Marshall Martin (National Race Director for the Rotax series) invited Karoline and I to the 2008 Rotax Nationals which was held at Shawno Wisconsin at the USA Raceway. One issue we had was that the race was being held on the same weekend as the MotoGP at Indy, and so we decided to make a vacation of it and travel around Michigan's Upper Peninsula and down to Shawno to check out practice and qualifying on Tuesday and Wednesday.
While there we ran into our friends from SSC West, Northwest and East, all are the CRG/Rotax distributors for their given areas.
First thing I want to say is that the city of Shawno is not what we thought. We had heard that the track was in the middle of nowhere... Well that's not completely try. It is a long way from most bigger cities. The town of Shawno is a very nice little place. Lots of hotels and restaurants and a beautiful downtown. The USA Raceway was around two miles from our hotel, which is about as close to a race track as we have ever stayed.
The Shawno track is an awesome 1.1-mile up and down roller coaster ride and has a multitude of very fast sections as well as many blind corners. The pavement and width of the track are first class, as is the facility.
Teams and drivers drove from all over the USA to compete. SOme of the top finishers will have qualified to compete in the Rotax World Finals on November 27-30 at La Conca International Circuit in Muro Leccese, Italy.
One of the highlight for us was watching the best drivers in the USA, particularly the DD2 shifter class where they absolutely fly. Andres Lopez was the DD2 winner
Although we missed the race finals which were run in the rain (due to our commitment to attend the Indianapolis MotoGP), we enjoyed the short time we had watching the practice and qualifying sessions. The number of families, fathers with sons and daughters reminded me of motocross. A real sense of family exists in karting. Just check out the pictures of the little guys and gals flying around the track!
Here are some of the winners .Arie Ouimet (CRG) won the Rotax Senior, Andres Lopez (Tony Kart) won the DD2 shifter class, Daniel Formal (Tony Kart) won the Rotax Junior class, Marc Miller (Monza) won the Rotax Masters class, AJ Myers (Tony Kart) won the Mini Max class and Patricio O’Ward (Arrow) won the Micro Max class. CLICK HERE to veiw the complete results.
If you don't understand the class structure or have questions regarding the Rotax sealed engin series check ot the Rotax Max Challenge website and or the Rotax engine/class structure site. There is an engine class starting with kids age 4 and up through adults.
Of course I plan to get my CRG/Rotax to this track next year if for no other reason than to just go out, do a track day there and enjoy this wonderful race track!
Check out the links on the sidebar for information on Shawno, if you would like to go to the Rotax Nationals in 2009 and if you are looking to get into karting contact the team at LSR Motorsports.
