17 March 2007 Crash report by K[p] & Heat Beat Rate

Hello...This is my first post!

For the karting on 17th March, I reached the place at around 10am with Edwin and his 2 friends. Before that, we were having Tim Sum at my favourite haunt and they were asking me how much is the 125cc kart. I told them the prices for 125cc (2 stroke) and the 390cc (4 stroke) and they were planning to go for the 125cc as it is more cost effective. I told them to try the 80cc fun kart first to know the course layout and get used to karting and all of them have never karted before.

On reaching the karting ground, they made up their mind to use the 125cc karts, all three of them. I picked out the 390cc kart number 34 which I had used on the 3rd of March and liked the way it handles, I thought I would use the slower kart and see how I do against the 125cc. Don't be mistaken here, the 390cc may have 265cc more but it is definitely slower. For comparison, the 900 meter lap record in a 390cc is 46.43 seconds, while in a 125cc it is 39.56 seconds. Thats a huge gap.

While we were going through our session, I was lapping the 125cc quite easily, and I found they were able to pull away on the straights very easily but I was able to catch up during the corners since I know the course and was braking much later. I did not see any of them spin, which was quite impressive for first timers in such a fast kart, but I guess that means they were not pushing the kart, which is a waste. After just one session, Edwin and his friends decides to leave, and that means I have to wait for Jon....again. Which turned out to be a 1 hour wait. Entertained by F1 grand prix in Melbourne.

When they did arrive, we quickly got to my second session. We did lined up with Des first, me second and the rest behind me. After going off, I overtook Des and lead all the way. 2 sessions and I did not spin even once, which is a record. LoL. In this session, during one of the laps, I was following nEL very closely and around turn 4, he seemed to have understeered and his front left wheel clipped one of the tires in the tyre wall and he sort of got swung around and his kart flew in the air, it was definitely higher than my head, I was concentrating on not spinning out while avoiding him, but the thought of a kart flipping over many times did flash across my eyes. I turned around and saw he was still in the kart, which was a huge relief.

On the third session, this time most of the newcomers decided to take the 390cc with June the only one in the 80cc fun kart. On the first lap after the form up, my kart spinned out at the hairpin, I realised my brakes were not as good as in the first two sessions. Which was confirmed later at turn 1 when my braking distance increased, forcing me to go wide. So for the next few laps, I was braking earlier to get around the brakes problem. On the last lap, I saw that Jon was just in front of me, probably 3 to 4 seconds ahead and I thought I could catch up and overtake as he had traffic in front of him. After turn 4, I saw June had spinned out at turn 5, and Jon went to the left of the track, I step on the brakes and turned right, which made the kart do a 180 degrees drift at a very fast speed. I know my rear tires would hit something, so I braced for the impact. When it came, it was HUGE. Pain shot through the left side of my ribs. After a few seconds, I got out of the kart and went under the tree for some shade as well as to straightened my body while I try to breath in to see if there are any sharp pain. There were none, but afterwards, I decided to go see the doc anyway. And like all GPs in Singapore, they just look and prescribe pain killers! Some advice like lungs may be lacerated and if I want X-ray......sigh, I thought he was the doctor, and he's asking me if i want x-ray. So far, I have only met one GP who will ACTUALLY look at your complaints, but he charges specialists rate. $70 a pop for consultation fees. And I do not take painkillers, I rather know the pain is there and if it is getting worse so that I can visit the A&E (accident & emergency) in the hospital. Any one wants Postan? I have like 40 tablets now.

Cut to the chase, had a difficult night as lying down was painfull in itself. So I lasted till Monday to visit the Polyclinic which was full of my accident records like internally bleeding eyeball, damaged knee ligaments, and I think I remember I had 3 X-rays in a year, on the 3rd occasion, they say I had too many, and referred me to the hospital. LoL. This time, yup, they referred me to the hospital again, they said left side rib injury can damage the heart as the heart is on the left side. Bloody GP on saturday did not tell me that now did he. In the hospital, all checks came out ok, heart ECG was normal, no broken bones spotted, but the doctor says he will send it for a more detailed analysis and call me if they spot any. And yeah, was prescribed Postan again. One funny incident though, while they were checking my blood pressure, the nurse said she needs to give me an ECG as my heart beat rate is on the low side. I saw the rate at 56, and I told her, oh, thats normal, my heart beat is usually at 52 to 56. And she said, oh, you athlete? With my body fats, I don't think so. LoL.

You know, if your heart beat is normal at 76, your heart would need to work harder, it needs to beat 10.3 millions times more than me in a year, imagine that, time to get on the threadmill y'all. LoL.

Still in pain. No more go karts for at least 8 weeks. Will be buying a rib protector though, had too many bruised ribs, better take care of em as they are protecting your lungs, heart...