The Jr Leagues at Lehigh Valley Grand Prix have become a showcase for some of the best Jr drivers in indoor karting.  Each week it is truly amazing to watch these kids race in 20 minute, wheel to wheel racing, features!  The program attracts kids from all different racing experience levels and provides a great racing experience for everyone!

“We have kids that race sling shots, quarter midgets and outdoor go karts that use the league as a way to keep their skills sharp in the off-season.  We also have participants that have never raced or driven a vehicle in their life!  It is exciting to watch them all improve over the 8 week program,” said Kyle Lick, assistant competition director.

The winter league had 3 classes for the competition.  The league started in mid January and ran until March 3rd.  Each week for 8 weeks the participants would race in a 5 minute qualifier followed by a 20 minute feature.  The fastest qualifier would start on the pole position for the feature race.  The Spring League will begin on April 14th and run for 8 consecutive weeks.  The cost is $175.

We would like to give a big congratulations to all of the Winter League participants and parents and we hope to see you in the Spring league!!  Here are the final results from the Winter League.

Class A

1. Zack Dunn “Z Racer” 5909 pts, 2.  Joey Brey “JoetheTraitor” 5609 pts, 3.  Kalynn Strobel “KalynnTheMadness” 5206, 4.  Noah Kreitzer “Sanitator” 4768 pts,  5.  Hunter Stewart “Flaming Bull” 4631 pts, 6.  Jase Smith “JPSRacer24″ 4528 pts, 7. John Coranati “Vito” 4217 pts.

Class B

1.  Brycen Jasionowski “BMAN” 5916 pts, 2.  Kiel Cochran 5785 pts, 3.  Josh Patterson “Bullet Bill” 5354 pts, 4.  Brandon Gehris “I Like Chicken” 5302 pts, 5.  Spencer Patterson “Spencer” 5080pts,  6.  Kimberlee Taylor “Kimbo” 3687 pts.

Class C

1.  Christian Eckes “Christian” & Alex McCollum “WildChild” 6252 pts, 3.  David Rush ”David” 5194 pts, 4.  Chandler Gavin “Chandler” 5171 pts, , 5.  Nicholas Winton “Terminator” 4518 pts, 6.  Alex Roan “Alex” 4080 pts.

LVGP just finished up the fall round of junior leagues.  This round of leagues did not lack excitement! The final results for all 3 class were determined on the final day of racing.  All of the competitors showed great improvement from week 1 to week 8.  New challenges were provided to returning drivers with the introduction of the adult kart class to the program.

“We felt it was important to add some excitement to the program by adding the adult karts.  The team spent a great deal of time and effort into getting the karts ready for each week,” said Kyle Lick the new Race Director for the jr program.

The top class in adult karts had the closest finish in league history.  Drivers Hunter Stewart “Flaming Bull” and Jase Smith “JPSRacer24″ were seperated by a single point after 8 weeks.  On the final lap of the final race Jase passed Zack Dunn “ZRacer” to gain the much needed point to put in into first place.

Final Results

A Class: 1. JPSRACER24, 2.  Flaming Bull, 3.  JoetheTraitor, 4.  Z Racer, 5.  Vito, 6.  Malibu Barbie, 7.  Dominator24, 8.  Wildchild

B Class: 1.  Richie, 2.  KalynnTheMadness, 3.  Sanitator, 4.  Jigga, 5.  Kimbo, 6.  David,  7.  Speed, 8.  Harry

C Class: 1.  bRainfreez, 2.  Raptor, 3.  BigDog,  4. Trident,  5.  Silver Bullet,  6.  Legally Blonde, 7.  Silver Bullet , 8.  Christian

The team at Lehigh Valley Grand Prix is always looking to improve products and to enhance the racing experience.  This fall the team has come together to establish, what could be the best league experience in indoor karting.

Competition Director, Ryan Suchon, and Assistant Competition Director, Kyle Lick, have evaluated the programs of the past and have taken their experiences to improve this next round.  Kyle is a new addition to the competition team and is now the director for the Jr Progam.  Kyle’s racing experience, knowledge of the karting facility and enthusiasm are sure to take the program to a new level.  Here is a list of areas that have been focused upon:

• Performance of Jr Karts-  We have torn apart all of the Jr karts to enhance the performance and experience of the drivers.  5 of the 9 karts used for the league racing will have new engines.  All of the karts will have brand new tires.
• Jr League Race Classes-  The fall leagues will now offer Jr league drivers the opportunity to race in adult karts pending they meet one of the 3 requirements.  The requirements are; 34.000 in a jr kart (prior to league start), 14 years of age, 55 inches in height.
• Points System for Adult and Jr Leagues-  The new point system is now heading towards an industry standard in the Sodi World Series.  All drivers are encouraged to register on the Sodi site to gain world wide exposure for their league results.
• Wall of Fame-  The facility will be adding a wall of fame to recognize top drivers in the facility.  League winners will be recognized on the wall for all the customers to see!!

For more information on the fall leagues email competition@lehighvalleygrandprix.com.

The economy has had a major effect on the racing world over the past 2 years.  I believe that continuing to invest in your products and delivering on your customer’s demands is key to survival.  Just yesterday Indoor Karting News released that it will be closing it’s doors.  Excuses such as economic factors and business model issues were the major reasons for ending the sites existence.  I strongly believe that this could have been avoided if the company simply listened to their customers.

IKN had some great ideas on how to grow the indoor karting community through forums, driver rankings and advertising for tracks, however, I feel the site had some major flaws.  The driver rankings did not include drivers from tracks who were not partners with the website.  How can you have a true national ranking when you don’t have 80% of the drivers listed due to their track not advertising on the site?  Also, there were major flaws in how the scoring was kept.  Drivers from tracks with a great number of major races had points that were weighed heavier than the tracks with less events.  Also, the rankings did not differentiate endurance competitions from individual races.  The site also did not involve a kids ranking.

To finish on a high note, overall, I felt the site was a great step for the industry.  It is disappointing to see it fail but I think there was some great learning for other sites and future competition strategy.  Lehigh Valley Grand Prix is now partnering up with Sodi World Series which is an international ranking series that has some great promise in growing this fast growing sport.

Holiday Gift Cards are available at the track.  If you are looking to give the gift of excitement and adrenaline a gift card to LVGP would be the winning ticket!  Call the track today to order your gift cards.  610-432-RACE(7223)

Week 3 in junior league were great as always good racing in both divisions. Couple juniors missed week 3, making the point standings in each group tighter. 1 point seperates the top 2 in group A and in group B we have a 4 way tie for 1st place in points! Should be fun to see how things unfold in the remaining 5 weeks! As always you can check out scores and results at Indoorkartingnews.com or on our facebook fan page!