"Oh Woe is Me-e".

I don't know what's worse - the bruises on my back and legs or the increasingly small gap over my protege Julie (my Mentor Bill's wife).

I started the evening of karting in what must have been one of the slowest karts of the night and was left for dead by Julie on what started out as "Can I follow you?"

"Sure" I always say with the magnanimity of my gross superiority.

Yeah, Right! Spankage.

So I unleashed the Niki Lauda within - studied the lap charts to determine the best kart (picked Julie's) - and hopped the fence to nab it first for the next race.

But, being, above all, a sporting gentleman, I did help Julie find the next best choice.

And how did it all wash out?

I picked up about 3 seconds to get down to 32.7, and Julie was 2 tenths behind me with 2nd fastest lap.

Oh, and I must have pushed my way thru (ok - punted off) just about the whole club - including the kart racing prodigy kid of one of the guys - he usually smokes us all badly. Excellent. That he surely had a shitty kart...is just tough ****. A Win is a Win.

Then off to the church of beer for talkin. And some more old racing stories (like: my Dad, having dropped us off at the Grandparents in LA was late to get to Riverside towing his GTV on a trailer behind Bill's 427 Fairlane. He was pulled over for speeding...100 MPH...while reading a map. This is the guy that asked me if I had a brain in my head when I got reported to him for driving the company truck at about the same speed...uh, in the snow....So maybe I was lacking, but only a little moreso than him.)

Most Excellent.

Scott, who loves his SPG, and misses it when he drives anything else...boy do I miss it!

 

Weight is a BIG factor with those little carts!

My brother-in-law (track ***** too... he runs a track prepped Viper GTS ) and I were horseing around with his go cart on the dirt roads near his lake house and, of course, we started doing time trials to see who could cover this 3/4 mile rally course the quickest. He consistently beat me buy about a second. I argued that I was at a 45 lb weight penalty (he's 150lb, I'm 195lb) so we found a 40 lb concrete block and strapped it between the seat and steering column for his runs. Well, you know how this turns out...Heh heh. We swapped the fastest lap back and forth with only a 1/10 of a sec. or two between us.

BTW, I've driven his car at Mid Ohio for a couple of sessions. Big mistake. He beat me by over 2 seconds. After the Viper, my ITR felt like an electric golf cart that needed a re-charge!

 

Scott, you better rest up for your trip down to Infineon (Sears Point) for the Honda Challenge races.

 

Back when I was poor and happy in a different way I rode my mountain bike almost every night for a couple hours with my riding buddies after work. We'd grind out the relatively easy but steady climb out of the city on the fire roads of Forest Park and then transit a ridgeline road to get to the top or our favorite downhill double track. Then, about spent, I'd load my bike into my 1300cc Toyota Starlet and start driving home. And after making the best of my fraction of a single horsepower for the last couple of hours, that silly Starlet felt like it had mountains of torque. Hahaha.

Scott, who misses those days...these are good ones, and those were good ones...all I can think is to keep making new good ones...

 

So what you're saying is even though you're becoming a has-been, you're still living happily ever after?... or living in denial.

Thanks for the perspective.

 

Happily living after having been is still being.

Scott, some of who's favorite people are technically "has beens"...but they're still good enough for me!

 

I love indoor karting, just ask anyone I autocross with.