Near Success at Las Vegas Supernationals
Photo Courtesy of James Cox/Italian Motors

November 1, 2004 - After being away from karting for six months while dedicating his time to open wheel racing, David Jurca decided it was time to get back in a kart and compete at the biggest annual karting event in North America, the Supernationals.

Practice started less than ideal as David Jurca worked on tuning his kart at the UNLV stadium street course. After the first practice day, Jurca, and his mechanic Dave Carpentier (2003 SKI Tuner of the Year) made some drastic changes to the kart and hoped their experience would come in handy. In the next day's morning warmup, Jurca shot to the top of the time sheets and was confident for the upcoming qualifying session.

With the new set of tires bolted on, David Jurca was ready for the Supernationals qualifying session. A lap time of 50.954 would line him up second, just 3 hundredths of a second off of pole position.

In the prefinal, Ron White would squeeze Jurca to the apex of turn 1, forcing Jurca to hit the barrier and drop four postions. By the end of the race, David was able to get back up to second, and enroute made the fastest lap of the race. Jurca would line up 4th for the final race.

At the start of the final, White squeezed polesitter Jason Bowles to the apex until they touched, slowing both drivers down considerably. David Jurca would take advantage of this and drive around the outside of both. At the next turn, White drove straight to the apex and hit Jurca's left rear tire sending him flying into the wall and ending the day for both drivers. It was an unfortunate end to a promising weekend.

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