F1 Kart Racing

Today we had a “team building experience” at work. We thought it would be fun to go kart racing. Let’s just preface this article by getting my general feeling out there. This is one of the most fun things I’ve ever done in my life!

First off let’s talk about the facility. I was expecting some outdoor go kart race track and some karts with a little bit more powerful motors than usual. Perhaps Uncle John would be out back with greasy fingers tinkering on some broken karts. But this is one high class go kart joint. We raced on a multilevel indoor track with some fairly nice karts, and I saw more men in suits than I did greasy fingers.

The day started off with an hour of signing my life away and then going over the basic rules of the track and safety behavior. After this we had about an hour of racing. The day ended with our group dining in their party room and playing some billiards.

Now on to the racing! In the first race I had no idea what I was doing. I started in 4th place and finished in 5th. By the end I was passing a bunch of people and had the hang of it, but the two spin outs I had really slowed me down. On the next race I got a great jump off the line and went from 8th place to 5th place in about the first quarter of a lap. Then throughout the rest of the race I managed to work my way up to a 2nd place finish even though I did spin out once. On my last normal race I started in 2nd place and within a lap was in first place. I never gave up my lead. I actually got a ways ahead and had some fun with things like drifting my kart around the corners. There were 15 people in our group and they took the top 10 people for one last race. I started in 3rd on this final race. I managed to edge my way into a 2nd place finish, but I found it’s really tough to pass people who are about as fast as I am. It’s a blast trying to though. Overall my top speed for the day was 38.55 MPH.

Through out the day I ended up with about a bazillion warnings. They briefed me that warnings weren’t to be taken too seriously and I didn’t. Once I gave someone a firm nudge going around the corner and was afraid they were going to penalize me, but they didn’t. It really seemed they were more lenient on minor bumps if you were in the top few places, but I never tried to test that theory much since a stop and go penalty would have basically took me out of the running for that race. The best wreck of the day was by my buddy Eric. He was coming around the corner on the end of the front straight away and was racing along side another kart. Then a guy came flying out after a stop and go penalty and nailed the guy next to Eric, who nailed Eric into the wall. Eric’s kart skidded partly under the wall and ripped his shoes off. Eventually they dug Eric (and his shoes) out of the wall and everyone was racing again.

Kart racing is a blast and if you have anything like this where you live you should totally go there with a few friends and try it out. Even better would be conning your work into paying for it as a "team building" activity!