Karting

[Brad Sheridan <brads@mindspring.com>]

Hey,
For you big bunch of girlies(Ken, Mike, Kev, you know who you are:)) who
couldn't make it down to Speedworld in San Diego, let me just say we had a
ball down there. Doug and Kathy(you know the one whose email account Doug
uses) showed up also. We met at Shawns place to catch the end of the Padres
game, grill up a burger, and just hang out before we went to the track. It
was a blast.

  So we went to the track. The carts are electric, which is the first time
I'd ever seen electric racing carts. They had some gas carts on display,
which were pretty cool to check out. The course was setup so that it could
be either an oval(sorry no high banked turns), or have an infield dip on
one straight that made it into a road course. We started out on the oval,
with the carts set at Competition Speed, which is the fastest that the
general public can have access to. Shawn, Doug, Kathy, Shawns buddy who
worked there, and myself. It was really fun. Shawns buddy was extremely
quick, Shawn just a bit behind him. They definitely had the home field
advantage:). Kathy didn't want to go that fast, so as everyone passed her,
she tried to make room. Unfortunately, I think about every one of us
managed to plow into her at least once while trying to pass( I did it
twice). Oddly enough, she didn't seem interested in going out on the track
anymore after that... Doug and I were just learning how to get these things
to handle, although he seemed to have a bit more luck in this regard.
 After this we went to the road course, which was also a blast. I made the
mistake of getting the same kart i had before, which didn't seem to want to
slide out properly in the corners. No matter what I did, it just wanted to
understeer. This meant I really lost speed in the corners. As a result, I
just tried to leave room on the inside to pass me. I think trying this out
would definitely help out anyone thinking about racing, even though it
handles completely different than a autox car. It gets you thinking about
lines into, through, and out of corners.
  Our last race was at Pro speed(superfast, not generally available). It
was a blast, and things started out reasonably well. But I got tangle up
with someone and went into a wall. After that, my cart just wouldn't go
nearly as fast as everyone elses. Which was too bad, because this one
stepped the back end out nicely in corners. So even though I could keep up
somewhat in corners, I would just get smoked down the straight. Even so, it
was a complete blast. We should try to do this again, with more people. And
next time, I'll make sure I have a cart thats fast enough to keep up with
Shawn so that I can plant him in one of the corners, the little punk.

Brad



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