Newly-repaved Blackhawk Farms Raceway a thrill S. BELOIT, IL - For only the second time in the last 30 years, the Badger Kart Club members packed up and headed to another track July 12-13 for a Bridgestone Tire BKC Championship points race. This time, the club headed to Illinois to do battle on the newly-repaved Blackhawk Farms racetrack. The main topic of discussion was gear ratios as the 1.8 mile circuit is completely opposite of Badger's .5 mile tight twisting home track. By race time though most had it figured out and were ready to go. The 2-day event was put on in conjunction with GEM Promotions/International Racing Association and Badger Kart Club. Saturday, comprised of practice in the morning and enduro-style races in the afternoon. On Sunday, practice again was held in the morning with a mix of enduro and Badger club races in the afternoon. On Saturday, Badger's own Travis Kosik jumped out to an early lead with a great start in the Novice race. Kosik went on to win handedly for his first enduro road course victory. His best time was 4.5 seconds over the 2nd place finisher Eric Sutcliff. In the Briggs Sr. Animal race, Regan Vehring and Vince Bartolotta hooked up and pulled away from the rest of the field. From there, Vehring managed to pull away even from Bartolotta and went on to win by over 24 seconds. In the Briggs Sr. class race Brad "Bad" Richards covered the field by lapping them once and half again twice. Richard's time averaged 8 seconds a lap faster than anyone else in his class. Saturday's 125cc Shifter race was an exciting battle. Lance Lane bolted out into the lead on the start with Brian Julien in tow. The two stayed nose-to-tail and turned it into a two-kart race. Lap after lap they crossed the start-finish line literally connected. On the last lap, Julien took a run at Lane but at the line came up .100 seconds short for a truly exciting conclusion! Other Saturday winners included Tom Colson in Briggs Jr. 4-Cycle, Dave Gemignani in Jr. Yamaha Can, Zack Emmons in HPV Jr., Jesse Schwabe in HPV Sr., Jarrett Schwaz in Sprint Yamaha Can, Matt Sriver in Sprint Yamaha Sit-up Pipe, Ryan Premo in Jr. Yamaha Can and John LaRue in Enduro Yamaha Can. On Sunday, Travis Kosik made it two in a row for himself by besting the 2-Cycle Jr. Sportsman field, but not without a struggle. TJ Koyen ran a great race and at the line, missed the victory by .009 seconds. Tommy Anderson showed he can win on both the short and long tracks by taking the Briggs Jr. Sportsman win by almost half a track over Lina Baker. In Briggs Animal Sr., Saturday's domination by Regan Vehring came to a screeching halt when he was leading the field by quite a distance and he was forced to drop from the race. This cleared the way for Badger's David Koeferl to take his first big-track road race win with Erick Heling coming in only 2 seconds behind. Derek Crane bested Joe Graf and the rest of the Jr. Briggs field by almost 50 seconds and Brian Weber won Briggs Lite by almost half a minute. Tom Schroeder took the win in Briggs Heavy over David Smith as the rest of the field either didn't finish or didn't pass tech inspection. In the Jr. Can and Jr. SSX Can race, Jessica Brannam not only bested her Jr. Can field, but passed the SSX can leader and won the race outright! SSX winner Cassidy Bigsby won easily over Joe Brenner, putting an end to his winning streak this season. Spencer Polacek ran a great race holding 2nd for most of it. But at the end, he just couldn't hold off Brenner whose kart finally came to him in the final laps. In Sprint Yamaha Can, Ron Brannan did exactly what his grand daughter Jessica did earlier by not only winning his class but winning the race over the faster classes. Brannan actually had mechanical trouble in the beginning and couldn't fire his can motor. With a 15-second deficit, he managed to run the field down by lap 4 and take the overall lead around lap six. Kyle Glaser held the lead before that, but slowly faded as the race wore on. Dale Gemignani ran him down and on the last lap, made his move in turn 6. Glaser made a valiant attempt to regain second but come up .130 seconds short. The largest field of the weekend occurred in the final race as Badger had four Yamaha classes on the track at the same time. Zack Emmons and Jesse Schwabe both cruised their 2nd wins of the weekend by winning HPV Jr. and Sr. respectively. Matt Cota won Yamaha Lite by 12 seconds over Erin Cechal. But the two lapped the entire field, hooking up with karts from faster classes to draft with. Mike Fuchs continued his domination of Yamaha Heavy by winning on the big track with Randy Pyka taking a well-deserved 2nd. Scott Lardin grabbed the top honors in Sr. Sportsman Lite by besting Scott Adler by just under a second. Bob Ropke used Saturday's experience to propel him to a great win on Sunday, besting the Sr. Sportsman Heavy class by almost half a minute over 2nd place Brian James. Great weather and just one red flag with no serious injuries made for an incredible weekend of racing and fun. The newly repaved track made it nice for karts. With no suspensions to damper the shocks, the old track became unsuitable for karts. But the new pavement and great track are once again a karter's dream. Ironically, a large black hawk swept over the front stretch near the end of Sunday's races to put the perfect ending on a perfect weekend.