(St. Louis, MO - September 4th, 2006) -- This weekend the Walters Motorsports Team headed to Rock Island, IL for the Rock Island Grand Prix. This race is one of the biggest karting races in the country. Last year Shane failed to qualify for the race as he wrecked in the last chance qualifier. In 2006, they added a new class to the group a Yamaha Jr. class. Since this is such a fast track and it is set up in the downtown streets of Rock Island, IL they have not let anyone under 16 years old race. That all changed this year.
Saturday was a practice day as well a qualifying day. Shane would come out and jump up to a 22nd qualifying position of 57 karts, only a tenth of a second from 10th. He was very happy with this as last year we has around 40th or 45th with the same amount of karts. Evan would take his Intrepid Cruiser to the 6th position in the Yamaha Jr. Class of 20 karts. This again was a very good accomplishment, the weekend we starting to look very good for the entire team.
On Sunday, Some things would turn out pretty good while others would not. Shane would get one heck of a run on the inside of the final. He would jump up to the 10th position by the time they got to turn 2 of the 20 lap main event. However, while he was passing another kart on the inside going into turn one another kart went in between them. Shane knew going 3 wide would not work going into turn 2 so he backed off. At the same time he backed off another karter thought he could make a four wide position work. He slammed into the left side of Shane's kart and bent his rear axle. He thought about racing anyway but he didn't want to break anything else and he wasn't sure the axle was the only thing that was bent. He would be forced to yet another DNF at the Rock Island Grand Prix.
Evan on the other hand had all kinds of drama in his 10 lap feature race. As they were taking the karts on the track for the start it began to rain. They delayed the race about 30 min as it would rain a little and stop, over and over during the entire time. Finally, they decided to call for rains and Evan would race in yet another rain race during his 2006 season. He has had a lot of rain practice this year and was looking forward to the race. On the start, he would get passed by 2 other karts pushing him back to 9th. He worked around 2 of the karts pretty quick. The other would take a while but he pulled it off. He would finish in the 6th position. The race started with only a little rain on the track so the team did not go to a FULL rain set up on the chassis. It turned out this was a bad call as Evan complained of having a very bad handling kart the entire race.
The team is unsure what the plans are for the upcoming weekends. They will be getting the new dirt car sometime this week and they will spend all their time trying to put it together by the 17th of September.
For more information on the above race tracks including driving directions. Please visit www.RockIslandGrandPrix.com.
Click here to view Shane's 2006 schedule and results. Click here to view Evan's 2006 Schedule and results. Please stay turned to these pages using the TOURS link at the top of this page and follow the team with their results and point standing throughout the 2006 racing season.
Walters Motorsports would like to thank all our sponsors for there continued support to the team and racing in general. Those include; Caribbean Creme, Champion Racing, Intrepid Kart Technology, Walters Web Design, WMS Race Parts, Home Service Oil Co., Shane Walters Photography, Impressive Race Cars, Hovis Racing Engines, and Mayhem Motorgraphixx.
Media Contact: Walters Motorsports -
Shane@WaltersMotorsports.com
www.WaltersMotorsports.com
