Racing is heating up at Clay City Kart Speedway CLAY CITY, KY - If you like two groove, side-by-side racing, outside passing then you needed to be at Clay City on Saturday June 22. The bowl design concept of the track was to encourage racers to be able to find a groove that their kart worked best in or be able to pass someone that was protecting the low line. Class after class, racers were going to the high side and to put the move on someone. The night got off to a slow start when the water pump decided to take a break. A good cleaning of the carburetor had it going, but it caused hot laps to begin at 6:00 p.m. instead of 5:00 p.m. That didn't slow down the action once hot laps began. In Stock Heavy, action in the pits after the first heat was as fierce as it had been on the track. Some up close discussion of the racing resulted in a second drivers meeting for half of the participants. One thing that Brian Billings will not tolerate is racers trying to settle their differences on the race track. This helped to get everyone's focus back to what they were at the races to do, which is have a good time and compete with good sportsmanship. The feature was an exciting race that saw Jason Dunn, of Frankfort, KY win pulling away in the end while the second place position battled side-by-side. Kevin Ward and Shane Ware may have let the leader get a away while going toe-to-toe but they raced cleanly and gave the fans what they came to see. Shane claimed the second spot in the end followed by Kevin Ward, Ray Caskey, and Chad Neely. In the Junior Stock class, ages 12-15 years old, the young men and women showed they have the skills to be great racers. The junior classes is what this sport is all about. If you were to compare racing to baseball, you would have to call kart racing the little league of auto racing. Many of the most popular NASCAR racers, such as Dale Earnhart, Jr., Jeff Gordon, Rick Rudd, Ton Stewart, got there career started on kart racing tracks. Brandon Dunn, recovered from a incident in practice that damaged his bodywork to take the feature win. The second place position was decided by less than six inches, as Corey Smith, from Richmond, KY just pulled past Merl Batcher, from Plato, MN, at the line. What was most impressive is that Corey made his move on the outside. He had pulled even with Merl two laps earlier on the high side. The two racers went back and forth putting their karts just ahead of each other until Corey just eased ahead at the line. The fourth and fifth place positions went to Rachel Cornett, from Morehead, KY and Jimmie Smith. The Stock Medium brought us the only repeat winner of the night, with Jason Dunn winning a close race. Adam Barlow, from Columbus, IN came from his forth place starting position to take second. Luke Thacker, from Lawrenceburg, KY finished third, followed by Eddy Litteral and Brandon Montgomery. In Super Heavy, Trevor Ford, from Louisville lead every lap to defeat Jason Miller and Shawn Craddock. In the Stock Light Class, Luke Thacker lead from beginning to end taking his first win of the season at Clay City. Brian Mullins finished second followed by a couple of racers from Richmond, then Chris Smith and Neal Phelps. Brandon Montgomery came back from an early incident to claim fifth. In Limited Modified, it seemed that the Kemp Brothers, from Wilmore, KY were going to be strong. Lester Newsome, came up in the feature to give them everything they could handle. Danny Kemp ended up holding off Lester in the end to claim the top spot with his brother Dean finishing fourth. Gary Cornett, Jr. from Morehead, KY took third spot and his father was scored in the fifth spot after having engine failure. The Speedway USA Kentucky Challenge is the next event on the schedule, which is coming up this weekend on Friday and Saturday, June 28th and 29th. Racers will be competing for $1000 to win in the Pro Stock Heavy Class. The other Pro Classes including the 100 cc Yamaha, Stock Light, Limited Modified will be paying $400 to win. As a feature attraction, Floyd Anderson Chevrolet Oldsmobile will provide the Kodak sponsored Morgan McClure Chevrolet Winston Cup show car driven by Mike Skinner on the Winston Cup series. The car will be on display in front of Victory Lane from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday, June 29th. The kart racing action will get underway at Noon with practice, followed by qualifying at 3:00 p.m. The Heat Races will begin at 6:00 p.m. followed by feature racing at 9:00 p.m. Friday Night practice begins at 7:00 p.m. with heat and feature racing to follow. Also, you will definitely want to the see the West Virginia Outlaws take the track. These guys have bolted 125 cc and 250 cc dirt bike engines onto a kart frame and put the wing on top for added down force. Tracing that they will do will remind you of what you would see in the World of Outlaws with Sammy Swindell and Steve Kinser. If you would like to get your son or daughter started in a challenging and exciting sport, more information can be found on the world wide web. The official web of Clay City Kart Speedway can be found at www.ccks.net or call (606) 663 ­1203.