Finally the much anticipated date came up where we were to compete in the US Grand Nationals. The event took place at New Castle Motorsports Park in Indiana and although we are spoiled having Infineon International Karting Center as our home track especially the facilities in New Castle were a nodd up compared to what we are used to.

The track itself is 1 mile with two very long and fast straights where drafting is huge, fast sweeper corners, tight hairpins as well as banked corners. Or  in other words it got it all. A little bit narrow and hopeless curbs/rumble strips but all in all a great track. Furthermore there is on-track restaurant, bar, VIP lounges with panorama view over the track excellent service and RV facilities.

June 27th was the date for the fourth round of the NorCal Rotax Challenge, the Redline Oil Karting Championship this time at the technical and physically demanding Reverse Sprint layout. Due to business travel in Europe we missed the 3rd round, but it is allowed to skip two races in the Championship we were not too concerned about that. We were anxious to get on the track upon our solid start of the Championship with two consecutive wins. When we showed up at the track we were finally (for California) met with almost perfect weather that just got better an warmer throughout the weekend.

April 11th was the date for the second round of the NorCal Rotax Challenge, the Redline Oil Karting Championship this time at the technical and physically demanding Sprint layout that we had not run since July last year. We were anxious to get on the track upon our solid start of the season with one win and two thirds. When we showed up at the track we were met with almost perfect weather but the report for Sunday was heavy rain and wind - something that would show to be right!