Updated Dec 7, 2007

Nick decides not to race
Nick decided not to race in 2007. We still really don't know why. But he enjoys soccer and baseball, so he had enough on his plate already. By season's end, Dad had sold off most of Nick's equipment as Nick can no longer run in the Kid karts class anyhow (too old) and he outgrew all of his safety gear.

Mike's 2007 in review
Mike committed to running the CES road racing series again in 2007. The first race was to be in April at Gateway in St. Louis. However, right before the event, Mike was diagnosed with RCE (recurring coronial erosion). Basically, the top cornea layer in his right eye separates occasionally from the bottom layer, resulting in some serious pain.

Right before the Gateway race, Mike had one of his worst flare-ups, which prompted him to visit the doctors and thus the diagnosis. It hadn't healed by race time, so Mike elected to stay home near the doctors in case it went berserk. Mike's first race ended up being at Gingerman.

Gingerman went OK, but his finish didn't show that. On Saturday, he was cruising along in 2nd place, reeling in first place. But one by one, his competitors went by. He eventually caught the now 4th place kart, but could not get past him. On the last lap, he dive bombed as deep as he could into the corner on the inside and made the pass. Unfortunately, his competitor, Joe, did a great job of keeping his momentum up and got alongside Mike. They crossed the finish line with Joe about 4 inches in front of Mike. But it was a great race.

On Sunday, Mike was leading when he got tapped from behind and spun out. He managed to get 4th place, but he was now sunk bad in the points. Gateway was a drop and he had two bad finished at Gingerman.

At RA, Mike's motor wouldn't fire on Saturday's race. Nothing like a 17th place finish to help you out in the points! Mike was sunk.

On Sunday, Mike ended up 3rd after a hard battle with eventual class winner Mike Hoff.

Next was Grattan. And Mike had another eye flare-up. Probably his worst one yet. So Mike missed the trip. He figured he had no shot at any championship so forget about it.

Mike got a handle on how to control his eye flare-ups and made the last 2 races of the year, Blackhawk and Milwaukee. However, something went amiss and he ended up toasting most of his Yamaha motors in all the races.

Mike tried racing a Briggs Animal at the Milwaukee race. He faired pretty well and he is seriously looking at running it in 2008.