February 7, 2010

Another Super Bowl gone by and an unexpected new championship team has emerged. Well, the same can be said about the results of the 7^th annual KIRL Super Bowl Super Final but not without the shadow of controversy. It seems like there’s never a KIRL race event lately without a controversy involving Josh Nelms and Andy Jones. First, we must give credit where it is due and Josh Nelms has risen above the black cloud of his recent lack luster performances behind the wheel of a racing go-kart. Josh Nelms backed up his 2^nd place podium finish in the KIRL Super Bowl Sunday’s Middleweight Final with an even more impressive run in the event’s Super Final.

Reed Bartuska from Chicago Indoor Racing made the call to run only three weight classes in February’s event for Ken’s Indoor Racing League (KIRL). His decision really concentrated the talent pool in each division. For example, in the Middleweight Final Josh Nelms ran second to current point leader Blake Brown and finished in front of KIRL standouts James Swan, Tommy Jones, Nick Petska and Luke Blazek.

The Lightweight Final was won by Tony Velez over Michael Bilderback, Vern Fagerberg, Andy Jones, Aaron Katzenberg, and Brian MacTrinder (whose driving style incidentally was surprisingly similar to that of Josh Nelms)! The Heavyweight Final was equally loaded with potent competition. Five time KIRL Champion Bill Hartwig struggled to score just one first place finish in four starts! Bill’s #1 son Mike Hartwig nearly clean sweeped the heavyweight division while rookie sensation Andy Gross and Dan Church nearly wore the old man down into submission during the heavy final. Mike Hartwig, Bill Hartwig, Dan Church and Andy Gross were followed to the finish line by Dave Edwards and Ken Johnson.

The top finishing eighteen from the KIRL weight class finals transferred to the KIRL Super Bowl Super Final. Some qualifiers graciously chose to relinquish their spots to a few newcomers and rookies to help them gain experience running the track in the opposite direction. First timer Terry Valentino led the field of 21 to the green. Andy Gross quickly powered past the newbie into the lead and drove away from the pack. From the sidelines the sound of smashing, slapping and grinding noises was deafening. The CIR officials were cringing and many covered their eyes but to everyone’s amazement only heavyweight Rob Nelson was pointing in the wrong direction when the dust settled.

Nobody is exactly sure of what happened during the first lap power struggle but it was clear that 18^th starting Nick Petska, 19^th starting Michael Bilderback and 20^th starting Andy Jones surfaced in the top ten! Josh Nelms and Aaron Katzenberg were sitting in second and third and quickly running down Andy Gross. It took just a few laps for Katz and Nelms to close the gap to Andy Gross. The duo sliced past Gross and drove away with Nelms content to mirror Katzenberg’s every move. All the while Andy Jones was working traffic and picking off KIRL Superstars like they were rookie lappers. Nelms took the inside line heading to the 120 degree left hander before the start finish line on lap 24 and was briefly even with Katzenberg but smartly backed out of the throttle when he realized his path would intersect Katzenberg’s at the next turn and probably send Katz into orbit! Nelms went back to his drafting position behind Katz and rarely left more than half a kart length between him and the leader.

CIR track personnel did a great job waving the blue move over flag when the leaders would approach lapped traffic. Most of the lapped karts did a great job moving out of the racing line and allowing the leaders to maintain their torrid pace nose to tail. Andy Jones sucked up to the rear bumper of Josh Nelms and passed him as if he was being chased by the cops! It was the white flag lap and Andy set his sights on Katz with lapped traffic looming. Only 4 turns were left before the finish and the soon to be lapped cars of Tony Velez and James Swan were in the preferred racing lane. Blue flags were flying and Swan and Velez did their best to move over but their presence ended up congesting one of the crucial last turns.

Andy Jones envisioned his pass for the lead on the inside of Katz who himself was inside of the lapped Swan approaching the turn. Jones had a great idea except it meant three karts would have to negotiate a hard left hander at the end of the track 2 straightaway while side by side! The Jones pass attempt wasn’t going to happen without some major contact and as usual the guy in the middle would get the worst of it. Andy survived heading forward as was Swan while Katz was left sideways for Nelms to T-Bone! The second impact to Aaron Katzenberg knocked him back straight and amazingly he remained in front of Nelms and crossed the finish line second.

After the incident where Aaron Katzenberg lost the lead when being turned by contact, the CIR radios were jammed with corroborating descriptions. CIR officials knew immediately that Andy’s pass for the lead could not be scored (CIR rules are similar to short track ice skating--a pass following contact is not scored). Andy was excited about his accomplishment, starting the last of 20 karts and crossing the stripe first after 30 smoking fast laps, but he knew the chance he took with time running out could go either way. So after an unbelievably exciting finish, Aaron Katzenberg was scored as the winner of the 7^th annual KIRL Super Bowl Super Final, Andy Jones second and Josh Nelms third!