Oh, my aching arms

Last night, we went go-karting. I was awesome… if by awesome, you understand it to mean “got in the way a lot, frustrated other drivers and refused to come off after my allocated amount of laps on the track.” Then I was AWESOME.

A group of about 20 of us were divided into teams through a random draw. My team consisted of one Audi-driving SARS accountant, one under-aged minor, myself and one very frustrated 25-year-old who watched as his team was lapped four times… in the first round.

I was under the mistaken belief that I did quite well – for a girl. In all honesty, I was only really there for the spins and for skidding into corners, which I think I did very well, thank you.

Each driver got two rounds of 8 minutes on the tracks. About halfway into my first round, my poor girly arms gave up on me. I simply didn’t have the strength to control the kart any more. Of course, this message did not relay to my brain – so my foot was still merrily depressing the accelerator pedal. As I came into the big corner and my arms gave up and my foot didn’t, I managed to side-swipe R (who had only lapped me once in that round, I think) quite spectacularly. I got a very threatening warning flag and an evil eyeball from the official for being a menace on the road and to society.

It was fun.

In the second round, when my team was about 12 laps behind the leaders, I took the approach that if I wasn’t going to beat them, then they sure as shit weren’t going to pass me… again.

No, I lie - there was nothing conscious in my strategy. I was just trying to hold on, and see through my helmet that kept falling down over my face. There are only three bends in the track, but if people were viewing a hidden camera from my kart they could be forgiven for thinking there were at least seventeen, with all the skidding, sliding and swinging I did. All this extravagant maneuvering left no room for overtaking. So I’m told.

On about my second last lap (which I later learnt was supposed to be my last lap), I finally managed a corner that saw me gliding smoothly to the outside of the track and accelerating. It felt so good. So that's how it's supposed to be done. Now if only I could remember what the hell I did… Shortly after that, my evil official stepped into the track and just about dragged me into the pit lane. Rumour has it that he’d been trying to call me in for the last few laps.

Whoops. Let’s just put it down to lack of peripheral vision, shall we?