Mid West Sprint Series

Elkhart Lake, WI

September 1, 2002

Andy Rossetto continues to improve at Road America

This weekend's MWSS was Andy's second senior race in HPV and started out as one of the most promising events. Saturday's HPV light practice started well, as Andy was fast from the start and improved throughout the day. His lap time improved again during Sunday's morning warm-up. The best practice lap time was 50.89 sec. The team did not know what to expect for qualifying. Many times in the past Andy was fast during practice but never carried it over to qualifying. To our pleasant surprise the time sheet put Andy in the first row by posting the second best time.

Top 5 qualifiers were: T. Hintche 50.237, D. Rossetto 50.360, J Eschtrich 50.390, C. Reeves 50.506, T. Loniewski 50.525.

For the pre-final, starting on the outside of the front row, the plan worked perfectly as Andy took the lead on the first turn sweeper and held it up the hill to turn 2. Andy was pulling away about .1 sec. per lap, but Loniewski was coming up fast. With 3 laps to go, and Loniewski on his rear bumper, Andy went wide coming down the hill, hits the outside curb in turn 7 kicking up his rear wheel and spinning the kart into the grass. This was unfortunate because it put him out of the front row for the final, as he still has problems passing karts. Andy recovered from the spin to finish 7th.

During the final, as predicted, Andy was stuck behind a group of 4 karts and could not pass them. After an excellent start of the weekend and being one of the fastest drivers in HPV Light, 5th place was a disappointment.

September 2, 2002

The next day, on Labor Day, Tony Coello prepared the kart for HPV heavy. A huge thunderstorm and heavy rain overnight, wiped out practice and shortened the schedule to qualifying and a 15 laps final. Qualifying was a wash out as Andy never got the tires warmed up in the 4-lap qualifier, and only managed 10th place with a time of 52.799 sec.

Top 5 qualifiers were: J. Dresang 51.942, C. Jump 52.015, J. Bernard 52.241, M. Keck 52.247, K. Guess 52.329.

Starting the final in the 5th row, Andy got boxed in and lost two spots on the start but quickly got them back before the first lap ended. For the rest of the race he passed 4 more karts including a fabulous last lap pass on the final turn, turn 15, to finish 6th. This race was another good learning experience. Andy passed more karts in this race than in all the races so far this year.