Drive, baby, drive!

An hour into my third stint at the wheel of my team’s kart, I’m tired but wired. With no less than 24 turns at the narrow 800-meter track of Speedzone, every lap can be a drain on your concentration and physical energy. In fact, a map of the Speedzone track resembles a convoluted small intestine: it’s that twisty. There are precious few straightaways, and these are followed by spine-tingling hard turns or sweepers that cause many a faint-hearted driver to lift off the gas and even hit the brakes.

In enduro events like the Bridgestone Six-Hour Invitational Race that I and several members of the press recently found ourselves in along with representative teams from Honda and Mitsubishi, teams must accumulate the maximum amount of laps within a given amount of time. Effective driver changes, well-timed fuel stops, and consistently fast lap times are the key to making it to the podium.

During my first 30 minutes when the sun was still out, I could baby the kart because, hey, it’s a six-hour enduro and it wouldn’t do to crash so early. I even mastered the ignominious art of pulling aside to be overtaken by a faster driver. But now my team is several laps behind a Mitsubishi team, in danger of losing at least a 3rd place finish.

Now every lap for me is a flat-out effort. No more Mr. Nice Guy because I must make up for lost laps. Assigned to relieve teammate Aris Ilagan of the Manila Bulletin at around 7:30 pm, I had an hour and a half to claw our way up the timing charts just so we could go home with a nice little trophy.

Speedzone’s karts aren’t race machines. Rather, they’re leisure karts powered by clean-burning 4-stroke engines, as well as being fitted with electronic timers, a remote-control "idiot" mode, and safety blocks around the chassis to protect against numerous bumps with the barriers and other karts. Which is not to say that they are slow.

They are plenty fast enough for the serpentine track, and controlling the kart in the middle of the sweepers as well as wrenching the wheel in the hairpins is a real upper-body workout. With no suspension and an unpadded seat, you feel every vibration. You have to learn to filter the sensations, only taking in what the tires are actually telling you with regard to grip and not comfort. If you drive mostly just to get around with your car, an hour in a Speedzone kart will give you an idea of how hard professional race car drivers must work to earn their pay.

I’d never really raced go-karts before. Apart from a few laps at the Carmona race circuit in a clinic taught by the Tuason Racing Project, my experience with these things was next to nil. Two short sessions the night before this enduro let me become vaguely familiar with the track and the kart’s handling characteristics. I even suffered the embarrassment of being put on "idiot" mode by remote control.

Speedzone is a professionally-run track, and if the marshals see that you’re repeatedly messing up the kart by pressing on the gas and brake pedals at the same time, they’ll flip a switch in the pits that chokes your engine so you just putt-putt around the track for awhile until you receive a stern lecture. I went home that night with a best time of 1:15, which isn’t anything great because other people were clocking between 1:08 and 1:12 at the time.

Back to the race: It’s late, I’m tired, I don’t know how well the team is doing, and I’m mad. I’m mad because I can’t seem to make a perfect lap. I’d make great time in one section then overshoot my braking point several moments later. Or I’d brake too much into the hairpins, losing engine revs and taking forever to get back up to speed.

I finally managed to do a 1:12 lap some time ago, but I can’t seem to shave off another 2 seconds and it makes me angry. It annoys me that I was never this slow a driver before in competitions, and where, when, and why did I lose my speed? It annoys me whenever I get caught up in traffic by a backmarker that won’t pull to the side. It annoys me that marshals won’t wave the blue flag for the guy to pull aside unless I sit on his tail. It maddens me to have to do this because I am now suffering from target fixation, aping the backmarker’s every move, wrong racing lines included. When he eventually spins out because he’s trying to keep me at bay, I stupidly spin out too. Sigh...

Mostly, I’m mad because I find it’s the only way for me keep up the adrenaline, stay alert, and keep churning out sub-1:14 times until the checkered flag comes out. Jeez, but this is hard work. And to think we had no less than five drivers for this six hour race.

Driving a go-kart is a brutal experience. In this age of power steering and cushy suspensions, driving a dinky little machine with donut-size tires, 1:1 steering ratio and a hard plastic seat seems to be child’s play... but it’s not. Aside from the harsh ride, the karts are twitchy little buggers. You can usually get away with braking into corners with a car, but do that with a kart and next thing you know you’ve spun out and look stupid to amused onlookers.

But now it’s late, there are no more backmarkers to pass, and the elusive 1:11 lap time just won’t come up on the pit board every time I pass the team which must be enjoying a hearty dinner by now. My throat is dry, and wouldn’t it be a good idea to come into the pit for a while and have a drink? I’ve lost track of time, I don’t know how many laps we’ve done anymore. The corners keep coming up and I just keep trying to stick to the racing line and not think about how big the painful blisters on my gloved hands must be by now. After what seems like an eternity, the checkered flag finally comes out. My arms are so stiff when I park the kart that I need a helping hand to get up (My hands and feet would still be twitching in my sleep later on, my mind still driving in dreamland). But Eric comes up to me with good news: we made it to 3rd place. Redemption!