Road America Super Nationals draws over 1000 entries
Story and photos by Joe Brittin
Elkhart Lake, WI - The 28th annual Dunlop Tire Super Nationals, hosted by the Badger Kart Club on June 13 - 15 at Road America, once again attracted a big turnout of over 1000 entries. The event brought together several sanctioning bodies including the Badger Kart Club, The Mid-States Super Series, WKA regional series, The Mid-America Road Racing Series, KART and The Championship Enduro Series. This event could truly be called a North American championship race with the best racers from all series competing for a national championship and the coveted "cheese cows" which go to the top 5 in each class. A record number of classes (96) competed in 17 races over the weekend along with the IRA Pro Shifter Kart race, which was held on Friday. Friday practice had nearly 500 karts registered and five rounds of practice were held. The "land grab line" to claim a pit spot began forming Thursday morning and had swelled to around 250 trailers by the time the gates opened around 5:00 p.m. Badger Kart Club workers neatly lined up the early arrivals and the pit spots were filled in an orderly procession. Pre-tech and registration was available Thursday evening up until 9:00 p.m. and the pits were pretty well filled up by Thursday evening. The late arrivals that did not show up until Friday were pitting in the overflow areas of the West Paddock.
To accommodate the large entry count, it took over 80 volunteers from the Badger Kart Club to stage this event. Badger Kart Club's experience at running this huge event in a timely and organized manner really showed this year. The races were running so smoothly with few red flags that the annual Brat Fest started early and all of the Brats were consumed by 6 p.m. Saturday. The Sunday races also went smoothly and were over by 5 p.m. Besides the famous cheese cows awarded to the top five this year, the unique transparent Wisconsin shaped trophies were awarded to the top ten in the bigger classes. Very few red flags were waived all weekend and a big congratulations goes out to the Badger Kart Club for running a safe and well-organized event.
For the first time, the Novice class was allowed to run at Road America for the 8 to 11 year olds. Matt Gilbert won the 15 minute Saturday Novice race and Brian Ellis won the Sunday Novice class. There were 14 Novice participants racing each day. The Novice group was also allowed to practice by themselves several times on Friday.
Over 100 sprint karts were staged to start race 2 on Saturday and race 4 on Sunday. The classes were split into groups of similar speed and were waived off with 30-second splits between the groups. The biggest non-gearbox sprint class to grid was the Saturday Piston Port SSX Can class with 31 entries and was won by Jason Knuteson. The biggest enduro race was the Saturday race 2 group of 65 enduros competing in the Formula 125, 100cc Piston Port/Controlled and Yamaha SBX Sportsman classes. The enduro class with the most entries was the Saturday Piston Port SSX Can class with 27 entries which was swept by the TS Racing powered karts of Barry Taft and Bret Spuade. This class saw the top seven run together in a draft for much of the race. The single biggest class to participate was the Saturday Sprint CIK 125 shifter kart class with 51 entries which was won by Preston Peltier. The shifter karts used a rolling start and all 84 entries in the Saturday shifter race made it at least through turn five without any trouble. The black flag was used quite often to discourage pushing. The entire track can now be viewed through monitors set up in the scoring tower and pushing violators were rewarded with a black flag at turn 14 where they could immediately pull into the pits for a stop-and-go penalty. Stop-and-go penalties were also given for creeping too far or jumping on the starts.
The Super Nationals are contested at Road America, which is one of North America's finest roadracing facilities. The professional facility, which hosts a champ car race each year, is a super fast and yet relatively safe venue for staging a kart race as there is ample run-off area in all of the corners. The long straight-aways demand horsepower and good aerodynamics to run up front. Road America, constructed in 1955, is the oldest continuously running road course in the U.S. The first professional race held was a NASCAR stock car race in August of 1956. Bill France Jr. finished in fourth place and the winner averaged 59 mph (about the same as a Jr. Sprint Briggs kart averaged this year). Road America is appropriately named because many of the turns were simply copied from existing highway corners in America. The four mile track, situated on 525 acres with 14 turns, is approximately 30 feet in width, has 175 feet of elevation change, and the longest straight of 3,600 feet. Although there are 14 numbered turns, there are actually only 10 real corners. The 14 turn designations actually came from the early days when there were 14 numbered communication posts situated around the track. The track has acquired some unique names for sections of the track including the Moraine Sweep, the Hurry Downs, the Carousel (a term copied by many tracks), the Kink, the Kettle Bottoms, Canada Corner and Thunder Valley. The track is also well known for its food. Local civic groups run all the food stands with no private vendors utilized. Although most famous for their bratwurst, there are other local color favorites such as the double chocolate chip cookies stuffed with soft serve ice cream.
Road America was last re-paved in 1994 and has held up quite well to the cold northern climate. The bumps that keep getting bigger at some of the corner apexes may have caused lap times to drop a little this year. Turning the fastest race lap of the weekend was motorcycle road racer Eddie Lawson in the West Racing prepared 250 Twin class at 2:17.5 for an average speed of 104.7 mph. Ted Steffke ran the fastest race lap for a sprint 125cc-gearbox kart at 2:34.7. Regan Vehring put up the best time for a Sprint OHV kart at 3:03.6 which was faster than many Yamaha powered sprint karts.
Several drivers captured more than one win over the weekend. Taking three wins each were enduro drivers Randy Fulks and Mike Spear while Josh Lane captured three Junior classes. Double winners included Johny West, Rob Anderson, Brad Read, Mike Spear Jr., Jason Knuteson, Jim Russel Jr., Brad Richards, Robert Johnson, Regan Vehring, Andy Hall, Mark Kluempers and Steve Federwisch.
