Go-Kart Racing at Work
Last week we went racing go-karts for work, because, you know, go-kart racing is what makes great software teams great.
We went to FastKarts in Salt Lake City. Well, West Valley, actually. When we got there, we sprinted inside the building as fast as possible, because we were in West Valley and didn’t want to get mugged, or killed in a drive-by shooting, or something. Once we got inside, there it was, hanging from the ceiling: A sweet 250cc liquid-cooled race-ready shifter kart. Something that looked like this. I couldn’t wait to get in.
Race-ready shifter kart. Image courtesy autoblog.com.
Oddly, this was not the kind of kart we were allowed to drive. Instead, we were allowed to race some little 5 hp jobs. They’ll do maybe 40 mph if you have enough of a run, but they aren’t exactly fast.
Still, it was a dang good time. More than that, in fact. I have wanted to race go-karts for years, so this was literally a dream come true for me.
Some of the rules that I got a kick out of:
- No Bumping. Surely you cannot expect 15 people to hop into a racing kart, even a 5 hp racing kart, for the first time, tell them to race each other, and not have anyone bump into anyone else. I tried really hard not to hit people, but sometimes I just could not help it.
- Watch for the caution lights. When I am racing down the straightaway trying to outbrake someone into the corner, the last thing on my mind is to look to see if the caution lights are flashing.
Watching the enforcement of these rules was an interesting study in human behavior. Here you have a bunch of skilled professionals from Microsoft reserving the kart racing facility for 90 minutes. Running the facility are, um, people with perhaps less education, shall I say. They sure seemed to enjoy the power trip every time someone would break the rules and they had an opportunity to really yell at the highly skilled white-collar professionals and put us in our place. Surely they don’t realize how transparent this is.
Despite this it was great fun. In my first race, I started somewhere around tenth or twelfth. I got a good jump on everyone when the green flag waved, though, and I passed two cars before the first turn. By the end of the 20 minute race I had passed all but two people.
Obviously, my excellent racing skill that was manifesting itself was due to countless hours of playing Project Gotham and Forza Motorsport, as well as years and years of detailed study of racing events both live and televised. I did not have the fastest time, but obviously that was because I was coming through traffic the entire race.
Obviously.
So when it came to my second race, I didn’t worry much about getting the same kart. They are all pretty much the same anyway. For some reason, nobody wanted to be in the first kart, so I took that one. Trying to lap the field would prove to be a good challenge.
At the start I totally set everyone up by bunching them up at the final corner, then speeding away to take the green flag with a clear lead. This lasted about 1 lap, when people started passing me.
I was simply not going as fast as before. There wasn’t much I could do about it. I spent the rest of the race working on my lines, trying to carry more speed through corners and working on higher exit speeds. This was great fun, but there wasn’t much I could do to keep people from passing. I ended up about fifth or so.
When I got out of the kart, they showed the fastest lap times. My lap times were about 2 seconds per lap slower than they had been before.
Obviously, my prior stellar performance pretty much had everything to do with the kart and nothing to do with me.
Still, it was great, fantastic fun. My arms pumped up, and my mouth was dry from improper mouth-breathing, and I had bruises on my shoulders and ribs where the four-point harness had pulled because I cinched it so tight.
And I haven’t been able to stop thinking of it since.
See, I have this dream of my life as a young, retired multi-millionaire. In this dream I have a nice sized chunk of land. And on that land is a well-maintained, awesome shifter kart track. And next to that track is a little shop where I build and tune shifter karts, just because I can.
And since we went racing for work, this dream has made a major resurgence into my consciousness. Someday…
