Said Trung to me and the rest of our group on our way home back from a day of snowboarding about a couple of weeks ago, and so I was tasked to set up the shindig.
The venue turned out to be K1 Speed over in Santa Clara for their Grand Prix option, which included a Practice Session, Qualifying Session, then the Final Race. Practice and Qualifying were useful to us, since all but one of us (Rob) had never done kart racing before, let alone the track. There were supposed to be eight of us, but the 8th one had to drop off at the last minute, and so the roster was myself, Trung, Rob, Jairo, Lili, Sean, and Jeanette. Since K1 Speed required a minimum 8 drivers for the group package, we all split the cost of the 8th driver among us, which all went to a gift card for future use anyway. K1 Speed provided trophies to the Top Three finishers, and so we decided that whoever won would also get the $60 gift card we all pooled into. It was the perfect plan.
Practice and Qualifying went. I didn't know about everybody, but I was having a horrid time in retrospect. Before Practice, one of the grid crews gave me some advice; "Don't use your brakes, just let off the accelerator to slow down and go through the turns then gas it out. If you use your brakes, you'll spin out." Cool, I thanked him. Went out and tried what he said, but my kart would just understeer through and out of the corners if I was on the throttle. And on two of the tightest turns in the track, it would be impossible to get through them without touching the brakes, unless I wanted to cruise into the corners well before. Not having the latter, since I learned that the race winner is determined by whoever consistently posts fast laps, resulting in the fastest average of lap times. This was regardless of your position out in the track. I finished Practice 4th out of seven.
Qualifying came and I made sure to try and incorporated the brakes, especially at the two hairpins. Lap analysis of my Qualifying session reflected this; my lap graph would spike up practically every other lap as I would spin out trying to use the brakes, losing a lot of time. For all intents and purposes, the Qualifying went way worse than Practice, though somehow I finished 3rd out of seven. Went a step up, but I thought I resigned to the fact that it wasn't going to be my day.
Jairo had topped both Practice and Qualifying, posting the best single lap in each of them as well as one of the top average lap times. We were all fairly certain he had it in the bag.
Then the Final Race.
Somehow the brakes clicked for me, and realized that for the tightest corners in the track, I could steer the cart with the rear by applying the brakes, and somehow I was making the brakes work. I wasn't breaking any lap records so it clearly wasn't the fastest way around the track, but it was fast enough for yesterday's race with my group, and I was able to consistently post the same fast lap times to come out with the fastest average lap time!
Won when it mattered. :)
I ended up giving the $60 gift card to Jairo anyway; he had paid for Rob's admission that day for some favors Rob did for him, and since he was clearly crestfallen thinking he was "finally going to beat (me) at something," it was the best I can do for the kid.
Hey. There's always next time.
