The Need for Speed

Another fun non-gambling activity my group enjoyed in Las Vegas was a trip to Pole Position Raceway, an indoor electric go kart race track:



The cost is a little up there, but you do get a full experience for your money. We raced two 12-lap races. They outfit you with spiffy racing helmets (complete with headsocks) and strap you into super-low-to-the-ground racers that you can push as high as 45 MPH.

They also intimidate you a little bit with a rather serious-sounding safety video you have to watch before your first race. Six of us chose to drive, and by the end of the three minute video, you could kind of see on our faces... well, not "hesitation" exactly, but a touch of "man, can I remember all that?"

I drew the pole position by luck of the draw in our first race, and after maybe a lap of driving conservatively, getting used to the car, I started gunning it. In my mind, I was having this absolutely incredible race. About halfway through the race, I lapped the last place car. After a few more laps, I passed another car. No one ever passed me. I thought, "man, I just crushed that."

Then the race was over and they hand us our race report sheets. Fourth place. Wait, huh? I'm thinking... no, wait, I lapped fifth and sixth place! I wasn't actually fourth place.

Well, it turns out we were all so focused on all that safety stuff in the video that we all missed an important detail -- how you win. The race was scored by time on your single fastest lap. My best lap was about half a second behind first, with two other racers sliding in even in front of that. A little extra salt in the wound was that my average lap time was the best in the field (though admittedly, only by a few hundredths of a second).

Oh! Okay! Well, we had one more race to go. And now we all get it. Just drive your best time.

You could tell we all got more aggressive once we fully understood our goal. I started in second position, and within a few laps ran around first so I could get a nice open stretch of track to run a good time on. And I thought I was doing it, too, until Sangediver pulled a masterful pass on me during lap 10 and left me in his wake.

This time the stats came back -- third for me. But at least the winner was Sange, with that crazy lap in which he flew by me. (Though I almost wish he'd passed me sooner. I noticed on my stat sheet that I got a lot faster on those last three laps when I was "chasing him" as opposed to the laps where I was "comfortably" leading.) In any case, the entire group improved dramatically in race two. The slowest time among the six of us in the second race was faster than the best time among us in race one.

A good time was had by all. We talked about wishing we didn't have to go all the way to Vegas to do this sort of thing. It turns out there's outdoor gas-powered go karts held at local speedway during the summer... but that hardly does any of us any good now.

But maybe it's something to look forward to.