attn: SF Bay Area Racers! Training time!, Summer kart racing league Options

[nebreitling]

If you guys and gals are looking for a cheap way to get lots of seat time, learn and practice race craft, have fun, and improve your AX times, then you NEED to join the summer karting league at GoKartRacer in Burlingame.

http://www.gokartracer.com/leagues.html

Races are every Wed. night starting June 14th. you'll get around 45 min. of seat time spread over 3 races/night, so you'd better be in reasonable shape (it's fairly physical). Multiple classes based on drivers weight (yes, we weigh in at the beginning of the season), plus a new Novice class. These are proper race-chassis clutch karts with ~10hp motors on them. Yes, they are slightly underpowered (40mph down one straight) -- which is exactly what you want as a teaching tool.

Although they do a good job of equalizing the 'spec' karts (they pull out the fastest and slowest on league nights), the karts can vary as much as .3" or even .5" per lap. still, such inequities are distributed evenly over the course of the season, so the net results seem pretty fair.

Though the competition is serious and quite fierce (one of my wrecks resulted in a slight concussion; there have been numerous cracked ribs in my class; 4 or 5 of us regularly run within tenths of each other), each class tends to bond over the season, and we have an irish pub that we usually end up at after each night to nurse our wounds and egos.

I think I could have won the Heavy class in the last league if I had been able to make all the races (I missed three out of the eight), but there is a LOT of competition in Heavy. Still, this will probably be my last league in the Heavy class -- I'd like to move up to the pros and get my ass slaughtered (and taught!) after this summer. they have a Sumo class for you big boys, and there are a handful of girls and women who run in the Light class. None of you regular AXers/TTers should run the Novice class -- you'll pick it up soon enough.

I'm not getting anything out of this publicity, I just want some fresh meat to chew on out there. $65/night -- which is a quite decent deal for seat time. if you guys have any questions, let me know.