Some time back I went for Karting and it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Before this I had never seen a kart before, and my first reaction was ‘I will be braking with left leg!’ I was not worried about the safety as my other friends were. There were 2 set of karts, 6BHP karts – Rs. 100 for 6 laps and 10BHP karts – Rs. 200 for 6 laps. We tried with only 6BHP karts and that power was sufficient for the thrill. They allow 4 karts on the track at anytime and the best part is they have people around the track to show flags (Blue for back marker, black to disqualify, red for dangerous driving, chequered flag etc, the same as F1).
One inside the kart, all the things I know about them came handy to help me. To prevent karts from sliding during turning since they do not have differential the rear wheel lifts slightly, so I knew while turning I will not have any acceleration, so I tried the strategy of braking in straight line but very late and turn slowly with full throttle. I could see the racing line in my head by just looking at the track once and with all this I could lap two karts in my first try itself. But for my next chances I was pushed down the order and found out that I am not good at overtaking.
When I got out of the kart after first 6 laps, I was in a totally different state. There was a huge adrenaline rush because of the excitement. Geo asked me ‘How was it?’ and for 15 seconds I couldn’t answer, I don’t know what state I was in. This trip only has increased my desire to drive F1 car one day. The excitement is not about speed, I don’t know at what speed those 6BHP vehicles drives, but we are so close to the ground, we do not have fear of cornering and we experience the G force (that’s what I think, might be very less ~ 0.2G). But am sure it was more exciting that driving a bike at 100kmph.
We raced and raced till we ran out of cash, thankfully they did not accept cards otherwise we would have not come back that day. Racing was so much fun that I completely forgot about photography and didn’t take my camera out for long time (even though that day I had Cannon 350 EOS, tele-zoom lens and tripod).
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10 BHP Kart |
6 BHP Kart |
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| Track | Camera |
Bird eye view of the track @ Wikimapia
Location: Grips Go Karting, Mysore Road, next to RV College of Engineering.
