London Calling: Streatham Karting!

wow... I haven't felt the driving adrenaline rush in such a long time, and much thanks to IC motoring club I've managed to get a taste of karting right here in london ! (At quite a steep price of cos)

We went to Streatham Indoor karting track. It's this track that's about 400m long, maybe about 8 corners in all, so it was rather short, considering Permas Jaya was about 1km long. Karts were claimed to be going as fast as 40mph, though I don't think I really hit that speed esp with all the short straights.

To cut things short, we started racing at 3pm. Edwin, Melvin and me went together, for the 2 of them it's also their 1st time karting (while most of the other drivers had came to Streatham before, some even had their own helmets gloves and racing overalls!)... And how much fun it was! A total of 23 karters, so we had 23 Heats (like qualifying rounds) of 5 drivers each. 4 laps per Heat... and then the different class finals depending on your points scored on the heats round. Starting grid was kind of random for the heats, while finals were based on points scored.

So each driver had 5 heats exactly... my positions in all the 5 heats were 3rd, 3rd, 5th, 4th, and 2nd. Here's how it roughly went:
1st Heat - Started 5th, finished 3rd. Felt damn good. the feeling was back. 28:20 best timing
2nd Heat - Started 4th finished 3rd. Felt as good. Learning the track quickly. 28:11 best timing
3rd Heat - Started 3rd finished 5th. Bad spin on the opening lap... too kan cheong. A bit wasted... can't remb my timing tho
4th Heat - Started 2nd ended 4th. Can't remb what went wrong also, just didn't go as fast as usual ... time in the 28:00s
5th Heat - Started Pole! And led for 5 out of the 6 laps (weirdly they put 6 laps for the last heat) ... until the last lap, midway through at Howley's Corner, this guy Rory overtook me. Kudos to him I must say; a clean overtaking move. But quite argh at myself, was so close to getting my 1st win in the heats. Though I set a personal best 27:89 =)

Lined up for the 'C' finals, 9 karters in all ... and Edwin n Mel were in the same race as me for once! (Before that, none. What are the chances??) Started from 3rd ... was a 8 lap race ... When the lights hit green, the top 3 went past the 1st 4 corners without incident, maintaining our positions. Until we hit Casualty Hairpin, 3 karts abreast, and a lil nudge on the sides, and I came out of that hairpin in the lead! And I was telling myself, ok, I'm not gonna lose this one like the last heat, if not it's unforgiveable... managed to get myself a little breathing space of about 2 secs to the next driver... and realised it was much harder to maintain a lead than to chase a car in front of you.

But I pressed on, and when the chequered flag came out, I was 1st! Elation throughout, felt super shiok! Went back to the pits, arms all kinda shaking from tiredness... was about to get out of my kart to celebrate, when the marshall asked me to sit down and join the 'B' finals (with the other top 3 finishers) ... So I had to go a few more rounds, 8 again I believe, with the 'B' finals drivers. This time the 3 of us started from the back of the grid, and we kinda just drove around testing limits without racing much. I guess it's really tiredness from the previous race, cos there was no break in between races. Ended up 6th I think, of about 10 cars.

So that was it, 6pm already, and we headed back to school. Unfortunately I didn't get my best timing from the finals races, as they were off the screen when I went to check it out. It surely felt faster than my PB, and I think I was quite lucky that the kart for my finals was quite suited to my driving style. So. yeah. And oh yah, Melvin managed to win some prize for best crash, tho I must admit I didn't witness his 'spectacular' crash, in fact it was a relatively no-incident afternoon. which is good!

Good day overall, 3 of us came out from Streatham all smiles, all tired, but feeling extremely satisfied. Pics -->

Streatham Racing Circuit

Starting line

Edwin, Mel's hand, and me

Me and Mel

and Edwin

Quite surprised to see the Singapore flag among the other flags hanging at the start line (its the rightmost one)

Near the back end of the track... The corners are named actually. Here we see Howler Hairpin (before that was the Parabolica curve), which leads into the Casualty hairpin, where there was the most incidences. Well, fast karts, tight corners, adrenaline rush = bumps n spins