Chris Sahagian memorial

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david a luciani
Posts: 671
Joined: Wed Nov 28, 2007 12:05 am
Vintage Karting items owned: gk800 -r1 -gilson excalibar -rupp concept dual,concept,Cheetah ll, panther -Bug
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Location: new haven ct.

Chris Sahagian memorial

Post by david a luciani » Thu Sep 07, 2017 9:08 pm

i've sat here for about an hour thinking about what to say.
i edited the forum instead because i just didn't have the words.

well here goes.
about two oclock today one of my best friends Chris Sahagian had a massive hearty attack at work.
he was gone before anyone could do anything.
i don't have any details beyond that there's an autopsy scheduled.

For those who don't know chris he was one of the best vintage kart guys on the entire East Coast.
He was a founding member of VKA way before anyone even knew what vintage karting was or could become.
it could be argued that what we're doing today is directly related to the guys who never gave up on the old karts.

him carl billington and a few others were the first nut cases out here to start running the old equipment.
they ran in parking lots dirt tracks dead end streets and occasionally a real actual track.
this was before the internet took off and they gathered together through word of mouth and phone chains.
the first web page was created by another charter member of VKA and the old website was an extension of that whole thing.


i first heard of chris sahagian through rumors.
there was a guy who was supposedly a huge collector who'd sold out years before still dragging swap meets occasionally buying stuff.
it seemed every good deal i just missed was grabbed by a guy who everyone described as big,heavy and a nice guy.
i finally met him buying a part and we occasionally saw each other at swaps.
it turned out that he was a former vintage karter who had bought out whole store back before the stuff was collectable.
he's had literally hundreds of karts but a growing family got him to sell off most everything.
he had so much stuff that he pretty much paid off his morgage even though he sold way to cheaply.

his biggest joke with me was he'd been just like me but he was "well" now.
sorta implying i had a kart problem i guess.

i assured him i'd reinfect him and by golly i did.
we never missed a swap meet and we always were there at least an hour before they opened.
he had tons of friends who all watched for karts for him i never saw anyone with a bigger network of pickers.
this year we were planning on trying new ground because the swaps we've gone to are picked clean.

the last few years Chris was finding and buying lots of karts.
he'd call up tell me what he'd bought and have it running within a few weeks.
he rarely kept them long and would resell often for not much more than he paid.
he'd have fixed them and invested alot of time but to him growing vintage was all worth it.
he recently GAVE ME a king kart with suspension just because he figured i was the best person to own it.

Chris almost never went to events.
he was much happier running his karts in the lots like they did when VKA was still new.
he often would express amazement over how much VKA had changed .
not everything he saw made him happy he felt we'd gone to far towards racing which wasn't the original idea they'd had back then.
he preferred running them and restoring them and had little time for guys who were just looking for cheap racing.
the original guys never figured vintage would grow like it did but he was happy to see it happen.

well today i was working on my little mc10 stroker had just finished porting the first one when the phone rang.
at first i thought oh oh i'm in trouble as it was getting late.
i was happy to see Chris's number popping up.
it's funny i'd been planning to call him to talk about TBO and see if the karts were gonna be at the lot this weekend.
also kinda figured on bragging a little about the port work.

BUt it wasn't Chris, his wife was on the phone and she never calls still the last thing i expected was to hear he was gone.
but he is as we all will be someday.
i'll miss him

REST IN PEACE ole buddy rest in peace
Angel

REAR
Posts: 1221
Joined: Sat Jun 16, 2007 10:19 am

Re: Chris Sahagian memorial

Post by REAR » Fri Sep 08, 2017 7:18 am

Dave,

Very sad news of Chris' passing.

Met Chris at the first Cuddybackville a long time ago and he was a good guy who loved old karts just for sake that they were old karts.

R.I.P. Chris

Bob Kurkowski

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