July 20th, 2002   
    For many years I have thought go karts would be great to race.   From a little fun in dirt near my old house in Sun Valley, CA to family fun centers I drove medium speed karts. I have always wanted to try full speed go karts and one day my mom showed me an article. It showed something close to DRIVETECH kart racing school, come learn and be part of exciting go kart racing racing at Irwindale Speedway! The 1st thing I thought, knowing my 1st ASA race might be at Irwindale I thought 2 advantages, #1 being experience driving around irwindale, #2 knowing everything about go karts. I wanted in right away so we called the Drivetech place and got our spot in the next sprint kart racing school class on July 20th, 2002. Sprint Karts in my opinion are racing style go karts with a 122 cc 30 horsepower engine that can go around 50 mph.
   After getting everything confirmed I was ready to go at 6 a.m. on July 20th. Since my parents had a little trouble with mini stock photos I decided to take my own uniform helmet and accessories. Everyone there mostly got a black or blue fire suit, helmet, and neck roll. I had a white Flying Tigers fire suit, white helmet, and own neck roll/guard in case of any accident. All 9 or 10 of us went through the 1 hour class going through all the info about sprint karts mostly a past karting champion telling us everything about sprint kart racing. Once the class ended everyone finishes up and got in the firesuits and went to the track. I thought it was going to be the actual irwindale speedway but unstead it was a road course with cones set up outside of it. The instructor gave us a tour and walk through of the track telling us which line to drive.
   Time to start doing some laps. Our group of 3 got earphones and a radio system attached to our suits and we got into the karts. The instructors tried warming them up before but I think they got a little to cooled down. After filling up the gas tank they let us start the engines, pushing a button and revving the throttle a little. Then the karting champion got in his kart and led us around for 3 laps showing us the line again and talking to us over the radio, making sure we were ready to go. After 3 laps the pace driver let us go and the temporary flagman waved the green flag. I decided to start in back and try to catch back up but unfortunately my engine was to cold and kept stalling. Throughout the morning we'd have about 5 different on track sessions of about 10 minutes. I was relieved after the 1st session and let someone in the 2nd group try my kart, he got it working right so the next time it was our turn I tried going as fast as I could. But when I wasn't faster then they car behind me I went into the temporary pull of part they made to go to the side and let other karts by. Sure enough I spun atleast 2 times during that session and burned 1 spark plug. I pulled info the infield part of their temporary track as 1 of the mechanics checked the engine and replaced the spark plug. In another session after I spun a few more times and the engine kept stalling I pulled back into the pits and let the mechanics replace 2 or 3 more spark plugs that happened to get burnt.

    Well the past karting champion asked me questions and explained what I was doing wrong. He told me when I go into the turns let off a little earlier and don't completely slam on the brakes. Also don't try using the brake and gas at the same time, and feather the throttle. This is 1 reason why I'm not to into go karts now. In the mini stocks well of course I still feather the throttle through the turns but floored it exiting and slammed on the brakes into the next turn. Finally during the last session I got everything going smoothly, but 1 guy distracted me with a speed gun so I tried do go a fast as I could but it was right before a turn and I locked up the brakes and did another 360. Other than that I still tried going as fast as I could but going smoothly into the few turns they had, and didn't burn any more spark plugs. Through this I have learned how to drive better at road course type tracks, and I might not be to good at go kart racing.