This was Cody's third year racing in the Florida Winter Tour so we had hoped for good results. The Tour would once again go to the parking lot in Homestead, Fl. for race one and two, Moroso for races three and four and Ocala, OGP for races five and six.

To start all this Rotax came out with a new tire, the D2, which was unavailable until the race at Homestead. No one on the East Coast was able to test on the tire until the weekend of the race

I sent Cody's race to Legree Racing; motor which was running perfectly but was at twenty hours and due to be checked and new piston installed. What a mistake sending the motor to Legree was, more later.

Homestead Jan. 2008:

We went down on the Thrusday before the race to get some practice in and get registration completed. Having just received the motor back from Legree Cody had very little time to run the motor up to this point. Second lap of practice the motor let loose, counter balance bearing went taking all the plastic gears and half the case with it. Because Legree didn't replace a $22.00 bearing it cost us a $3000.00 motor more or less. From there the weekend went down hill quickly. Legree won't honor his lack of doing a good job on Cody's motor and fix it so we where stuck running a old practice motor. My wallet was stolen out of the truck there at the track Thrusday afternoon. It was a horrible weekend of racing but Cody kept his head up and did the best he could. Shame on Legree for doing a shoddy job on Cody's motor and for not stepping up to make it right with Cody, do not take a motor to Legree please.

Cody did as well as he could on the old practice motor but the results aren't worth mentioning unfortunately. The weekend took the wind out of my sails for sure. It would take until March for us to get a race motor that we felt confident in so we skipped the races at Moroso.

Ocala, Fl. - OPG March 2008: Home track, no hotel what more could you ask for. I had taken Cody's old practice motor to Dave at TS Racing to have him rebuild it and he did an outstanding job. I highly recommend TS racing to have your Rotax serviced, thanks Dave.

Richard Gray from Gray Racing come to Ocala to help Cody out and it was great to have his support all weekend. Also thanks to Donald at Advanced Karting, Ariel from CMW and his dad for all their help during the weekend.

Friday timed practices where rained out so qualifying order was set by points, not good as Cody had no points. So he was stuck running with the slow group something we had hoped to avoid. Click on a small image to see a larger image.

Cody didn't let it get him down he went out and set some blistering lap times finishing in P1 both days in group 1 in qualifying.

Saturday Cody start twenty and in the pre final set the fourth fastest lap time of all 34 Jr's. He worked his way up to ninth place when he and Jarvis got together just a bit but it was enough to give Cody a flat tire. He finished the last five laps with a flat rear tire and finished in 15th place, not bad for having a flat rear tire.

Sunday Cody started 17th in the pre final after qualifying in P1 in group 1 again. During tech after qualifying I did not put his carb. back together all the way thinking I would do it when I got back to the pits. Well I forgot and Cody went out to race the pre final and only made two laps before it came apart. I felt so bad that it was something that was my responsibility that caused this, Cody has worked so hard to achieve a good finishing spot that day. He kept his head up, never got mad and me and just went about getting ready for the final in which he would start 34th.

Coming from 34th Cody picked off seberal karts each lap and finished a very respectful 18th. He could have given up after the pre final but he kept his head about him and passed 15 karts in the final, I'm very proud of his effort.

Pictures below from Florida Winter Tour March 2008 OGP. Click on picture to see a bigger view.