Ferrario amazes crowd with 5th place finish after starting 23rd ...

Race: Yokohama Championship Karting Series
Class: TAG Masters (25 kart field)

Qualified 4th, Finished 23rd in prefinal after breaking a throttle cable after working up to 2nd place. Passed 18 karts to finish 5th in the main.

Wow! Another great start to an amazing weekend of ups and downs…I qualified an amazing 4th place – I usually qualify pretty low and work my way through the field in the pre-final and main to earn respectable finishes. Now I’m starting with the “boys” up front. In the prefinal I got a ripping start and slotted into second and glued to the leader’s bumper. We went kneck and kneck for several laps and then I had an opening to make the pass. Just as I was side by side in the turn to complete the pass, my motor reved to redline, but my kart started to coast. I raised my hand to avoid being hit by the freight-train of karters flying by and came to a stop. I quickly troubleshooted the situation and realized I had a broken throttle cable – but it wasn’t actually broken, it had just come off the mounting bracket. So I fired up the kart and used my right hand to pull the cable for gas and drove the rest of the race one-handed to finish in 23rd. A fellow karter came up after and was amazed he couldn’t even catch me while I drove one handed and had basically no throttle modulation by using my hand. I was pretty deflated and somewhat embarrassed at starting 23rd, but decided to have a positive attitude after being pumped up by Scotty and the guys to just start picking off karts one-by-one and have fun practicing passing. In the main, I passed a few karts by turn one and set off through the 25 kart field on a mission. I tried to walk the fine line of bashing my way through and driving with finesse – I didn’t want to make a bunch of enemies for the sake of positions. I lost count of how many karts I had passed but it seemed like I was flying through the field, and that they were actually cheering and amazed as I passed them – not a lot of pushback or blocking. The checkered flag came quickly and I wanted a few more laps that the 15 we got. I started counting karts and realized I was probably out of the podium positions, when Scotty came running up by the scales with his hand extended showing 5 fingers and mouthing “you got fifith, you got fifth…” I was amazed myself. What a salvage job and a huge reward for not giving up. I was an instant celebrity for the day and had countless people coming up to me saying that my driving was the most amazing thing they had seen in a long time – I tried to give credit where it was due – to my Rocket Kart – and it’s ability to drive lines that were out of most karters reach and still pass other drivers. That trophy will probably be the one I cherish most until I better that story – let’s hope that never happens! But it sure was fun. Thanks to TeamMMI’s support and never say die attitude through the entire roller coaster ride.