Motorsport Country Club of Cincinnati: Shayne Graham Event

Yesterday I got to participate in one amazing event. You know how celebrities organize charity golf event where a corporation pays a large sum to the charity and then they get to send three guys (or gals) to golf with a celebrity? Well, when Shayne Graham organizes the event, you never know what you're going to get. He doesn't do things the normal way. He figured that golf was boring and he should spice things up. So, instead, he organized the Shayne Graham Celebrity Race-Off at the Motorsport Country Club of Cincinnati. The Motorsport Country Club of Cincinnati is a new 0.7 mile KART track near Eastgate. It was a blast!

The Motorsport Country Club of Cincinnati is about 10 minutes east of 275 on the east side of Cincinnati. So, it took a little while to get there and we had to drive through some really small towns out in the middle of nowhere. But, once we finally got there, the place was hoppin’. As we pulled in, we saw a bright yellow Lamborghini parking in front of us. I didn’t realize that celebrities enjoy driving their fancy cars to events like this, but I took a few pictures of the cars that cost more than my house. Shayne had his own Lamborghini there, as well.

So, we go up and register and meet some more people from Mercy: a few surgeons and friends of Greg (my in-law and PR guy for Mercy Hospital). Mercy sponsored two karts, so that meant they got to bring 6 drivers with them; three drivers per kart plus a random celebrity for each kart. I got to be a driver and we thought my brother Justin would just get to observe and take pictures. But, when we meet one of the surgeons from Mercy who was going to drive, he decided that he would rather watch and let Justin be a driver for their kart. Excellent! Justin would now be able to drive and I would be able to kick his butt on the race track. That would be fun.

Greg and I meet up with Jungle Jim (of Jungle Jim’s International Market in Fairfield) and proceeded to mingle with some celebrities. I meet Kenny Irons, Shayne Graham, Dave Fulcher, “Frosty”, and a couple other celebs (mostly Bengal players) that were going to be driving with us. To be honest, I was more excited to meet Jungle Jim. After a little while, they served us some very good Montgomery Inn ribs and chicken and then we proceeded to the drivers meeting and pre-race talk. This is where they told us how to make the karts go and how not to kill ourselves.

The karts are cool. They are not your run of the mill, “putt-putt adventure park” style go-karts. These babies can go 60 mph and can hurt you if you’re not careful. So, after the talk we got out on the track and had half an hour for our team to practice driving the course and to get a feel for the track. The whole event was set up like an actual race. We had helmets (absolutely needed at 60 mph), caution flags, a pace kart, and even a pit area. The karts are just amazing. Those things can fly. The best way to drive was to go as fast as possible around the track without slipping (aka drifting). As soon as you started drifting around corners, you would lose too much speed and somebody would probably pass you. It was incredibly tiring driving, too. You had to have all your concentration focused on the race and kart and your arms were straining around the corners. At the end of my laps my hands were shaking and I was weak. My lap times were only a few seconds off of Shayne Graham’s times, so I was happy with how I was doing. It looked like we might have a chance to win this thing.

So, after the practice, we picked one driver to set our qualifying time. Shayne Graham was our celeb and he had done been racing these karts for a couple weeks, so he set our time and got us into second place. So, I started the race and quickly got right behind the second place guy and followed him for the first lap when I slipped a little coming around the last turn and went into the grass. This allowed a few people to pass me, one of them, unfortunately, being Justin. So, I got back on the track and over the next 10-15 minutes I got us back into second place, behind Justin. At this point, Shayne flagged me down for a shift change; it was Greg’s turn. Greg ran a couple laps without any problem, but at about lap five, he had one spectacular wreck (the best of the day). One the sharp S-turn, he didn’t break enough and jumped off the track, over a small hill, crossed over more track, and smashed into a couple hay bails. Hay went everywhere. It was quite spectacular. But, this put us down 2 laps and then when Greg entered back into the pack, quite dazed I’m sure, and behind the pace car, he took a wrong turn and they counted another lap against us. So, when Jungle Jim came up to drive, we were pretty much out of it. But, Jungle had some great lap times and gained a couple places. Shayne was our last racer and he had no chance to catch up but ran some of the fasted times of the day. Justin’s team did a great job (although, I’ve heard they may have cheated a little bit) and ended up in third place. All in all, we got last, but it was one of the most fun experiences I’m had in a long time. So much so, that Justin and I are trying to figure out how we can race more in the future. I would like to thank Shayne Graham (and Greg for inviting me) for his unique charity fund raiser event. It really was a great time and I’m sure they raised a lot of money for the Shayne Graham Foundation.