'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe

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.

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 :)

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).