SportKart USA Grand Nationals 2015

Past couple of days, the CalSpeed track in Fontana (California, US) hosted the Sport Kart Grand Nationals. This event is regarded as the national championship in the United States. It’s a well-organised event that has a big following, and the top drivers are present each year.

The number of high level races and championships in the US is still pretty small, so a lot of the best drivers count the days for this event.

The participants were mainly US-residents, but there were also some drivers from abroad. Some Colombians were present, as well as a handful of drivers from the UK. Sadly, no other Europeans were present.

Biggest name missing was probably Mike Smith, one of the very best in the US.

CalSpeed ran Sodi RX250 karts for this event. A pretty special feature is the slipstreaming and draft-effect, which can have a significant influence on the laptimes. When you’re driving together in a group you’re usually faster than when you’re driving alone, and when you’re at the front of the pack you’re usually slower while the guys behind you can get ‘out of the wind’. This means extra close racing, more position changes, and races that are often only decided at the very last corner. You can work together with other drivers to ‘push’ eachother along. This means an extra dimension and strategy to the racing…

After 3 days of close racing, it seemed to be the more experienced drivers in this way of racing that ended at the top.
Qualifiers, semi finals, a ‘loser finale’ (where the top 5 still gets through to the real final), and the Super Final. Drivers could gain points for the championship in all races.

Before the start of the Super Final there were still 13 (!) drivers that had a shot at the title. We saw a very exciting and close race, where local favorite Jerott King lost his hopes at the title in the opening laps after being involved in an accident and getting shoved off the track into the tires.
At the front of the pack it were Logan Calvin, Andrew Wood and Andres Prieto that fought for the win. Calvin was the driver that took pole and lead the first half of the race.
Prieto was no threat for the championship, so Calvin and Wood only had to keep an eye out for eachother. Calvin entered the final corner in second position, and by defending he could keep his position and stay in front of Wood, and thus take the title!
The Super Final itself was won again (just as in 2014) by de Colombian driver Andres Prieto.

Results of all sessions can be found on MyLaps.com. The final classification of the championship you can also find here.

Top 15 (and added some internally known names):
1. Logan Calvin – 897 points
2. Andrew Wood – 891 points
3. Jon Kimbrell – 878 points
4. Aaron Downs – 876 points
5. Darren Mercer – 872 points
6. Miles Calvin
7. Chris Huerta
8. Taylor Hays
9. Andres Prieto
10. Jerott King
11. Wes Dent
12. Sergio Bravo
13. Diego Morales
14. Adam Nagao
15. Ed White
…
20. Fred Ogrim
…
25. Sean Brierley
26. Michael Weddell
27. Connor Marsh
…
31. Adam Kellerman
…
37. Lee Hackett

A masters-subclassification grouped the older drivers, and a team classification was made by making the sum of the points of all 3 drivers in a team.
The masters saw a very exciting battle between Sergio Bravo and Diego Morales, but eventually it was the former that took the title. Marc Connell took third here.

In the team-championship it was SPV-K1/Veritrue that took the title, followed by T4 Autosport / R@ndom Manufacturing and T4 Autsport.

The drivers that finished in the top 5 overall got some very nice cash prices!

Nice event!

A bunch of photos can be found on the SportKartUsa Facebook-page.
Recorded streams of the races you can find on Livestream.com.

Maybe next year some Belgians and other Europeans could get involved! Curious what they would manage.