2012 Season Recap Part I

Gas tank won. Again.

The 2012 racing season ended much like the 2011 season: way too soon!  I think this season was even shorter than last season, and I never even made it out of New Jersey this year.  The entire season consisted of 0 indoor races, 2 autocrosses and 2 kart races.  My main goal for the season was to break 44.23-- we'll get back to that later...

Quantity of racing aside, 2012 marked the end of both the Zippy era and Ralphie as we knew him.  In April, I got into a fender bender that messed up Zippy's strut.  To avoid any more problems, I put Zippy into retirement and moved into G Stock, which I sort of like.  I've been doing relatively better (not saying much) and making the most of the "spin it or win it" mantra.  Let's just say I haven't been winning it, but I have been having fun.

The other piece of news is that Ralphie got a new motor in October.  During one of the last practice sessions in October, the Comer kicked the bucket.  I thought there was something wrong in the hot grid when Ralphie refused to idle, but figured we could figure it out after the session.  Apparently I was being way too optimistic.  Right after I made it out of the helmet turn, Ralphie just rolled to a stop.  There was plenty of go juice, no funny smells, but just no more go.  I managed to push him back to the staging area and hoisted him up onto his stretcher kart stand.  It didn't take long to figure out what the problem was: every time the piston got to the top of the cylinder head, it would go CLUNK! and stop.  With some effort, we could force the crank shaft back around, but clearly, there was something very very wrong. 

Taking off the cylinder head revealed a badly pitted piston and a hunk of metal smashed into the top of the cylinder head.  Not good.  I think my eyes might have sweated a little too.  The Comer's pretty old, and parts aren't easy to come by.  It's possible that something got sucked into the intake (which would be an easy fix), but just as possible that a bearing cracked and there are more bits of metal flying around down there, waiting to make their debut appearance.  In any event, it was clear that the Comer would not be making another appearance in the near future.