook. For easy access I have linked them all here.
- Audio Clip – Today’s Events
- Video Clip – BlueMax Kart Track Scoring Tower
- Hairpin – BlueMax – Damon Meek – CR80
- BlueMax BBQ – 80cc – Trackmagic – Front Straight
- Interviews – Damon Meek and George Barros
- Photo Gallery – Shifter Day at BlueMax
After seeing the atmosphere and good times today at the track, there will be a renewed effort by myself, Norcal Karters, to help promote and organize more events like this. In all honesty, I don’t know if this will help grow race participation, but I’m 100% convinced, these events will help grow our great sport. Many people I spoke to had various reasons for no longer racing, some personal, some financial, many time commitments to the actual process of racing, but do we need more people racing right now?
I don’t think so, but we need more butts in the seat on any given day. None of these drivers raced today, but they all had smiles on their faces. They all said it was a fun event.
Isn’t that what we need in our sport?
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