PM: Hah! Yes OVRP is rather known for shaking some karts apart. Given there were some serious injuries at the event, how did you feel about the safety of the track?
Josh: The track overall, I thought was one of the best at protecting people, in the sense of covering virtually everything. The surroundings were covered way better than any street race I’ve ever seen. I don’t agree exactly with where they placed the barriers. It was basically like hitting a safer barrier in nascar. The barriers had nowhere to go when you hit them, no give. The curbing idea… STUPID. A joke. Not sloped right, were not usable, the radius was not right. In a street race the barrier is typically the apex, you get as close as you can to the barrier and that is usually the ticket. But here, when you are chasing somebody, and you want to go for it. In the back of your head you knew you had a little extra real estate, which created people climbing curbs and landing on each other and creating terrible crashes. The first day the chicane was terrible and dangerous. But after the change they made on Friday, it was a million times better. It was easier and straighter.
All that said, I saw a LOT of dirty racing and guys wrecking each other and getting away with it. So that was a shame.
PM: Agreed, that is a shame. What are your overall impressions of the event think you’ll be back in 2015?
Josh: Well, here’s the thing. The way the schedule was, you couldn’t enjoy the city. You couldn’t enjoy the event. At Rock Island, you know you’re done at 4 o’clock. And then you can clean up and go out and enjoy yourselves. We didn’t have the time to go out and spend our money in the city like we said we would. They tried to give us too much racing. Simple as that. I like the event at Rock Island, and texas [Lonestar GP] is just plain fun. This was neither.
You didn’t have time to talk to the little kids that just want to see a go kart. You did’t have time to take the kids and sit them in your kart and talk to them. The schedule was miserable. No one had any chance to enjoy anything. The organizers say they’ll fix these things for next year, so we’ll see.
PM: Alright Josh, we really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us, good luck on the rest of your racing season!
Josh: Anytime!
Side bar, congrats to Josh on his Open Shifter class win at this year’s Rock Island GP after driving through the night directly after a Saturday North East Shifter Series race to arrive early Sunday morning. Starting from the back of the field, with no practice or qualifying Josh stormed through the field for the win.
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