Cody Johnson Racing

WKA Florida Championship Rece Monticello 4/6/07

This was our first visit to that new track and Cody had a blast. Great track over a mile long, a horse power track for sure. This track is on the North Florida Rotax Series 2007 list of races so we used this WKA race to get a feel for this new track. We where on one race old tires all weekend in both class's; there just are to many races coming up where we will be running MOJO tires and none on Bridgestones so I saw no sense in buying more Bridgstones at this point.

Cody ran his Margay 1.6 with the Supercan on it and his CRG with the Rotax Jr on it for this race weekend.

Cody raced Supercan Jr with 12 kids in his class and Rotax Jr where there where 4four kids in his class. With no Donald or William from Advanced karting there to tune for him he was stuck with my tuning for both races. Let me tell you racing two class's in one day is a lot of work, a lot of work. The Supercan and Rotax Jr where separated by only one class so we had to go like crazy to get him out for both class's.

In Supercan Jr running on older tires Cody Quailifed 6th out of 12 in Rotax Jr again with older tires he quailified 2nd out of four.

Supercan prefinal Cody got caught up in a first corner mess knocked off track but kept in running to finish last. Oh well we're used to starting from the back it's part of learning how to race after all and much for an interesting race seeing how far up he can move.

The Rotax Jr prefinal was uneventful with Cody finishing a close third. He got the hole shot in the first corner to lead but the tires where cold so he couldn't hold that position. Warm those tires up good during the warm up laps is what he learned there.

The final of the Supercan JR race was a lot of fun to watch. Cody has gotten real good at tuning his carb as he is racing and he did a great job during this race. He started last of the twelve kids but soon worked his way up to seventh putting on a great show. With one lap to go he had the lead 6 karts in sight and passed the 6th and 5th place kart's and was working on the 4th place kart when he ran out of laps. Had he had 12 laps instead of just 8 I think he could have gotten up to second place easy he was driving that well. A lot of the kids he was racing had new tires on for the races that day and we choose to save some money and run older tires, it didn't seem to make a huge difference.

The final of the Rotax Jr race was uneventful really Cody took off on the grid in second place and finished in second. The kid who won did so by two seconds, another magical motor maybe as you see in Rotax Jr every so often.

You would think in a spec motor class like Rotax JR is supposed to be the racing would be closer than say Supercan JR or HPV but if you watch the races we'll see more times than not the Rotax JR class is not as tight a race. Cody and I talked about it on the way home and nether could figure out why. I understand driving skill plays a huge role but you very seldom see a kid check out in Supercan JR or HPV like you do in Rotax JR races. It's to bad Supercan JR is such a pain to race as it's a great class if it was for having to work on the clutch all the time, the engine weighting less than a Rotax JR motor so the Supercan Jr kart has to have more lead on it which makes it killer to pick up and put on the kart stand.

Well next is the North Florida Rotax series which should be fun, the series startes at the end of April.