Seven minutes in the fast lane
Güncelleme Tarihi:
by Cetin Cem Yilmaz
OluÅŸturulma Tarihi: Mart 14, 2009 00:00
ISTANBUL - Want to quench your thirst for speed? Well, some people do it on the streets of Istanbul but that’s not highly advised. You can test your speeding skills on one of the many kart racing tracks in the city. Speaking from experience, those machines can turn the worst driver into a speed king.
Let’s get one thing straight: I am far from the most the gifted person when it comes to motorsports, and as it turns out, kart racing is no exception.
While I consider myself sport-mad, motorsports have never been a favorite. But, as the emotionally detached boyfriend loves to say: "it’s not you, it’s me." It has nothing to do with the sports; it is the "motor" part of the moniker I have the problem with.
Yes, I have never been one of those men who could tell the make and model of a car a second after glimpsing the wheel rim. I have always felt that cars were overrated, never understood why people liked to cage themselves in tons of steel, and why some makers where more popular than the others, when they all seem the same. Those would seem the most ignorant of questions to auto-philes, but this is how a "why-drive-when-you-can-walk" feels.
Ah, there is also this other small detail: my aversion to driving is not so much a psychological one as it is a legal one. Not only do I not know how to drive, I also don’t have a driver license. (There is no a priori mix up in that statement, most of the drivers in Turkey got their license before they knew how to operate the vehicle.)
However, those prejudices did not stop me jumping at the first chance to race a go-kart around a track. I could be pretentious and say that the thrill of speed invaded me and unleashed the trapped Michael Schumacher inside this dummy of a driver, but I won’t do that. Maybe it was because it reminded me of that teenage feeling of ditching school on weekday, as it was the leaving the office for a few hours that seemed most attractive to me. Â
But still, I can’t deny that once I saw the track, the driving looked exciting. That says a lot for someone that’s never been behind the wheel of a car Ğ if you don’t count bumper cars, that is.
That was a mild setback though, because after putting on the helmets and gloves, which would make even the most amateur driver feel like Lewis Hamilton, I was completely up for it. Not up for it enough, however, to ignore the briefing on the cars, which is a bore for most but was a revelation to me Äž "Wow, the right pedal is gas, and the left is brake!" Äž then the action started.
Hitting the wall
The first lap was more of an orientation for me, and I must say I quickly adapted to it, until I got to the third corner and realized it would not be easy at all. Go fast around the bend, and you hit the tire-wall. You’re unlikely to be injured, unless you’re trying to break the sound barrier, but you do lose a lot of time waiting for your car to be up and running again: the coordinator of the race can remotely decrease your speed if he predicts a problem, and in case of an accident, he comes to help get the vehicle back on the track. This is possibly why my first lap took me 55 seconds, probably a record-low for the track.
However, I soon got the hang of it and towards the end of my seven-minute Formula one experience, I was surprised to see how pressing hard on the gas pedal could make me feel so good.
After seeing the checkered flag, and not moment after I pull into to where I started and I am my race report to see that in my third lap I record my best time of 33 seconds.
That was enough to make me feel like a champion, even though it was far behind the 20 second track record. The other boys from the newspaper argued among themselves about who was fastest, but for me, it was all about getting behind the wheel.
That was one small wheel-roll for mankind, one giant progress for me.
While I consider myself sport-mad, motorsports have never been a favorite. But, as the emotionally detached boyfriend loves to say: "it’s not you, it’s me." It has nothing to do with the sports; it is the "motor" part of the moniker I have the problem with.
Yes, I have never been one of those men who could tell the make and model of a car a second after glimpsing the wheel rim. I have always felt that cars were overrated, never understood why people liked to cage themselves in tons of steel, and why some makers where more popular than the others, when they all seem the same. Those would seem the most ignorant of questions to auto-philes, but this is how a "why-drive-when-you-can-walk" feels.
Ah, there is also this other small detail: my aversion to driving is not so much a psychological one as it is a legal one. Not only do I not know how to drive, I also don’t have a driver license. (There is no a priori mix up in that statement, most of the drivers in Turkey got their license before they knew how to operate the vehicle.)
However, those prejudices did not stop me jumping at the first chance to race a go-kart around a track. I could be pretentious and say that the thrill of speed invaded me and unleashed the trapped Michael Schumacher inside this dummy of a driver, but I won’t do that. Maybe it was because it reminded me of that teenage feeling of ditching school on weekday, as it was the leaving the office for a few hours that seemed most attractive to me. Â
But still, I can’t deny that once I saw the track, the driving looked exciting. That says a lot for someone that’s never been behind the wheel of a car Ğ if you don’t count bumper cars, that is.
That was a mild setback though, because after putting on the helmets and gloves, which would make even the most amateur driver feel like Lewis Hamilton, I was completely up for it. Not up for it enough, however, to ignore the briefing on the cars, which is a bore for most but was a revelation to me Äž "Wow, the right pedal is gas, and the left is brake!" Äž then the action started.
Hitting the wall
The first lap was more of an orientation for me, and I must say I quickly adapted to it, until I got to the third corner and realized it would not be easy at all. Go fast around the bend, and you hit the tire-wall. You’re unlikely to be injured, unless you’re trying to break the sound barrier, but you do lose a lot of time waiting for your car to be up and running again: the coordinator of the race can remotely decrease your speed if he predicts a problem, and in case of an accident, he comes to help get the vehicle back on the track. This is possibly why my first lap took me 55 seconds, probably a record-low for the track.
However, I soon got the hang of it and towards the end of my seven-minute Formula one experience, I was surprised to see how pressing hard on the gas pedal could make me feel so good.
After seeing the checkered flag, and not moment after I pull into to where I started and I am my race report to see that in my third lap I record my best time of 33 seconds.
That was enough to make me feel like a champion, even though it was far behind the 20 second track record. The other boys from the newspaper argued among themselves about who was fastest, but for me, it was all about getting behind the wheel.
That was one small wheel-roll for mankind, one giant progress for me.