Ask any driver and they will tell you that with every up comes twice as many downs. In January of 2008 I entered my 10th year behind the wheel. I started karts at the age of 7 in January of 1998. Since then my team claimed 23 feature wins, with ten top 5 points finishes, along with three of those being points championships all in the same year–2000. During that championship stretch we raced roughly 45 races, without an engine rebuild. It held up, and was running strong right up until we quit racing karts at the end of the 2004 season. Of course we did eventually get it freshened up along the way. That engine, known as “The Bullet”, sits quietly in the corner of my shop untouched in about 3 years.

With all that success my dad kept telling me that it could change at anytime. Boy did it. Since the end of the 2004 season. I have had countless engine troubles. Mainly just camshafts. We bought a 4 cylinder mini-stock to race during the 2005 season. We brought it out in July of 2005, rolled a cam lobe. We raced 6 races that year, with 3 top 5’s and 3 DNF’s. We pulled it out each week for a friend of ours, Danny “Pops” Jones, to weld up the lobe to get us through the night. We eventually ended up 10th in points at Memphis Motorsports Park in their final year of operation. We didn’t get started until August of 2006, and once again, we had camshaft problems. We couldn’t afford to get a new one, so we just patched the old one up. In August of 2007, we had a new cam compliments of WebCams out in California. Everything seemed too be working fine. First night out, it ran hot so I pulled off. Second night out, running 3rd I broke a piston, and limped home ½ the race to a 4th place finish down a cylinder on a tacky hooked up racetrack. Since then the car has been on jack stands as I’ve focused on getting my modified ready.

We weren’t in any hurry to get started this season, as my father completely funds my racing while I focus on school. We got everything lined out, and we went out and had fuel pickup issues. So we fixed that, the next week we went out, and once again, chewed up a camshaft. So that sidelined us for a couple weeks, as we were going to be on the safe side and tear the motor apart and make sure nothing was hurt. Luckily nothing was hurt, and dad made a phone call to David McCarver at Comp Cams. David told us what we needed to do, and he sent the camshaft to us. We finally got everything put together on Monday, and during the break-in process, we found an oil leak, from the bottom of the timing chain cover at the front seal. So we got another seal the next day, got it in, cranked it up and continued on with the break-in process.

Fast forward too this past Friday night. I was getting ready to move the car out of the shop too wash and clean it up when I noticed the car wouldn’t go in gear, and wanted to die when I pushed the clutch in. Well, we got under it, and swapped out the throwout bearing. I cranked it up, same thing. We jacked it up, and changed it out again. Same result for the third time. We jacked it up, and left the shop at midnight in disgust. Got up early Saturday morning, and changed them out one more time. This time it worked but put us way behind schedule. So we scrambled too get everything we needed, and in the process forgot too put the battery on charge. So we get it all lined out, and when we get too the track I have high hopes. Well, about 4 laps into hot laps I hear an odd noise, so I shut the car off and coast into the pits. We begin to take the valve covers off, and sure enough, it blowed 4 rocker arms off. Thankfully it didn’t bend a pushrod, but yep, you guessed it, I was the one running the valves. Obviously I didn’t tighten a couple of them down like I thought.

Longtime driver/crew chief Mike Brewer came over and helped us get it all lined out. So we go out for the heat race, and keep in mind I’ve never made a lap under full power till hot laps, and it was only a couple till things went south. So I lined up outside row 2 with the likes of Murray Vaughn, Chase Gustavus, current USCS points leader Ashley Newman, and current Riverside track points leader Tommy Ray. I quickly fell into 4th behind Vaughn, Gustavus, and Newman just trying to ride and learn something. Holding Tommy Ray off for 4 or 5 laps is definitely the highlight of my weekend. Tommy eventually got around me when I threw both belts and the temp. climbed too 270 and I lost power steering.

We got the belts back on it, and after an altercation with another driver in the pits, I lined up for the feature, started the race, seen temp. climb back too 270 I knew it jumped a belt, so I pulled off. I sure hope everything is done and we can get back on top of the game. Like I said though, every driver has their down period, we’ll pull out of it.

We’re off for two weeks, and we will take this time too fix the belts issue. Next week we will be enjoying the return of the All-Star Circuit of Champions to Riverside International Speedway.