TEN YEARS LATER

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 "experiences" ...although all I remember are a couple Ariel Atom outings
• The odd karting event (one every other year?), including one that resulted in a cracked rib

Soooo... it's safe to say life has changed a bit and I'm a tad rusty. My main motorsport enjoyment these days comes from YouTube: catching IndyCar highlights (better than F1) and watching simracing livestreams by the likes of Jardier (who's a lovely human being).

All of which sounds like perfect preparation for a spot of karting; actually my first outing in a couple years. To be fair, it builds the anticipation somewhat when you don't get out on track so often. And this time it was even at a circuit that was new to me. At some point in the past decade, a TeamSport venue on Scotswood Road in Newcastle opened up. It's an indoor circuit with two levels, but it turns out it's far more polished than the one in Dunston; polished in every sense. Sadly I didn't take any photos, so... cue stock photo!

In hindsight, I figure I timed my visit pretty well. They'd just replaced their fleet of karts with fancy new electric karts (seen in the photo, I think). This was a first for me. And, while it might sound a bit gimmicky, the karts even had an equivalent of IndyCar's push-to-pass (P2P): a button on the steering wheel that gives you an extra power boost, with 5 seconds' worth available per lap. Where you use it and for how long in each burst is up to you. It was actually a nice added dimension to the racing.

So, what's the circuit like? Pretty good, actually. When I read beforehand that it was over 2 levels, I dreaded a transition between them feeling like you riding along the edge of a 50 pence piece. In reality, the transitions were actually pretty smooth. Certainly, the transition going up from the lower to upper level was surprisingly good. Starting as you come out of a tight (and very slippery) hairpin, it wasn't at all bumpy and not even sinusoidal either, but rather quite organic and played out around a sequence of corners.

The ramp going down was much more of your typical straight-down-a-sinusoidal-ramp affair, though it had the challenge of a hard, high-speed (and slippery again) left hander immediately after it. In fact, that following corner was so slippery that I had a habit of feathering the throttle on the way down lest I gain too much speed to make it round the corner. Ultimately, I think I just needed to grow a pair, but turning in after you've accelerated wildly down the ramp was always a leap of faith that you'd find the grip in time to stay out of the tyre barriers. And I followed plenty of people who didn't manage that (one of my nephews included).

Slightly simplified track map, pinched from the TeamSport website

As for the lower vs. upper levels, I'd say a good 60-70% of the track was on the upper level. The lower level was nothing but the leap-of-faith 90° left-hander followed by another leap-of-faith 90° left-hander and then the hairpin leading into the ramp back to the upper level. All of the lower level corners had large areas of very low grip right on the racing line, so you often found yourself understeering wildly and backing off the throttle before finally finding some grip and trying to avoid the barrier.

On the upper level, you emerge from the corkscrew-like up-ramp (using P2P to aid the climb) into a continuation of the spiral, gradually opening up onto a short straight before a hairpin-left, hairpin-right combination. Keeping your foot in was a great sensation and having the nerve to do it could gain you some decent laptime and maybe the chance to block-pass into the first hairpin. That said, that could leave you vulnerable to an attacker maintaining speed, taking the long way round both you and the person you're overtaking and getting the inside line for the second hairpin.

Coming out of that second hairpin, the kart had slowed quite a bit and it felt like the right place to use a chunk of the P2P boost to get the kart back up to speed and avoid being outdragged by anyone behind. The dog-leg right shortly after it took a bit of experimentation to find the right line and pace. To be honest, I'm not sure I ever really nailed it, often missing the apex for fear of driving right into it (which, for some reason, felt very possible on this corner).

The hairpin following that, and immediately before the ramp back down to the lower level, was a decent place to send it (there's a new bit of vocabulary from the last 10 years!), especially if someone in front was cautiously attempting an overtake of their own. It's also one of those hairpins -- like the first half of the Senna S at Warden Law -- on which you can take great delight from throwing the kart into it and just brushing the apex while you (slightly) drift through. Makes you feel like you've got incredibly fine judgement, even if the reality is you were barely in control. 😂

On the exit, unless you made a right hash of the hairpin, you were pretty good to keep your position for the whole of the lower level, as a pass on the slippery lower level surface was generally just too risky. Well, unless you were one of the people who took advantage of me sliding wildly wide at the hairpin by the ramp, unable to get any traction. 🙄

Right. I've written a lot of words there, avoiding the mention of how I actually got on. Or, indeed, the session format. So, it wasn't actually a race. We -- myself, my brother-in-law, and two of my nephews -- were part of a field of 13 drivers taking part in two 15-minute sessions where it was just a case of "fastest lap wins". So, two qualifying sessions, really. That might sound pretty uninspiring, but it was still a blast and in the second session, we even ended up with enough trains to generate a feel of proper racing (even if it was hurting all of our laptimes).

The times? The first session really gave my ego a swift kick in the nuts. 8th fastest out of 13, and beaten by one of my nephews. 😦 Being beaten by my nephew was actually quite good to see; he's hoping to get a job in F1 and I kinda hoped he'd have an aptitude behind the wheel too. But still... pride and all that! 😂 I knew I'd struggled in that first session, especially in the lower level. I'd really backed off for the 90° left-handers, unwilling to risk stuffing it in the barrier. I mean, I'd seen others sail through those corners, but I just didn't feel I could match it, or that my particular kart was up to it. "Was I wrong?", I wondered. I'd also failed to nail the spiral up-ramp and the slippery hairpin that preceded it. That was another area to focus on in the next session; I felt I needed to get the kart slowed earlier so that I could cling to the apex and just pootle round it before flooring it up the ramp.

The second session felt a lot better. I grew a pair and started launching the kart into the two 90° left-handers in the lower level. A slight feathering of the throttle as you careened towards the barriers was usually enough to bring back just enough grip to make the corner. I still fluffed the downstairs hairpin quite a few times and occasionally had someone nip through on the inside, but generally, I felt a lot better at it.

Elsewhere on the track, I was having a whale of a time, especially into the first of the back-to-back hairpins, where I repeatedly stole places when the person in front of me made a meal of getting past someone in front of them. I was absolutely loving pouncing on opportunities like that, but just to keep me in check, someone effectively bump-drafted me on the straight going into that first hairpin once. Had I really gone so slowly up the ramp and round the corner for someone to get that much speed on me? It taught me to keep my foot in a bit more on subsequent laps, but I do wonder now whether he'd simply been leaning on his P2P. (My ego prefers that explanation too. 😉) At the end of the second session, however, my result was much improved. I got second-fastest lap, only 0.033s behind the eventual winner. The nearest nephew was now back in 7th.

My race stats, as screenshotted from the TeamSport app (which is pretty nice for nerds like me)

Overall, I have to say that I really enjoyed this trip. The venue was pretty nice with some good touches (e.g. free lockers) and the novelty of the electric karts was a pleasant one; more tactical options and none of the fumes (which are otherwise very noticeable at indoor venues). The price, for 30 minutes of track time, was also reasonable, at £34. Add to that that we got the chance to race again, in the same format, for just £18; effectively a cheap voucher that lasts 6 months. Needless to say, I took them up on the offer. Maybe I'll post again when I get round to doing that repeat session, but I suspect it won't be with my brother-in-law; he made a passing attempt on the first 90° left-hander downstairs that resulted in a heavy collision and what sounds like a cracked rib. While he did buy a voucher too, it's sounding like he might think again before using it.

So... work colleagues? Who's up for it? 😉