April 27, 2005
Gone Go Kartin'
We had a "team event" at work today (read: excuse to goof off on the corporate dime). The event was a trip up to Redwood City, to ride some go karts and play mini golf and "Malibu Grand Prix". Driving the go kart was actually quite a lot of fun:
(Photo credit: Dung Ngo)The track is 1/2 mile long, and supposedly the top speed of the kart is 40 mph. The track has so many different curves, however, that it is quite hard to get up a lot of speed. I was told that doing the course in 60 seconds is "quite good". The organizer of the event claimed to have had a 56 second run. During my first 8 laps or so, the best that I could manage was 62.34 seconds. But towards the end of my laps, it started to rain, which definitely messed with the traction.
After it rained pretty hard, then stopped, and then dried off, I got to go out again. I did a ton of laps (I have no idea how many, but I was probably out there for 45 minutes to an hour), and managed to improve my time. I was stuck at 58.50 seconds for quite awhile, and thought that I was going to peak there. But near the end, I managed to get down to 58.25. Shaving any more time than that would really require me to study the track, and get the best lines down.
Still, for not having a ton of racing experience, I think that I did pretty A-OK. I also kicked butt at mini golf, until choking at the end by hitting the ball off of the course, which is an 8 stroke penalty... sigh
-Andy.