Team Katport/ Swiss Hutless came back to northern California satisfied with a 5th place finish.
Led by 2007 Norcal Stock Honda Champion Matt Alcorn; it looked as if things were not as we planned, a 10th place qualifying had us scratching our heads, nevertheless KARPORT team tuners Rafael Navarro and JD Daniels kept working on the chassis to try to compensate for a motor that was down at the top end, we used our Lapcom data acquisition to maximize our gearing and jetting.
So far we had seen a lot of crashes on a very unforgiving track, drivers kept saying how fast the track was, luckily this was Matt's second Super Nats and he seemed at home between the barriers.
A great start on the first heat gave Matt a couple of spots right of the bat, he managed to keep a clean nose and make it all the way to 5th by the end. The rest of the heats seem like a carbon copy; as Matt was passing karts left and right as his chassis kept improving and giving him the confidence to brake later and later, from the grand stands it was trilling to see him work the esses at the limit, and even over the limit. Four 5th places put us on 3rd spot for the 43 kart main.
Big expectations filled our pitt area sine we thought we had found more straight away speed on the warm up seccion, at the start Matt made the first mistake of the week or perhaps was the motor, either way he lost over 10 spots and found himself in the middle of a mad house battling back and forth with many guys for many laps until he could settle into a pace and start to work on catching up, by this point the leader was long gone still he kept a consistent pace to give Kartport a 5th place podium finish.
Lots of hard work and lots of Vegas fun and an ever changing track are now the memories of a great week of racing.
Congratulations Matt, and best luck for 2008
2007 Review
Successful Season for Kartport USA
After dominating the Tag Series in 2006 at the Florida Winter Tour we decided we wanted to show how well the SH ICC chassis works and so we did.
In 2007 our Team Drivers Matt Alcorn and Rafael Navarro enter the KARTSPORT GRAND PRIX, one of the largest stand alone events in the USA with high hopes but never imagine the absolute success. Both Matt in Stock 125Honda and Rafael in ICC Masters were the fastest after the first day of practice, in qualifying Rafael was on pole and Matt was second despite a miss shift on the front straight away, on race day Matt had solid results on all heats and started the main in second, unfortunately the pipe came lose in the race and he had to settle for 4t. Meanwhile Rafael won 3 out of 4 heats to start on Pole for the finals; unfortunately he had a broken axle at the start that put and end to his race. Still we were very satisfied with the results.
Matt has also competed in the Jim Russell Championship in Sonoma California, this year on his SH, he scored 5 straight poles and 5 wins to get the championship 2 races from the end, this is a class that has and average of 20 drivers competing every time.
At the club level we won the TAG championship at the Dixon Club with one of our very own mechanics behind the wheel, Chris Vigil had a very solid run all year long and had to only start the last race to finish the championship, this came really in handy since we had been working at a race 4 hours away the day before so he drove back to take the start and a 3rd place to secure his championship.
Despite missing some races Domenic Merlino SH/TM managed to have a very
strong year, he got a 4th overall in the Infineon Championship. ICC Masters
is a very popular class in Northern and Southern California, most of these
drivers are very committed, have the best equipment and get to the track
on a weekly basis to tune chassis and driving.
Glenn Poy Win had a shot at the DD2 championship, at sears point California all year long but found himself too busy trying to race 2 classes the same day, and came a bit short every time, still he took 2nd in the championship.
Next in our race calendar is The Super Nationals at Las Vegas, we will enter in stock 125Honda heavy, with team driver Matt Alcorn.
This is a long event with driving starting on Wednesday and finals happening on Sunday afternoon.
We wish our drivers the best of luck in Vegas and to all our loyal customers thanks for a great year.
