torkell | Entries tagged with karting

It's been a long time since I last went karting (probably not been since 2019!), but with the gradual return to Actually Doing Things the thanksgiving group choose to make a return to the traditional pre-thanksgiving karting. We decided to trundle down to Teamsport Brighton for a pair of open timed sessions as since we were last there they've upgraded their fleet to shiny new electric karts. And wow, they're fairly nippy!

My first impressions of the karts is they're a lot more torquey than the petrol ones, and a lot stickier in the corners. There's corners that I braked for in the petrol karts that with the electric ones I would merely lift for or even take flat - oh, they're go-karts with a live rear axle and so the back will still let go given the slighest leeway, but I found these would slide and drift a lot more before ultimately spinning out. That didn't stop me managing a couple of spins, both times at the bottom of the track's flyover - the camber for the flyover swings aggressively and that combined with the turn onto the downwards ramp makes the kart want to twitch sideways as it bounces on the track.

The whole thing actually reminded me a bit of driving twin-engined karts over at Bayford Meadows in Kent - those were similarly grippy round the corners.

The electric karts also had a boost button which does exactly what it says - extra power for 3 seconds, usable every 30 seconds. That was interesting to get to grips with both from the extra acceleration, and from the speed being suddenly scrubbed off 3 seconds later (more than just the slowdown from lifting off the throttle - I wonder if the ECU was actively limiting the speed and regen'ing back into the battery?).

I'm completely sold on electric karts now. Oh, and also as they're electric they're much quieter - there's still the shriek of the tyres, but at the pit wall you can actually talk to people without shouting. It's a little weird when there's a red flag, everyone stops, and it's suddenly silent - one of our group suggested they should play "Another one bites the dust" for every spin!

Current Mood: excited
Current Location: Teamsport Brighton, Lancing, England

It's not my birthday, but that's not going to stop the pasta nighters making an outing to Teamsport's Gosport go-kart track!

With just the five of us (plus two others who'd booked the same session) we didn't have enough for a grid start and so just did a pair of 15min open timed sessions. This is our fourth outing to this track, and the second one since they changed the layout a few years back. I'm still undecided over the change - the previous layout had a much better run-up to the bridge and a wider corner off it at the end, but the new one has more variation to it. I'm still struggling to work out the best line to take before and after the bridge with the new layout.

I came 5th fastest in each session which I'm happy with (best lap 34.592s in the first session, 34.251s in the second). In both sessions my average time wasn't particularly good, but that's not helped by pitting in the first session to fix the pedal adjustment (they slipped back as soon as I pushed them!) and several spins in the second session as I experimented with lines. I can at least claim none of my spins resulted in a yellow or red flag! The second session had some particularly good moments - while Jonners did lap me, I managed to keep pace with him for the following lap. Then right at the end he passed me again just before the bridge... only for me to take the place back as I got a better line up onto the bridge. Go me!

Current Mood: excited

Today was the annual thanksgiving karting followed by the annual thanksgiving meal hosted by Beth and Jonners. This time round we had the downstairs track at our usual haunt, Crawley Teamsport.

Qualifying was quite good - I came 6th out of 9th, and consistently improved as the session went on. In fact my fastest lap was my 2nd-to-last one - my last lap was the second fastest, and then on the very final lap into the pits I overcooked it and spun on the corner before the up ramp (very nearly collecting Martin in the process). The kart I had was very slippery, and it took me a few laps to get used to the lack of grip, but once I got my head round it it was fun to drive. The corner before the up ramp is after a pair of flat-out straights and I generally took that corner by tapping the brakes to make the back slide, catching the spin with the throttle and counter-steering, and then drifting sideways round and onto the ramp. The top of the ramp/bridge section is a tight S-bend pair that I again drifted round with bootfuls of throttle and aggressive counter-steering. It's probably not the fastest approach, but it's the fun one.

The race was less good - Jonners asked for a reverse grid, but there was some confusion and what actually happened is the slowest driver got pole, followed by everyone else in grid order. I got a decent start which quickly became very confusing with a spin at the bottom of the ramp bunching everyone up, followed by Craig stalling on the back straights and us getting red flagged while the marshals restarted his kart and signalled him through the pack to the front for some reason. We then settled down to a proper race, most of which I spent stuck behind Jean trying to find a way past her and fighting with my kart - unlike in qualifying, this one had more grip and the back flatly refused to step out unless I got really aggressive with the brakes and throttle. I got past once, only to be punted by someone else which let Jean regain the position, so I spent several laps trying to catch up and pass again. Once I got past her I did find myself lapping faster than a pack of drivers behind me, but the race soon ended and I finished down in 8th.

Current Mood: sleepy

Recently I joined

jonners99_uk for a delayed birthday go-karting event, and for a change we went to an outdoor circuit at QLeisure near Hassocks on a cold but dry October day. Since it was an outdoor track, on a whim I fired up ViewRanger and did the session with my phone in my pocket recording a GPS track.

Trying to record karting laps with settings tuned for walking (sample every 5 seconds with minimum 33ft between samples) was not entirely successful...

Somewhere underneath that mess is a go-kart track. My karting is not that bad, honest!

The actual session was made up of a 10-min practice, 15-min qualifying and 15-min race with grid start. I qualified 2nd in the B team, took first place off the line, and if it wasn't for having to pit on lap two due to the pedals slipping back on the opening lap I could well have ended in the top three of the B team. As it was I managed to claw my way back up to 7th, which would put me at probably 20th out of 26 overall.

Current Location: Qleisure, London Road, Hassocks, England

Today was the annual pre-thanksgiving-meal karting (or as Jonners put it one year, "let's get some exercise that involves sitting down"), and for a change we had the upstairs track at Crawley. I think the last time I did that was for my birthday a good few years back. There were enough of us today that we could do a proper qualifying and race with a reverse grid start.

The qualifying went quite well - I qualified 6th out of nine with a fastest lap of 27.450, only slightly ahead of Paddy on 27.482. We were managing very similar times with Paddy right behind me for several laps - I would out-accelerate him on the up ramp, but then he would carry a little more speed through the corners and catch up by the end of the lap. I let him pass at one point (so I didn't have to consider his position when braking for corners) and he pulled away slightly, then we hit traffic in the form of Jean and I snuck past him while we were both trying to pass her. Looking at my overall lap times I was continuously improving over that session.

The race was a reverse grid with myself and Paddy on the second row. I got a fairly decent start, and managed to stay level with Paddy into the ramp - then I as before out-accelerated him and Paddy did a sterling job of keeping the faster drivers behind. That left me in 3rd and within a lap or two I passed Jean for 2nd place (the printout shows me in 2nd place from the start). Then I ended up stuck behind Oliver who I just could not get past despite being faster than him in qualifying. Jonners and later Martin caught up and passed me, and then on lap 22 it all went pear-shaped as I turned the corner into the down-ramp to discover a kart (probably Martin) facing up the hill. Well, I didn't really have anywhere to go and rammed him spinning me sideways, and then David powered over the crest of the hill to see this pile of karts with no time to do anything except thoroughly shunt me! I can tell I'll be sore in the morning! Resolving all the mess took a red flag and ended with me a couple more places down (which was a bit unfair as I was 4th before that mixup), and in the end I finished in 7th with Jonners having only just lapped me. On the flip side, I again improved during the race and found almost a second of pace, with a fastest lap of 26.588 (interestingly my 3 fastest laps were the 3 before the multi-kart pileup, so I'd presumably just gotten into a nice rhythm).

Current Mood: happy
Current Location: Teamsport Crawley

Today was the day of Thanksgiving celebrations at Beth & Jonners, and so was full of Things Happening.

First off,

pleaseremove and I avoided Thanksgiving entirely and instead dropped in on

brokencube to visit his new flat (and because Craig wanted a graphics card). It appears that Nik's anti-technology field is currently destroying all his hard disks in sequence... instead for the one that stubbornly refuses to die despite making horrid clunking noises. So that's business as normal for Nik :)

Next up was the pre-Thanksgiving "exercise" in the form of karting! We were on the downstairs Crawley track, which is one with a couple of corners that I've never quite got the hang of. There was enough of use for a race and so the first session was a qualifier where I gradually improved during the session but ended up 8th overall. I spent a good half-dozen laps stuck behind someone which didn't help - I couldn't quite make it past them as they aggressively claimed the apex on every corner... until after a bit when someone else passed me and then punted them at the corner before the ramp. So I sneaked through the gap left behind :)

For the race we did a reverse grid so I started third, and managed a good start up the middle to rise into 2nd round the first corner. I made it over the bridge, braked hard at the bottom to avoid the leader who took the hairpin slower than I was expecting, got shunted by someone but managed to recover, and then two corners later the race was paused. I think I may have left a multi-kart pileup behind me :) The rest of the race went reasonably well (with me gradually dropping down the rankings as the faster drivers snuck past), apart from one bit where I lost it on the 2nd straight after the bridge. It was slightly surreal - the two straights are separated by a right-angle corner which I take flat out, and as I continued to accelerate past the corner I could feel the back slowly drifting more and more out until I lost it and ended up facing the wrong way down the track. That said after stopping there was enough space that I could power the kart round and continue on, so I recovered without causing a yellow or red flag - go me!

I ended the race 8th again, though I improved my lap time a bit, to I think 25.0s (Jonners has the timesheets). One day I'll manage a sub-25s time!

Being a race there were prizes from TeamSport for the top three, and a bonus prize for first place - see, a while back I mentioned at housegroup about the karting and one of the guys went "Ah, I've got something you might like"... which turned out to be a real-life scale model r/c Mario Kart, minus battery and controller (TeamSport chap: "Nice idea, whoever brought Mario!"). So of course this had to become a bonus prize for first place! Perhaps we should get it mounted and make it the annual Thanksgiving trophy?

Finally, 'twas time for Thanksgiving itself! It's not something people generally celebrate in Britain (though Black Friday is now a thing here), but Beth being American hosts a Thanksgiving meal each year and so it's become a tradition in her friends circle. Plus it's a good time to catch up with friends I rarely see, and for those of us who are really prepared (not me! - though I have handed over one present already this year) a chance to hand out Christmas cards :)

Current Mood: tired

Yesterday's not-an-update was just as well given that the Thanksgiving party ran into today and so I didn't get back in time for a post.

But as is now traditional, before Thanksgiving proper there was Thanksgiving Karting! We (myself,

pleaseremove, Jonners, Paddy, Matt and David) were up at Crawley, and for a change were booked on the downstairs track. There weren't enough of us to do a race, so we settled for two 15-minute time trial sessions.

One thing I've always found with karting is you can end up with very different karts in the two sessions. In the first session I had one that did not want to slide at all and struggled to turn tightly - until you turned the wheel almost to full lock, at which point the back completely lost it and drifted you into the barrier. The second kart on the other hand didn't have anything like the same cliff in grip and I could quite easily slide it around the zig-zag on the upper portion of the track: accelerate up the ramp drifting to the right-hand side, lift a bit at the top and turn tightly left into the corner, then once the back starts sliding boot the throttle and turn hard right to get around the second corner before powering down the ramp. Trying that with the first kart just resulted in it barely making the first corner and then flatly refusing to give enough steering for the second.

I still need more work on the rest of the track. On the lower section there's a sort-of double spiral - it tightens into the corner to the left, then unwinds to the right - and I couldn't work out how to make the turn into that complex work. Still, I improved by a good 0.7s between the two sessions, while

pleaseremove and Jonners only found 0.4s - so I'm catching up on them!

Current Location: Crawley

All the other drivers were unusually well-behaved on the evening commute (apart from one person who couldn't decide whether or not to overtake me at a set of lights), so no driving rants today.

Anyway, Saturday as I mentioned was full of karting and Thanksgiving. The karting was up at the Crawley TeamSport track - this is an old favourite, as it's nice and local and a lot more comfortable to drive than the Brighton track (which always leaves me waiting for the world to stop vibrating after getting out of the kart). They've got two tracks over three floors, and this time we went on the Grand Prix track. It's a fast track that lets you carry a lot of speed round the pit straight, though with plenty of opportunities for taking a corner too fast and spinning out. For added fun they'd been having problems with condensation on the track all day making it rather slippery.

I've only got times from the first of two sessions we did, wherein I managed a reasonable 27.046 best time. I think I improved by over a second in the later session, though I also had the dubious honour of being responsible for a red flag after planting the kart in the tyre wall at the top of the ramp. I tried to go round the outside of Jonners up the ramp, carried far too much speed to make the chicane at the top, and so punted the tyre wall head-on. Then Jonners ended up ramming me, pushing the kart underneath the tyres. It took three marshals to get it out! Once they'd spotted it, that is - the marshals on the downstairs track can't actually see the top of the bridge.

After karting, it was off to Beth and Jonners' for a Thanksgiving party, wherein many friends old and new gathered in search of turkey and partridge-in-a-pear-tree-pie. No games this year, just several hours spent happily catching up with everyone and enjoying good food.

Current Music: Green Greens [Kirby: Triple Deluxe Soundtrack]

So what all happened yesterday, and why was that such a small update?

Well, the first part of the day was a karting outing with some friends down at Lancing (which Teamsport claim is actually Brighton, despite being on the other side of Shoreham-by-Sea), to, as Jonners' put it, "get some exercise that involves sitting down". It's a rather fast indoor track in a figure-eight pattern full of long straights and hairpin bends. Unfortunately being in an old warehouse it's also incredibly bumpy and a day later I'm definitely feeling a bit achy from it.

The lap time record for the track is 31.2 seconds or so but to do that you really need to know the track inside-out. Jonners managed a 34.9 in the first session with Craig a tenth slower, and I was down at 37.9 - I've been karting less than them, and they're also taking the corners much more aggressively. Or a little too aggressively in Jonners' case, when he misjudged the turn heading out from under the bridge and bashed the tire wall rather hard.

The second session was more interesting. I found over a second of lap time through braking later in the start/finish straight (and there's probably more time available there - it's a surprisingly forgiving corner with a lot of runoff) and powering *down* the ramp for the bridge, while Jonners found 4 tenths that Craig somehow managed to lose. However the fourth member of our group went from a 37.2 to a 35.4 and ended up placing 2nd!

After the karting it was off to Jonners' Thanksgiving party, wherein many friends gathered in search of turkey (hence yesterday's post). There were many good friends and plenty of good food, and we all spent many hours generally nattering and eating. And yes, in the middle of it all I remembered NaBloPoMo and found enough of a phone signal to make that post so at least

talismancer couldn't complain about a total lack of updates.

Eventually the day ended in the wee hours of the morning with a few rounds of Motor Storm on the PS3 where I made up for the earlier karting loss by handily beating everyone (except the AIs, but they actually know where to go). At least at first, until first Jonners managed a photo finish and then Craig eventually caught up. Their excuse for why it took so long was because it's not Burnout 2, which Craig claims he can win while playing with his feet (and one day I shall challenge him to that).

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Epona ~ Enya/The Celts

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