Motors and Me

Was back at Teamsport in Newcastle again last night, this time with a couple of colleagues and... wooo! Got my first win. 🏆 If I'm honest, that was largely down to the fact there were no ringers there. In fact, I did a good job of looking like the only ringer, being the only person with an avatar next to their name on the timing charts (meaning I was keen enough to have the Teamsport app and set up my profile). Even so, I didn't have it all my own way. I may have got the fastest lap in session #1, but I was pipped in session #2. Add to that the fact that I was over a second slower than my previous visit and it doesn't sound that awesome. But a win's a win; I'll take it. 🙂 Looking at the above results for the second session, it's not clear why I say I was "pipped" in that session. Thing is, some of the other people were taking so long to come back to the karts for this session that I was switched into a kart nearer the pitlane

As mentioned at the end of the previous post, I took Teamsport up on their £18 Race Again offer after my last time there. For 30 minutes on track, I'm still impressed at that value. Anyway, this time I could muster only  one of my nephews as a companion/rival, despite the fact that two of them plus a brother-in-law had bought the same vouchers. Still, he's a good nephew with a keen interest in — and desire to work in — Formula 1, so all's good. This time out, there seemed to be more of a mix of abilities on track. That was pretty clear as soon as we got out of the pits and some people instantly ignored the yellow lights (used to test whether you'd been paying attention to the briefing), just shooting past everyone. 🙄 Cue those yellow lights turning to red and them getting a quiet word in their ears. Later on, those same people turned out to be mobile chicanes, lapping nearly 10 seconds off the pace. Once we actually got up and running, it was clear that the track ha

Crazy, isn't it? One minute, you're a not-long-married 30-something musing about the inevitability of having to sell your fancy sports car (the 350Z). Then, in the very next blog post, you're a late 40-something dad driving a 1.0-litre Focus, composing a blog post about a rare karting session while your 9yo daughter does gymnastics. Let's hit rewind for some very motoring-skewed notable events of the past 10 years: Sold the 350Z not long after the last big post for... £5000, IIRC.  Focus nearly died (timing belt) on a drive to Edinburgh airport (we still caught the plane after leaving the car behind) First daughter born in 2013 Focus eventually died on a local dual carriageway (no personal trauma involved) Replaced Focus with a diesel Renault Laguna mk3... and grew to hate it Second daughter born in 2016 Eventually replaced the Laguna after 6 or 7 years of joyless motoring with another Focus; mk3 this time Not a single trackday in the last 10 years Occasional track &quo