by Ched Follis As the 2017 karting season winds down, Follis Kart Racing continues its ambitious schedule with drivers Jeff and Kevin Janders heading down to the Simraceway Performance Karting Center at historic Sonoma Raceway for the penultimate round of California’s KPX Karting Championship Series. So far this year, FKR has competed in: F-Series events on the east coast and southeast, Can-Am series, a super-regional race in Redding at Shasta Kart Klub, three different Gold Cup events, the Saturday Night Shootout at TCKC’s amazing Horn Rapids Kart Track, multiple club races at our home track SIMA raceway in Sumas, WA, club races at the super-fast PGP Motorsports Park and at PSGKA’s iconic track in Spanaway, WA. Following this weekend’s event in Sonoma, we’ll be travelling to the historic Pat’s Acres track in Canby, OR for the final round of the Can-Am series and Oregon 2-stroke championship series. We also participated in the oval track rental race at PGP. Monroe Jordan campaigned his own kart, with track support from Italian Motors, at the PSRRA Grand National Race at the Ridge Motorsports Park and an earlier PSRRA race there with amazing results. Back to this weekend. Although our emphasis is on the KPX race at Sonoma in our Italkart Rapido V1 206 karts, Scott Hargrove will be holding down the fort racing our TaG kart at the SIMA facility for their next-to-last club race of the season.
Scott has had a phenomenal racing season, winning the championship in the IMSA Porsche GT3 Cup Canada Series in spectacular fashion by winning 18 of 20 rounds and finishing second in the other two. Scott also won the last time out in his shifter at the Sunday Gold Cup final at SIMA, racing against some of the best shifter pilots in the country. Scott has been a blessing to our program. A great racer in every machine he drives, Scott is the complete package and it has been a joy to interact with him at the track and follow his successes in his IMSA racing. Many thanks to Scott and to Michael Valiante for making this possible. This weekend’s race has special meaning to me for a couple of reasons. We once lived in Northern California and we love the area and people and hope to move back there in the near future. I first visited Sonoma Raceway in the 1980’s for a Can-Am/Trans-Am car race on the big track and went to as many races as possible during the mid-eighties. This was a really cool period for racing and I watched some of the best drivers of their time compete there when the facility itself was more like a club track. Al Holbert in his Miller Porsche 962, the Group 44 Jaguar team, Scott Pruett in a kart race (on the car track), even Paul Newman in his red, white and blue Nissan. Every event surpassed my expectations and was truly surreal. Access at the time was unbelievable. I had one picture of a NASCAR race that I took there where I can see my old Buick parked just outside of turn seven. I also remember a corner worker letting me shoot pictures on the trackside of the wall at turn 10. Not something allowable now, but at the time it was normal stuff and part of the rich memories I have at Sonoma that I hold dear. SIM Raceway karting complex is also a significant part of my racing experience as I attended a couple of karting schools there. The interaction, equipment, and time I spent there was awesome. Love that place. Although I’m not able to attend the race this weekend, I’m confident that Jeff and Kevin will have a terrific time there as well. I’ll try to keep you posted on their results and experience. For those interested, the race should be available on Race Monitor. I would like to thank our partners who have made all this possible:
We still have a few races left so… see you at the races, and oh yeah… #kartingrocks.
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September 2017
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