Saturday, March 20, 2010

Karting 4th installment

As mentioned in the previous posting, yeah we had our karting session again last week Sunday. Part of the reason is my ex officemate by the name of Ban (tayar in Indonesian) just came back for holiday from Saudi Arabia, he will go merajuk should we opted not to go with him this time. :P

Since the session will kick off in the afternoon, I accompanied a Polo GTI owner, Ajae to Jooi Seng in the morning to ditch newly shod Dunlop LM703s (one week old) for RSRs. Just like Munir who changed to RSRs two weeks back, he got the same good bargain price of RM370 per piece. At last this guy has fallen for my racun after so much resistance on his side, see Ajae, as they say, resistance is futile! I’m a good recommender tau!

By 2.30pm most of us already in City Karting track, 8 to be exact including my brothers, getting busy conteng-conteng the forms, handing out cash to the towkey, strapping in our helmets and gloves and ready to rempit! This time around, it’s quite an exhausting one with the sun heating the track and those on it like an oven baking a hell lot of heat to melt the cheese; nevertheless all of us enjoyed the evening as every karting session we had.

That day, I managed to pick up few pointers of what separating us from the pros. Guys like Edwyn, who is a MyKart race driver (and Polo GTI owner too) managed to drive his line precisely clean and consistently over numerous laps. These couple with his car control alone will net easily 2-3 seconds off me and geng-geng se-angkatan per lap. And say his best laptime of about 1.09s, in 10 laps, he would be further ½ lap ahead!

And because of my over spending time on this new addiction brings me to one shameful confession. The more time I spend on karting, the more worsen I feel on driving cars hard on sweeping bends and long fast straights on the road or on the track. It’s something that the road cars’ compromise between comfort and fun causing it to be soft, imprecise, inactive and just not as rewarding compared to decent prepped kart. Of course, there’re cars offering more focus experience, but it’s no brainer to me because I don’t think I can afford one anytime soon (but I will consider one to nursing my up and coming midlife crisis in 10-15 years time :P)

Modding on the other hand, can brings more focus injections but it’s like a carving of what already been a neatly packaged sirloin meat by most run-of-the-mill gourmet shops where idiots like me might mostly end up spoiling the entire car. This then brings me to one penultimate question, should I abandon my modding junkie-ness on the Pocong and just get an uncompromised kart to unleash my lust or stay where I’m now i.e. agak-agak boleh modding junkie? hehehe

And back to road driving, I’m going back to my favourite Ulu Yam road tomorrow morning, trying to find out what road driving can offer where karting just couldn’t….hmmmm

Anyway, here’s an array of pictures of our karting session courtesy of Ban & his brother.


1st head underway...

Tussle between my two brothers (Adli and Qusyairi), the rempit came on top!

Adli still got to improve is line through

The tapaued Qusyairi soldier on... until...

...I came and lap him kakaka

Qusyairi correcting skids

Close up pic, helmet ok... gloves ok... but shoes not ok :P

Was it Ajae at the back there with the white/red top? hahaha

Kart21 (Kart 27 in previous weeks) was ok just down on pawar


2nd heat, this kart is extremely vibrating and very loose tail end but very PAWAR!

PAWAR! PAWAR! PAWAR!

Catching up to Haji Ban!

Bye bye Haji!!

3rd heat underway....

Who's got the rights to the corner first? Me me me says everyone here ...

1st lap done...

2nd lap Ajae and Ban hustling me down!

4 comments:

  1. Wheres the distractions pics?? Like in the previous instalment! Haha.

    And what time you going to Ulu Yam? Might run into you in the straights :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. hahaha there weren't any distractions this time around :(

    I'm heading to Ulu Yam about 7am or so to my in-law's place in Batang Kali

    ReplyDelete
  3. karting is real fun, but karting and driving cars two diff thing la bro. even if u go down the route of purchasing a kart, u will still itch backside want to do up ur car, esp sorting out the handling. Its in the blood redy, cannot change redy! :)

    anyway, looks like a great outing. I have never been to Ulu Yam though, i know everyone talks about it, maybe its time!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mugil,

    I do get more anxiety and more butterfly feelings when driving the car on the road/track but karting is more focus in almost everything. Modding junkie-ness has already seeping to my veins,not as much as you guys nevertheless it's inevitable to resist. I'm at crossroad which one to pursue more, I wish to do both but can't :(

    Speaking about Ulu Yam, it has more long sweeping corners in comparison to Kelawang road which near to your home. But you've to go there early to avoid traffic :)

    ReplyDelete