My Daughter Christa inherited an old Emmick Kids racing Kart from none other than Jay Morris of Ground Control.  His kids had outgrown it.  So I took her to Cal Speedway a couple of weeks ago to see how she would do.  This was the first time for her other than riding up and down our street a few times.  I guess she has natural talent because by her third session, with some help from Axis Wheels, James Chen who showed her the line, she was beating all of the kids in her run group!

Christa seems to have good form at Cal Speedway, amazing conisdering no one ever really encoraged her to be a driver.

So today I took her to a track day that the city of Torrance put on by the Torrance Airport.  I like this picture because you can tell she is a girl.

Here Christa gives her Daddy the business with an inside pass.  My armored bike jacket would get hung up on the seat making me look like a hunchback.

She actualy took me by surprise!

Christa recovering from oversteer, she is unwinding her countersteering.  She is figuring out oversteer pretty well and hardly spins anymore.

She is really good considering that this is her second time out.  I think its time for racing school soon, straight to advanced class I think.

I am looking forward to getting Aaron's son James and Eric's son Leon out there when they get old enough as I found out that Christa needs a different kart to race due to her age as this kart is homologated only for 5-8 year olds.  What a stupid rule!  She is going up to a 100cc kart soon, maybe in the next few weeks.

Looks like a lot of fun. You must be very proud haha

Congrats, prodigy in the making.  Damn i remember seeing kids ride around in that parking lot many many years ago and ive always wondered how that works? I used to think somebodies parents was just friends w/ the ambulance guy or somthing and they would just block off the lot.  But i didn't know it was put on by the city.

Posted By eric on 01-25-2010 02:20 AM
That is awesome. Christa looks intense staring at the next turn through a helmet while smoking dad already. I think she's a natural!

Leon has to stop crying about uhh....80% of the time and grow some neck and core muscles first, but for sure he's coming out when he's ready!

awsome...its great to see the concentration at her age while driving...so much fun in Cali, I wish I could of grown up understanding the basics of driving on a Kart level...

An indoor facility opened up by me within the last couple of years...I go here http://www.v-17.com/  , its a great tool for road racing...and a great way to race in the winter months...

I can't wait to get James out there in that Kart.  This seems like the perfect hobby to get the whole family involved in and a great motivator to use as leverage when James doesn't do as daddy says.  My next car will have to be a truck.

You forget who her dad is. Even though she doesnt have state of the art equipment, I can probably out setup your typical kart racing kid dad.

Karts are weird though, you do about the opposite what you do on a car to get it to work.  Its because they have bias ply tires, no suspension other than flex of the frame and axle which are both tuneable and the steering geometry is designed to affect weight transfer a lot.

Posted By Sootfoot on 01-25-2010 04:16 PM

I can't wait to get James out there in that Kart.  This seems like the perfect hobby to get the whole family involved in and a great motivator to use as leverage when James doesn't do as daddy says.  My next car will have to be a truck.

You can get a small class 2 trailer.

Christa seems to have good form at Cal Speedway, amazing conisdering no one ever really encoraged her to be a driver.

Posted By smartbomb on 01-25-2010 08:24 PM
That's what guns are for...

i remember being introduced to my first girlfriend's father, and his collection of shotguns on the same day...  it truly is a powerful motivator NOT to screw up!

I remember Christa pointing out the turbocharger's on on of the IMSA cars at Nissan in 2004. Heck the first time we met face to face MIke Christa was a few months old.... Let's face it, kids are rad, I get more enjoyment out of watching my girls learn something for the first time than just about anything I can remember in life! 

Keep us updated on her progress!

Christa's 2010 ride.

Because of the stupid rules, I had to get her a new Kart.  It is a 2006 Top Kart, made in Italy.  I did some research and its one of the most winning Karts in the Cadet class with lots of local parts support.  This was a winning, well sorted and developed kart from a top local kid who outgrew it and was moving up to Jr class.

So Christa and I spent the last 3 weeks rebuilding the Kart as a father daughter project..  Yesterday we finished.

It has a Parillia HPV 100cc engine and for her class it is restricted with airbox, restrictor plate carburetor and pipe to around 9 hp.  The maximum it can produce is around 20 hp but for her class the power is cut.

What is stupid and makes me really mad is that she is tiny in the thing, its hard to see in the pictures but she looks like she is sitting in a LMP 2 car or something.  Most of the labor involved was to try to make it drivable for her,  I had to get a new seat, raise it up and move it forward and to the right to fix the corner weights (these bloody seats are expensive too!)  Get a custom foot box to move the pedals back about 8", lower the steering column, raise the nose to clear her feet since they are way back.

Most of the hard work was to try to make it drivable for her size and she still doesn't really fit and has trouble operating the brake which was another nightmare, I had to redo the pedal and linkage to give her more leverage ratio.  I think she will have to grow another 2" or so to really fit even with all the fiddling.  Look in the pictures, her legs are straight out so she can't hit the brake hard.

To top it off she has to run 80 lbs of ballast since she is light compared to the boys!  I am gonna get a hernia lifting the thing and if she crashes, she will have a hard time freeing herself.  I have to figure out how to stick 80 lbs of lead to the seat since we are not allowed by the rules to put it on the chassis.  Its better on the seat anyway for balance reasons but it gonna be hard on her tiny seat.

The rules guys really need to think about the age thing and look more at size and weight of a kid to determine which class a kid be in.  Not to mention that she is stepping into a kart with 3x the power and 20 mph faster with 2x the acceleration.  The step in classes is huge and dumb.

She is stuck in no mans land, too old to race the smaller karts and to short to race the next class up.  I won't let her drive this thing until she can show me she can lock up the wheels.