Santa Maria Pro Kart Challenge!

This past weekend saw 5 Croc Promotion drivers pushing the limits of their karts in Santa Maria California. Three shifter drivers, one micro swift and one KA100 Junior!

Pro Shifter

With Croc Promotion drivers covering the grid from young to old, it was bound to be a good day.

Mathais Coito is a very talented shifter driver from Southern California looking to run at the front of any shifter kart race he enters. The Croc Promotion driver qualified his TM KZ powered Croc Promotion Shifter Kart in third behind Billy Musgrave and Keawn Tandon both extremely quick shifter drivers.

Jeff Smith, entering the masters open 125 class with his Croc Promotion Vortex ROK Shifter qualified 8th overall and first in Open Masters 125 but was DQ’d due to a track width violation. Dumb mistake! Being the only
ROK Shifter engine entered, it would be ‘fun run’ for the weekend getting to drive against the KZ engines.

Colin McGrath decided to dive into the deep end of the pool by entering his first KZ Pro Shifter race. Colin is new to the shifter ranks in 2023, racing his Vortex ROK Shifter kart at Sonoma since the beginning of the season. This would be Colins first race with the much higher-powered TM R1 KZ beast now strapped to his right side for the Pro Kart Round at Santa Maria! With Jeff being DQ’d and going to the back of the grid, Colin took over the 8th spot!

Heat and Main

The format for this round was one heat race and a main event lasting a whooping 24 laps! An easy cruise for the young guys, a brutal test of endurance for the older guy.

With a mostly peaceful crew of shifter drivers, both the heat and the main event lacked severe drama. Mathias ended up 4th in Pro Shifter, Jeff Smith 9th (1st in Masters Open Shifter) and Colin McGrath in 10th.

The main was similar, just a lot more laps! Mathias showed his speed as he pushed the whole way to end up on the podium in 3rd for Pro Shifter, behind Musgrave and Tandon.  Colin had a great drive and ended up 7th. Jeff, being the only Masters Open shifter, won that class, but was the only ROK powered entrant, so it was more of a race-test day!

Micro Swift

For Micro Swift Croc Promotion had the fast and furious Luis Martinez crossing the line in P-1 for qualifying with a fastest lap of 54.1, besting second place Drew Jensen by .471…almost ½ a second!

Heat and Main

For the heat race,, Luis walked away and finished first! For the main event Luis lead the field and then decided leading by this much was just too easy. Time of an ‘off track’ make this more of a fight! After dipping his wheels
into the dirt, he clawed his way back to 4th but was able to take the fast lap at a 54.31!

 Junior KA100

In the huge 29 kart field, Mason Duchesne qualified a respectable 19th and then moved up a couple spots to P-17 in the heat race. Only then did he
find out he had been way, way off on his choice for gearing so his struggles were all due to the lack of top speed on his KA100. He had a great run in the
main but was in the mid pack fighting so moving forward becomes a real challenge. He was able to move from P-18 to P-11 before a crash ended his day.  : (

Racing is life. Anything that happens before or after, is just waiting....so until the next race!