i will tell someone else

went karting with eric yesterday at sugar river raceway in wisconsin. a few hours' drive in eric's van loaded up with the kart in the back, we got there at around noon and eric setup the kart. it was a practice day so the track was open all day; just enter the track when it's clear and drive for as long as you want.

eric went out first for five laps or so and then let me drive. in comparison to the karts at cir, his has more power and feels somewhat larger. the road surface at srr is much rougher than the smooth indoor track at cir, so you really get jostled around a lot. in certain turns i was getting moved around so much i could barely keep my foot on the pedal.

we each did a few more sessions and i was trying different lines to try to turn faster laps each time. my fastest was a 39 something but most were in the 40's or 41's which was 3-5 seconds slower than eric in the same kart. i was having a lot of trouble staying comfortable in the kart because of the unpadded fiberglass seat. in some of the turns i would get bumped out of the seat and then come back hard into it, hitting my spine bones against the seat. i was developing an owwie on my lower back that made it hard to sit down in a normal chair, much less the kart, so i had to stop driving after 3 or 4 sessions. we stayed around and watched some of the other people drive for a while and then packed up and headed home.

lots of fun but maybe next time i'll have to wrap myself in bubble wrap.