San Diego, California
March 31, 2008

The 2008 SuperKarts! USA ProKart Challenge series kicked off with a trip to CalSpeed in Fontana California. Running in the shadow of California Speedway, the PKC drivers took to the ever-improving track in the reverse Grande configuration.  New faces, but the same tough competition as the western region’s top Shifter and TaG pilots took to the track.

Legate Sweeps with New Track Record
Bobby Legate contested his first weekend under the FX Racing tent, with mechanic Brad Bowman and Bob Legate lending a guiding hand on engine tuning. Legate started off the weekend well with Friday’s test day, zeroing in on the Trackmagic FTR balance.

The hard work put in on Friday paid off well in qualifying as Bobby set new track record for Spec Honda at a 47.959. Heat 1 saw Legate fall to second at the start thanks to a good jump from Patrick Cushenberry.  Starting on pole is great, but the dirty side of the track made the launch a tricky proposition. Legate fought back and passed Cushenberry for lead on lap 3. From then on, the Trackmagic driver went into conservation mode, looking after his tires whiling keeping small lead.

Heat 2 brought the same challenge of starting from the dirty side of the track and Legate slipped to second at the start. Legate knew this story already and set about making sure it ended his way again as he powered around for lead in the Contino carousel. Once in the lead, Legate paced himself for the remaining 8 laps to take win.

In the Main Legate decided to write his own script for how to deal with starting on the dirty side – get a jump at the start and pull out a 6 second lead by lap 2.  From there it was just a matter of putting the Trackmagic FTR on cruise control to finish with huge lead. Bobby’s stellar performance over the weekend shows why the FX Racing team is excited to be working with this driver.

In Good Form
Philip Conte jumped back in the seat with a return to competing more regularly and has his sights set on racing for S3 heavy championship. Off-season rust took a while to go away in the practice sessions, but Conte made good strides during test day on kart balance and driver speed.

Qualifying brought more pace, with the FX pilot setting his personal fast lap. The tight field meant just being pipped by Marty Henderson and Grant Westmoreland landed Conte P3 on the grid. Heat 1 began with a sluggish start for Conte, but he held his position to race Westmoreland for third.
           
In Heat 2 Conte got a better start, getting ahead of Henderson, but getting by Westmoreland would not prove as easy.  Henderson passed both Conte and Westmoreland to take the win. In the Main, positions changed left and right with battles raging throughout the race.  Conte moved to second, before conceding position to Westmoreland for next 15 laps. Conte is an old pro though and kept the pressure on to take a charging second place as the laps wound down. 

Barnes at the Leading Edge
Moving over to the Spec category fit veteran FX Racing driver Jim Barnes well.  Paired with a new Hi-Tech Stock Honda, Barnes paced the test day at the top of the charts.  Eagerly awaiting his new Trackmagic chassis, Barnes did his best to get whatever could out of his ’06 FTR chassis. Qualifying in a big field made it difficult to get in a flying lap, but Barnes did well to post a 49.7 placing second on grid.  “There was more in the kart, we just couldn’t find a uninterrupted lap” lamented Barnes.

Heat 1 saw the San Francisco driver racing well to put pressure on the leader, taking a close second place at the checkers. In Heat 2 Willy Musgrave jumped out to early lead, with Barnes applying pressure throughout but he just couldn’t find a way by. The hard work was for naught as he was caught out on closing laps when he clipped the tires with rear axle, forcing a DNF. With his Heat 2 finish putting him at the back of the field, Barnes charged forward taking a well-earned 4th place finish and salvaging championship points to go with it.

Up Against a ROK
Friday for Steve Wiener was about working to find pace with his ROK TT engine, overcoming broken reeds to add to the learning curve. Qualifying brought more broken reeds costing some time, but Wiener drove hard to take 5th on grid. Steve raced up to second in Heat 2, before losing the spot on the last lap to finish third.  Another setback came again though as an incorrect carburetor component with recent rule change brought a DQ.

Starting from back in Heat 2, Wiener raced forward but couldn’t get by O’Connell. Seeing an opportunity, Wiener drove down the inside while coming up the hill into 5. The two banged wheels and had more contact as neither gave an inch going into Turn 4.  Wiener came off the worst of the two, bending axle on both sides, front spindle and tweaking the chassis. The FX Racing crew worked hard to get the kart race ready for the Main and put Wiener back on track. The damage was immediately noticeable though as the FTR chassis was not working properly. A chain failure sidelined Wiener for what was a disappointing race weekend.

FX Racing efforts are made possible by the support of Monster Energy, Trackmagic Racing Karts, K&N Engineering, Hi-Tech Performance and the countless efforts of the mechanics and crew. FX Racing USA, LLC is a professional motorsports and marketing organization with headquarters in San Diego, CA offering programs ranging from auto and kart racing to corporate team building and training. For more information, visit www.fxracingusa.com.