21st June. Met up with the kakis and had breakfast at a new location. After discovering Grandpa, which is located in the bunch of shops right after bhp petrol station, we have been going there for breakfast eversince! This time, we were introduced to Kim's and I must say, the KOPI is definitely good! I believe not only must you kart, you must also know where to get your food as well! With the track moving to a new location soon, I will try to update on the nearby eateries there as well. Hopefully with my GPS up and running, you can get your GPS co-ord here too!
Thats for food, now back to the race! This time, our team members are made up of
Jon - Team Principle
Leo - Driver Uno
Des - WRC wannabe
KP - Spin too much
We started off drawing kart no.41, and from initial inspection, suspect the kart may not turn well. But when Leo started his timed qualifying laps, he hit a timing of 1:16:xx which was 1 secs faster than P2! We got P1 !!! Now THAT was a surprise as we thought P2 using kart 916 is the strongest kart.
When the race was flagged off, we can see that 41 does have speed as well, beating 916 to the first turn, and there after, Leo continued to build up his lead during his first 26mins. While we were discussing whether to bring Leo in as his timing was starting to drop from a consistent 1:18 to 1:19 and 1:22, when he suddenly came into the pit lane with his brakes smoking. We could hear him shout "Throttle JAM!", somehow, we were so surprised we spent 1 minute looking at his kart before I got into action by suiting up and jumping into kart 33. On hindsight, we should have gotten Leo to jump straight into kart 33 and not wait for me to suit up.
Now Kart 33 was handling well during the first 3 laps, in fact, I managed to overtake another kart. It does not accelerate well, but if you can maintain the revs high, it does go well. But our TP decided to call me in to switch back to kart 41, as I found out later, I was only doing laps of 1:21 to 1:22. In Kart 41, I had to relearn how to drive another setup again. I found the handling is not as good as kart 33, but its brake is solid. Also, there were no acceleration! Looking at how well Leo was getting on earlier, I can only surmise that the throttle line was not repaired properly, and I can hear the engine not reving up to its peak.
This mean I have to start defending! On the straights, I can see the karts behind have the power to overtake me, so I had to drive on the left and let them commit to overtake me on the right. Once they are commited, all I had too do was close the gap as turn 1 is a left turn, if they cannot get ahead of me, they will not be able to overtake. In fact, I had to rub tires with one of the kart. This I did for 3 laps, before I made a mistake at hairpin 1 and drove a bit wide, losing revs and not able to pick up speed to defend my line before the kart overtook me just in time. And our TP was waiting for me at the entrance of the pit lane, signalling that my race is over.
Leo hopped back on, and I was told Leo cannot take it when I was overtaken...heehee...I was also doing laps of 1:20 to 1:21, but I told our TP the throttle cannot be opened full, which Leo later confirmed when he came back in to change driver with Des.
All in, it was fun racing the 390cc again, and we can see what an enduro can do to a kart. 3 karts had brake fade, and in the final 10 minutes, the kart lying in 2nd had to come in via banging into Jason's kart as he has no brakes! That enabled us to move up from 5th to 4th.
Oh, did I mention our dear TP - JoN spun on his first lap out? Heehee, he still owes us lunch for that! As he did spin more than the Spin A Lot.
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