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As part of the Western Canada ROK series, the Saskatoon Kart Racers hosted the second regional race for the Western Canada ROK cup.

The South Sask Kart Club invited all its members to come up to Saskatoon and give the Saskatoon Kart Racers a show of support, not only with the ROK regional, but with the participation of the casual ROK racers as well.  All in all we had 12 racers attend the race sessions with the majority racing as a single ROK group (ROK Pro and ROK Masters) with a couple of our club racers running in the junior races.

Most of the SSKC members met at our track and then drove up to Saskatoon for the day.  Overall it was a decent day for racing despite all the rain in and around the Martensville track over the past week and the threat of rain for Sunday.  The SKR club had been pumping water off the track all week and despite a few wet spots that made practice and qualifying "interesting", the race line was mostly dry by the time afternoon racing had started.  There was a couple of minor wet spots to snare the odd driver who missed the "dry" race line so that added another element to the race and did catch a couple of racers in the first race.

Given all the Rokers ran in the same class it was a good size field for the races.  As expected Nick and Darcy continued their strong competition at the pro level.  Nick had an excellent first race using his past experience on the SKR track to pretty much lead from start to finish.  Darcy adapted to the track fairly quickly having followed Nick through race one picking up the race line for his first appearance at the Martensville track and justed edged out Nick in the second race.  There was strong compettion for 2nd and 3rd with Keith then Sam taking second.  Full race results will be up on MyLaps.

Saskatoon Kart Racers thanked the SSKC for coming up to their race day and providing the extra support of another race class.  It was an excellent experience for those who had not raced the SKR track before and a nice change of pace in the race schedule... especially since our race day had been rained out the weekend before. 

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As part of the Western Canada ROK series, the South Sask Kart Club hosted the first of the two ROK National Cup series races in Western Canada and the third ROK Regional race.  SSKC also ran their club race 5 & 6 on Sunday as part of the series.

Weather was not an issue this year as we finally caught a break from all the rain.  Racers did not escape the impact of the recent wet spell as some of the out of town racers got caught in the detour on the Trans Canada due to wash outs in the highway in a couple of locations.  Otherwise; the whole weekend offered up a fairly sunny day with moderate temperatures in the mid 20's°C.

Friday was the first day of the event, but was limited to practice time for all the classes.

Saturday dawned with humid weather and a limited threat of rain showers.  We continued on with the practice sessions and the bad weather that was forcasted never developed.  A quick count of drivers gave us  about 20 participants across the 3 ROK categories, ROK Pro, ROK Masters and ROK Junior.  We also had a few Junior 1 Honda racers in that class giving us about two dozen drivers.  Participants came from BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan.  Practices wound up late Saturday afternoon and we moved into race number 1 in all classes.  Racing went off without a hitch and the race leaders started to established their positions in all the classes after the first race was completed.

Saturday wound up with an excellent steak dinner hosted at the 3 Flags Motorsport Park. 

Sunday offered up another excellent day with a partly cloudy sky moderating the sunshine.  The day started a bit warmer than Saturday, but pretty much a carbon copy of Saturdays weather.  Sunday added in a few more drivers for the SSKC Race 5 & 6 sessions that were incorporated as a race within a race as part of the ROK cup.  After a very quick warm-up for each class, we moved into race 2.  The ROK Pro racers were hard at it with a bit of bump and grind in the midfield over several laps.  On the last lap there was spin out on the second turn off the back straight-a-way and the lead kart became part of the incident, taking him out with half a lap to go.  The other 3 classes completed without major incident although there was the odd lost chain and a few missed corners that resulted in changes in race positions.  The fields position in each class  pretty much mirrored the race one results with a bit of jockeying in the mid-field. Emotions were high at the end of that race and the race directors reminded the participants that safety is a key goal and everyone need to pay attention to the flags.  Racers were reminded it was critical the racers acknowledge the flags and gave due considerations to those who were faster, especially in lapping circumstances.   With that reminder, the 3rd and final race of the day was gridded up.  The race went off without a hitch and incidents were limited to lost chains and the odd overshoot of a corner as racers gave it their all for final position and a shot at the top points.

All in all, an excellent weekend.

Congratulations to all the racers for a great race weekend.

Regina Regional ROK Cup Podium

ROK Cup Senior

ROK Cup Junior

ROK Cup Masters

Also it looks like a new track record was set by Nick Ferris with a 37.042 seconds during the race weekend.  This is based on the published data on the MyLaps website.  Previous record was held by Kris Hoffbeck from 2008 with a 37.053.
 
Thanks go out to Rod and Florance of 3 Flags Motorsports Park for the excellent facility and hosting the Saturday steak dinner at the track.  Thanks to the club members and family that provided support services on the track and in the canteen.  Your contribution
added to the success of the weekend!

Special thanks to all the ROK Cup Sponsors with lead sponsor being Allen Berg Racing Schools and contributions from K&M Motor Sports, CRG West, The Race Lab, VEGA and CRG.

Round 2 of the ROK Cup including races 4 – 6 were held in Quesnel, B.C. on August 13 to 15, 2010.  Several attended from the SSKC including Colby Haw, Garret Britton, Larissa Britton, Maranda Ziegler, Rod Ziegler, Garry Janz, Keith Miller, Chris Yap, Nick Ferris and Sam Ferris.  Three trailers were used to transport karts and equipment to Quesnel which is about the same distance as the drive to Chilliwack.  Chris, Colby, Nick and Sam pitted with CRG drivers under the Kacic tent with the rest of the Regina drivers pitting with the Team Attach tent.

Weather conditions were generally hot with temperatures in the low 30 degrees centigrade with sunny conditions.  No rain had fallen in Quesnel since Feb 2010, so it was quite dry in the area.  Although forest fires were raging in the area around Williams Lake to the south at the time of the race however no significant smoke was encountered during the practice and race days.

The Quesnel track is a smooth and well-flowing layout, with several high speed areas, a couple of high speed corners, significant changes in evaluation in the areas from corners 2 to 3 (downhill) and 9 to 11 (uphill).  The slowest part of the track is at corner 11 just before the longest straight on the track.  Sprocket combinations for senior d masters karts were in the 12/84 or 12/85 range.  There are however a limited number of places to pass on the track.

Friday August 13 was dedicated to practice with 5 or 6 sessions being held.  Of the three days of activity air temperatures were likely the coolest on Friday.  Drivers devoted significant time to tuning karts and learning the fastest way around the track.  Friday was not without incident however as there was a pileup due to spins just before the longest straight at the cost of some axles and related equipment.  There were six different engine class practice sessions each about 10 minutes long.  New for me was watching shifter karts, something that we don’t see in Regina or Saskatoon.

Saturday morning was dedicated to a couple of practice sessions and qualifying.  Since the ROK cup was integrated into the regular BC race series, completion of practice and qualifying took all morning.  ROK cup heats 4 and 5 were held on Saturday and the final race was held on Sunday morning.  Races for the Senior and Masters classes were integrated into a single heat.  Junior ROK raced in a dedicated class.

Results for SSKC drivers for Race 4 were as follows:
ROK Senior: Nick Ferris: 4th, Keith Miller 5th, Chris Yap 6th, Garry Janz 7th, and Maranda Ziegler DQ (under weight). 
ROK Masters: Keith Miller 1st, Sam Ferris 3rd, Rod Ziegler, 4th
ROK Junior: Garrett Britton 3rd, Colby Haw 4th, and Larissa Britton 5th

Results for SSKC drivers for Race 5 were as follows:
ROK Senior: Keith Miller 3rd, Chris Yap 4th, Garry Janz 5th and Nick Ferris: 7th due to a spin in corner 7.  Maranda used the remainder of the series as practice.
ROK Masters: Keith Miller 1st, Sam Ferris 2nd, Rod Ziegler, 3rd
ROK Junior: Garrett Britton 3rd, Colby Haw 5th, and Larissa Britton 6th

Results for SSKC drivers for Race 6 were as follows:
ROK Senior: Keith Miller 2nd, Nick Ferris: 3rd, Chris Yap 4th, and Garry Janz 5th
ROK Masters: Keith Miller 1st, Sam Ferris 3rd, Rod Ziegler, 4th
ROK Junior: Garrett Britton 4th, Colby Haw 5th, and Larissa Britton 6th

Overall results for the series were as follows

ROK Junior: Garrett Britton 4th, Colby Haw 5th, and Larissa Britton 6th, Thomas Ranby 8th and James Ranby 9th.

ROK Masters: Keith Miller 1st, Sam Ferris 2nd, Rod Ziegler 4th, Bart Ritchie 5th, Jeff Essey 6th and Kevin Harty 7th.

ROK Senior:  Nick Ferris 3rd, Keith Miller 4th, Darcey Shaw 5th, Chris Yap 6th, Garry Janz 7th, Thomas Savage 9th, Bryan Janz 10th, Christina Ziegler, 11th and Maranda Ziegler 12th.

Keith Miller will participate in the International ROK cup in Lonato, Italy in Mid-October 2010, acquiring a wild card spot in the Super ROK class.  Good luck to Keith at the world championships … Give them hell and do Saskatchewan and Canada proud !

Further information on the ROK cup race results are available at: http://www.rokcup.ca here.  Current oints standing can be found here.

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