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Atom On Thursday I went karting at the Kurburgring again, this time with a carrier bag holding my shoes, earplugs and a spare pair of gloves. My brother didn't kart this time but he and Dad spectated. The staff on reception remembered us well from last time. It turned out they'd even read my blog and liked it, which was nice.
The briefing this time focused more on the correct lines to take around the circuit because the marshal leading it reckoned I could improve if I could get my lines right more consistently. Given that my times on my previous visit had ping-ponged to some extent, I could understand that line of thinking. To this end, one of the other marshals offered to show me the correct lines.
For the first 20 minutes of my allotted half-hour, I had company on the track. Two other people were already there when I headed out. The marshal was not among them. I got going and tried to get into a rhythm. This happened surprisingly quickly. The first lap was not a complete embarassment and the second one a 34.518 - faster than all but 6 of the laps I'd done on my previous visit.
The next seven laps showed slow but steady improvement, apart from one where I lost the rhythm of the lap entirely. I was faster than the other two karters on circuit and was gradually catching them.
Lap 9 of my run involved a big jump in performance. Having previously done 34.4s, I went down to 33.424, which was 0.4 seconds faster than my previous lap record. I was getting close to one of the other karters and starting to plan how to do the overtake...
The next lap was even faster (33.301) and I was nearly on the guy's rear bumper as I noticed another karter join the track a short way behind me. Knowing that overtaking was forbidden into the banked Karusell, I tried to take a cautious approach into the hairpin. Unfortunately I forgot to take into account that karts don't steer so well when driven slowly. The driver in front of me had a poor line into the turn and was slow coming back onto the power. We both crashed, leaving the somewhat bemused marshal looking back at us with "What did the pair of you think you were doing?" body language.
It took a while for us to get going again. So what do I do next? Crash at the same corner next lap, all by my little lonesome! After that, the marshal caught up with me and I was able to follow him for a few laps. My times went all over the place - as I tried to learn the improved lines for different parts of the circuit, I would lose track of what I was supposed to be doing for others. It's difficult to track another kart closely and maintain quality of driving in your own kart simultaneously. Eventually, I turned in a lap that was considered acceptable and the marshal motioned for me to go past.
A few minutes later, everyone left the track except me because I had 10 minutes more to go. This was going to be a great opportunity to put what I had learned into practise. Except that my fingers were getting tired. I was struggling to turn the kart. I responded to it by slowing down, which of course made the kart gradually less responsive to the turning I was managing to do. I ended up stopping for nearly 4 minutes to let my fingers recover.
After I got going again, I nearly matched my previous fastest time and managed to consistently be within 0.4 seconds of that time on the other laps. I could feel things were much better after my break. On the penultimate lap, I thought something in the glove had worked loose, but carried on regardless - no sense stopping again...
After the chequered flag, I had a "debrief" with Dad and my brother. They reckoned I hadn't managed to get everything right on a single lap; every time there was at least one corner where I'd made an error. If I'd managed to string my best corners together, they reckoned I could have been over a second faster. Still, the "acceptable" lap turned out to be 33.104 seconds. An improvement of 0.6 seconds on my fastest lap and 1.88 seconds on my average (non-crash/break) lap was good work.
The "debrief" got interrupted when I got round to removing my gloves. Nothing in the glove had got loose. I had simply got a thumbnail-sized blister on the base of my right hand, which had popped. I heard motorsport was dangerous but that wasn't quite what I had in mind... Just to make it worse, I'd left my first-aid kit in my karting bag at home. Good thing the reception staff had plasters.
I am now the 7th-fastest woman to have driven at the Kurburgring, just 0.6 seconds slower than one of the members of staff. Just in case anyone thinks I should replace Felipe Massa, I should point out that there is a junior who, despite using a kart with less than half the engine displacement of the kart I used, has a fastest lap 0.195 seconds faster than me. Clearly I have targets at which to aim...