Written By: Tyler Thomas Motorsports

(May 25th, 2006) -- This event was a 2 day event for the Stars Eastern series. Tyler and all of the team have been putting in endless hours testing and Jim Stroud with MiSi has spent a ridicules amount of time preparing all of the engines for Tyler. During Friday practice Tyler’s plan was to focus on the chassis setup early and engine selection later in the day. Tyler was never comfortable with the chassis setup all day and it just didn’t have the feel that he was looking for. After several long discussions between the driver, the chassis tuner, and the engine builder the team had a better plan for the first day of racing on Saturday.

Early Saturday the team made some major changes to chassis setup and engine selection looking forward to the results, the Cadet class was first up for morning warm up at 7:45 a.m. After the session Tyler was very happy with the changes that were made very early that morning as he was ranked 5th on the speed charts in the first practice session. A huge improvement from the day before. Qualifying was a huge learning experience for Tyler and the team quickly realized that a drafting partner is a must at these types of events. Tyler would still manage to qualify in the 9th position after spending all but 1 lap hung out by himself.

The prefinal was very exiting, Tyler nearly missed a turn 1 incident and would advance to the 5th position several seconds back from the lead pack as the incident started behind the first 4 in the line up. Running 5 of the 7 laps all alone the 6th though 10th place pack was gaining ground very fast on Tyler who was way out of the draft with 2 to go. As a result Tyler was freight trained on the back straight and when the white flag fell was running in the 10th position. Tyler would maintain 10th until the last lap on the long back straight, Tyler pulled out of the draft and passed 4 karts on the inside in the last turn as Dylan Noble would pass Tyler back at the line by a nose and Tyler would finish in the 7th position.

In the final Tyler would start from the 7th position on the grid. Tyler made a bold move to get into the 4th position coming out of turn 1 on the start of Saturday's final, he would hold onto that position for only ½ of a lap. Going into the turn before the long back straight a kart with a big push from behind would send Tyler about 50 ft out into the Indiana grass. Tyler would return to the track but only after the whole field had passed and he would charge on for the rest of the race with no drafting partners to finish 14th for the day.

On Sunday, Tyler was very exited about the race for the day with the way that he had performed the day before. Tyler would end up 7th on the speed charts during morning practice and was very optimistic for qualifying. On the grid for qualifying Tyler was trying to get some drafting partners together for the qualifying run . With out much help from our drafting partners Tyler still managed to qualify 10th. The prefinal looked to be a promising run for Tyler as he had advanced to the 8th position after only 1 lap on the start of lap 2 Cody Humphreys #43 got into the back of #97 Jaime Ortega and spun him into Tyler’s path. Tyler would continue and Jaime would not. Tyler finished in the 29th position.

In the final with nothing to lose Tyler and Jaime Ortega on the grid planned to work their way to the front together as drafting partners. With Tyler starting 29th and Jaime starting 31st it turned out to be a great combination, the pair would put their selves into 12th and 13th by lap 8 of 11 and they were gaining on the 7th thru 11th place pack by over 1 second a lap and it looked like they would catch them. However, they would have only 1 good shot down the long back straight to gain 4 or 5 spots to the finish. Tyler and Jaime started racing each other harder than they had the whole race and it would end up costing them both several spots as by the end of the race they were only ½ of a second behind 7th thru 11th place. Tyler was very happy with his performance and he had a lot of fun racing with the caliber of drivers in the Stars of Karting Series and even had a few driving lessons along the way. It is always exiting to see the skill and race savy of such a young driver with such a strong will to win come from the back to the front against the best in the country. Tyler Thomas Motorsports will be gearing up for Garnett Ks. which is the next stop on the MASS northern KART series June 3rd and 4th.

Tyler Thomas Motorsports would like to thank all there sponsors for the help to both the team and racing in general. Those include; MiSi , Grand Products , OVRP Racing , B.T.Machine , Walters Web Design , On Track Promotions , and Remington Investigations.