Enduro Go-Kart Race
Want: speed and thrills.
Problem: time and money.
Solution: go-karting.
Added bonus: works for parents and kids!
I love the fact that I live near a place like F1 Boston. When a speeding urge kicks in or I have some stress to relieve, I go there, pay some money and drive balls out. It’s intense, it’s difficult and it’s awesome. Let me spare you the details about this place, just go to their website for more info.
It’s common knowledge that most high ranked drivers got their start at an early age behind the wheel of a go-kart. It’s the most basic, grassroots, form of motorsport out there and everyone can do it. Unfortunately, like everything in motorsports, it’s not cheap. Each race will cost you almost $30 (roughly 10 minutes/race) plus the cost of daily or annual license (which I think is BS). When my local chapter of BMW-CCA announced that they will have a 90 minute enduro race on the two combined tracks (aprox ½ mile in length) for about $60 per person, I jumped on it. Three friends and I did the race and here is a little story:
Before the race:
- Our team name – Skidmark Racing
- Out team pit flag – poster of Magan Fox in a bikini, hell yea! (Tony’s brilliant idea)
We went over our pit strategy. There would be no refueling, so that part was easy. We’ve agreed that penalties for being an a-hole would do us nothing good, so we’d make an effort not be a-holes.
We had a weight-in, an average weight of all teams was taken an weight was added to the light teams to make things equal. A lottery system was used to determine who gets what cart. There was a briefing describing flags, penalties and general race stuff. We looked around and saw there a few guys brought their own helmets and even race suits; a-hole alert!
Qualifying:
We had half an hour to get familiar with the track, we could make as many pit stops and driver changes as possible. Your best lap time goes toward your starting grid position. I swear, we had the slowest fucking go-kart ever. One of my friend was about 130lbs and he was being passed by guys who were 200lbs, going uphill. F@&K!!!! We qualified dead last. However, we bitched and complied about our kart and we were going to be given a different kart, as long as we keep that one for the whole race. We took it, as it could not have possibly been any worse.
Start:
After a warm up lap, it was a rolling start. Going into lap two I saw that my teammate Andy has managed to gain about five spots. Hell Yea!! We have a kart that we can actually be competitive in!!
Toward the end of the second lap, as we watch from the paddock, we see yellow flags go up. And then they changed to red flags. They tell everyone to stop. WTF, really? Later I’ve learned that there was a little crash and one car span out and stopped at the track. The kart behind him stopped too… but the kart behind that kart did not, and it hit the stopped kart so hard that the driver fell out and that kart sustained enough damage to be removed from the race .Wow, serious shit, no seatbelts, mind you.
Yup, you guessed it, it was Andy that got hit. Our kart was replaced, again. I guess Andy was ok, I’m not sure, never really asked. The race was restarted again with a warm up lap and rolling start. We’re watching Andy, and over the next few laps we see that he’s not gaining any more spots, in fact he was passed. We have him pit in and we change drivers. Our new-new kart is a dog. Great.
The Race:
Ninety minutes is damn long. We had about seven pit stops which was the minimum requirement. We were giving it our all, but really, our kart was just not competitive, we were the Force India of that race. Few observations:
- Yes, as we speculated the guys in the race suits were the biggest a-holes, having been personally bumped and spun a few times (damn you, pit maneuver).
- Those a-holes also happened to be some of the fastest.
- While we may have had the slowest effing kart ever, it did not mean that we should pull to the right and let others pass, this is a race after all and if you can’t get pass the slower car, then you don’t deserve to be in the lead.
- Most people came out to have fun and enjoy a day of karting and hanging out with like-minded individuals, not caring of they win or not.
- You get tired, fast. It’s quite a workout, you sweat, you stress, you have some serious fun!!
In the end we came second to last. Hell yea!! It was a ton of fun and we’ll definitely do it again, especially since there is also an outdoor track! :-O
Some gokarting related links for you:
- http://www.allracer.com/home.htm
- http://www.prospeedkartsports.com/
- http://www.ssceast.com/dealers.asp
- http://www.rysaracing.com/
- http://www.mrpmotorsport.com/index.htm
- http://www.creativekarting.com/index.htm
- http://www.gobirel.com/
- http://www.mrpmotorsport.com/
