06/02/03 Changed my storage space for a slightly smaller one today, so while I was moving the kart decided to get it battle-ready. Swapped gearbox fluid for Redline Synthetic ATF (it shifted much better with this before), refilled the cooling system and fired it up. After a significant number of tries that is. It required cleaning the sparkplug and cranking the motor for a very long time before the pump primed and engine fired up. The cranking is accomplished by wrapping a nylon strap around one of the rear tires and pulling like mad. A bit of a pain (literally) but the kart is now ready to go.

Quite looking forward to taking it out, actually. The old tires are probably good for another outing or maybe two. We have a spare set of brand new tires already mounted on wheels so that will see service soon. Although I should come up with better seat padding so my ribs don't get bruised as much...

06/10/03 First kart outing of the year today. Weather has finally cooled down a bit which was great. The kart didn't run that well though. It ended up being down to a fouled spark plug, but we were messing with jetting for a while before we figured it out. Well, at least we got some practice changing the jets and needle level. When we finally got it running well it was a LOT of fun, as always. I had installed the torsion bar and that makes the kart really easy to steer with the throttle - perhaps a bit too easy.. Although on light throttle through turns it just sticks. Also made some changes to the seat pad so it covers the ribs better - we'll see how bad my bruises look tomorrow.

On the way back, driving by the county airport saw hand-painted sign saying "WWII Bombers" and an arrow pointing down the side road. So we had to take a detour... And sure enough:

Interesting nose art :) Not something you see everyday, especially at a small airport in the middle of nowhere.

05/09/05 Recently we finally moved the kart to the new space. Even started it up - two-year-old fuel and all. It runs. Amazing.

So, the next nice day I'm going to take it out to the track and actually use it. It sat for almost exactly two years so I think it's about time. This year is the test - we either use it or sell it.

04/26/06 The kart?! Yep, the kart. After nearly three years of sitting in storage it finally got to see some action. Weather was good and a couple of my friends were able to go play for the afternoon so we borrowed Satya's truck and off we went. One unknown was whether the thing was going to run at all. After many futile attempts to awaken the beastie using a pull-rope around a tire we finally accepted the offer of a push-start from one of the guys at the track and that worked. Took a quarter of a lap but work it did. As both the kart and the drivers warmed up things got progressively more entertaining. This machine is just so much fun to slide around on the throttle. In fact the right foot is a primary steering input for some corners. Way cool :)

Funny to see how much the tires distort under cornering loads. Even at out relatiely modest pace I bet we're pulling over 1.5g in turns. All three of us were doing the sliding and we were all running very similar lap times, around 43 seconds. This was the short course configuration that I was lapping in about 40 sec back in '02 (and the best guys in 125 shifters run in about 35) so there is definitely a lot of room for improvement for all of us. I had brought the GPS datalogger but didn't have a good way of mounting it so we figured the first time out we're not breaking any records anyway and a simple stopwatch would do. Regardless of laptimes, this is FUN! Exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. Definitely need to do more of it. We even burned through most of the three-year-old fuel so now it's time to go buy more. Of course there is maintenance to be done - spark plug keeps wanting to come out, we seem to be losing coolant and I need to come up with a mounting solution for GPS. Oh, and a new set of tires can't be too far away. Part of playing the game.