Sept 08: All-American Series Champions
This weekend has been, without reserve, the most thrilling weekend of my 11 years in racing. Our team won both of All-American Speedway's 50 lap main events on Saturday night and, in winning those races, became the 2008 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Champions.
In the first 50, I started seventh. Using as much patience as I could muster, as we had an extremely fast car, I worked my way up through the field and into the lead right after the half way mark. We went on to win. The top 5 were inverted for the second race, and once again I had to revert back to the skills that I learned racing Briggs and Stratton karts, steadily passing racecars without burring my tires off. I can't put into words my excitement when we crossed the finish line for the win.
Thanks to our championship and 11 wins, I will be running the last two races of the NASCAR Camping World West Series for Bill McAnally Racing. This series runs Nationwide Series-type cars with 640 horsepower engines. It's amazing to see how I've climbed the ladder in motorsports and how, despite how far you get, the fundamentals that you learn while driving Briggs and Strattons in the infancy of your career stick with you forever.
Jul 07: All-American Speedway
“Driving through turns one and two here is so much like turn 6 at South Bend it isn’t even funny,” I said to my dad as we were walking through the pits at Roseville, California’s NASCAR sanctioned All-American Speedway a few weeks ago, trying to put things into perspective for him. This year, I am driving a NASCAR Late Model Stock Car for Bill McAnally Racing, or simply “BMR”. BMR is one of the best, if not the best, Driver Development teams in the nation. They work very closely with Richard Childress Racing and their NASCAR Nextel Cup Operation, as RCR’s Driver Development Program. By using the South Bend comparison, I know that I was helping my dad better understand the driving style that I use for All-American Speedway. We ran the World Karting Association’s Horstman Gold Cup race there four years ago. We raced in the Briggs and Stratton stock classes and, although we didn’t win that race, we were up-front all weekend and racked up a few poles and a second-place finish.
It’s great to be driving for BMR this year, but I haven’t forgotten that I was given this opportunity because of what I did in go-karts. Starting in 1997 at Flemington Speedway in Flemington, NJ, I fell in love with the grassroots of racing: karting. We won the very first race that we ran: June 6, 1997 at Flemington. That year we went on to win the New Jersey State Championship. In the years that followed, we went on to win 13 National Championships and 6 karting World Championships by the end of 2005.
Jul 07: Easy-in, Hard-off
What many people don’t realize is how much your starting point and early route affects your end result in racing. Because all racing follows the same basic usage of throttle, brake, and steering, habits can stay with you your whole life. You also learn lessons at one track that, although you may not use again for a few years, later become the difference between 1st and 10th somewhere else. That is exactly what I am going through.
As I run new racetracks with full-sized NASCAR Stock Cars, many things are coming full circle. The “Easy-in, Hard-off” driving style that every father / crew chief in karting tries to teach their driver not only helps a driver in a stock car, it is a necessity. The absolute best way to learn the “Easy-in, Hard-off” driving style is by racing a 4-cycle Briggs & Stratton powered kart. That’s where I learned it.
In a Briggs, because of the torque curve of the engine, a driver needs to learn how to carry momentum through the corner and get back to the gas pedal sooner. In a Stock Car, because of the lack of grip, a driver needs to do the exact same things: learn to go into the corner easy, carry momentum through the center, and start pushing their right foot back down as soon as possible.
Jun 23: Briggs Racing Blog
Throughout the year, I will be writing a series of blogs on my racing season. Like so many professional drivers who have raced Briggs & Stratton products in their career, I want to take the time to talk about what it taught me and how it is still impacts me today. I hope you have fun reading them, because I’ll have fun writing them. Stay tuned for my next entry!
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