karting was disastrous for me. Let me tell you why. First and foremost, not getting a full night’s sleep before a physically exerting event is stupid. Drinking energy drinks like they were going out of style does not make up for it. Because of my lack of sleep, I was physically very tired by the time I got to the track. When I’m tired, I get cranky. When I’m cranky, my chance to throw a tantrum increases by about 300 percent. This is what happened this evening. Secondly, the fact that we spent almost all of our practice session on a full-course caution didn’t help my mood at all. I started to get impatient, which also leads to me getting cranky. I don’t do very well when I get impatient. Just ask any of my friends who’ve known me for a few years. It’s a character defect of mine that I should really work on sometime. Third, I never got a clean lap in the four green laps of qualifying they gave us. And yes, we spent a good chunk of qualifying under yellow flag conditions too. By this time, I was extremely upset that I kept getting the “No Bumping” sign because of stupid people. I can think of exactly one time where a crash was my fault, and that was in the race. More on this later. So when they gridded us after qualifying, I was disappointed to notice that I was gridded in sixth place. I would have done *much* better had I a chance at a clean qualifying lap. As we were sitting on the starting grid, I made a decision that if I got a flag for somebody else’s stupid moves, I’d leave the track and go home. When the green flag flew, I was passed immediately by another driver who wasn’t as fast as I know I could have been. At the end of the second lap, I made a judgment error and tried to pass on the inside of the last corner. When the crash happened, the guy I hit screamed “fuck you” at me and flipped me the bird. This was just the excuse I needed, and I drove straight to the pits. I was out the door and in my car within 60 seconds. So yeah, next time I go, I really need to make sure I get plenty of sleep the night before. Actually, I need to start getting more sleep. This is really getting ridiculous. I don’t like who I’m becoming these days, and it’s directly attributable to my lack of sleep. I think tonight I’m going to try to get to bed and to sleep long before midnight. I just finished talking on the phone with one of my buddies who went, and he actually got out of his car about four minutes before the end of the race. He said that the three PUGers that were in our group were unpredictable and really made the session unpleasant for everybody. We both agreed that the staff there this evening also weren’t very pleasant. Rest assured, this hasn’t killed my desire to go karting more often. I still want to get an outdoor kart and start racing in the local club circuit. I’m still aiming to have my race kart by summer of ’09. Keep your fingers crossed for me, ‘eh? Anyway… That’s it for me. I’m going to go relax for the evening. Thanks for visiting and Keep Coming Back!!!]]>