Cody Johnson Racing

WKA Florida Championship
Race Ocala July 2007

Whenever we get the chance we take the Margay/Supercan out to race as Cody really enjoys racing that class. We had that chance July 7,2007 at the last race of the year of the WKA Florida Championship Series. We have four big Rotax Jr races coming up this month so I decided to save money and use old Bridgestone tires for this race as it's basically for fun we are not in it for points.

Friday Cody went out for one practice session just to make sure everything was pretty much set with the Margay and KT100, which it proved to be he was one of the fastest kids even on old tires.

Saturday race day Cody went out for 5 laps of practice before the race saving our tires for qualifying. I took the clutch apart cleaned it and that's about all the set up work we did before qualifying. It was HOT as it always is here in Florida in July. Cody qualified 2nd on old tires against 8 other kids who where on new tires so I thought we'd be in pretty good shape for the pre finals. Five out of the nine kids qualified in the mid 33's so it promised to be an exciting pre final.

Pre final race: Cody was a bit worn from the very hot conditions but did the best he could to suck it up and give it 110%. It was a great race but we got killed on the straight a ways making up some ground in the corners. Cody hung on for finish third and was real disappointed when he came off the track which in turn makes me feel bad as I didn't send him out with new tires, our tire budget just won't stretch that far.

Final: I sent Cody into the lobby at OGP to cool down while I worked on improving the kart for the final. Against Cody's wishes I dropped one tooth on the rear gear; we needed a bit more in the straight a ways. With Cody cooled down a bit and the threat of rain looming we went to the final with Cody starting in the third spot. He had a great start grabbing second place into the first corner right on the bumper of first place kart. On lap three he made the pass for first and held it for the next seven laps. It was a very close race with a great effort on Cody's part to reach down deep on a very hot day to win the race. He drove a nearly perfect race making not one mistake and it paid off big time with a win.