AC Capehart/Speed Week(end) Pt. 3

Created Mon, 09 Oct 2006 05:52:00 +0000 Modified Thu, 14 Oct 2021 14:31:47 +0000
454 Words

The Go-Kart racing. That was fun, but I’m still sore. A bunch of Lindens went down to Burlingame, CA where we went to GoKart Racer Where you do the racing (I guess at other GoKart places, your mom does the racing?)

There were roughly 30 of us there for racing. The sign-in process wasn’t bad, but was a little slow as we all had to go through a process for which there are a few computers, and of course we arrived as a bunch.

I though I’d driven GoKarts before, but any previous experience was clearly outclassed by this. In the locker room were jumpsuits that we put on — I guess just to keep clothing parts from dangling into moving GoKart pieces.

The 30 of us were divided into 3 groups, of which I was in the first. Each group got 10 minutes of “practice” on the Yokohama track where I guess we were supposed to learn how the karts handled, what line we might want to chose through the turns, etc. I certainly just used it as race time regardless of the intent, and I think most of my peers did as well.

One of the things I enjoyed about it was the data that they provide. It’s an indoor track, and every lap is timed for you. You get a graph of your position relative to other drivers on a lap-by-lap basis, as well as a “proscore” ™. I’m supposed to be able to go get more race details from http://scores.oskarsystems.com/gkr/ but last time I checked, it was broken.

In the first race (the practice), I came in second in my group with a best lap of 28.63 seconds. In the second (the qualifier) I came in third with a best lap time of 28.13 seconds. This was a good enough performance to be included in the actual race which took the 10 best of us among all three groups. I started out mid-pack based on my qualifying time, but worked my way up to third by the end, with a best lap of 27.42. The winner in our group had a best lap of 26.29 — coincidentally the best lap time of the week at the course, so he definitely earned it.

Much to my (pleasant) surprise, they had a little awards ceremony for us afterward, and they presented us with trophies! I hope to have more pictures to add in later as we see what turns up at work. Suffice it to say, I had a blast!