Andrew:
Go-karting seems to be a common activity that many people have done, especially kids who have attended their friend’s racing themed birthday party. However, everyone in the group had never been, but we’ve attended various birthday parties as kids, so don’t feel too bad for us! When we were brainstorming for something to do, the idea of go-karting came up. We then all realized neither of us had ever gone before and we were shocked about this shared coincidence. We decided to fix this together, scheduling a trip to Racers Edge Karting. Before I even arrived—which was late because I “had” to grab an iced coffee from Starbucks—I was starting to feel less like an outsider, aligning with a millennial stereotype. We were so clueless about go-karting, that we had to research a place after deciding to take this on as our challenge. |
As I continued speeding through I heard something fall onto the track; continuing to drive, I frantically checked my pockets and was telling myself “Please be my keys, please be my keys”, but alas it was my cell phone. I heard three go-karts slam into each other because Andrew spotted my phone on the track and braked just in time before they all went over it. The employee came onto the track and took my phone and showed it to me. Yup, it was definitely broken, and the irony was I just had the glass replaced.
I did say earlier that it was a shattering race! After we finished our final lap we parked our go-karts and returned our helmets. We noticed an arcade-like section near the racetrack and decided to go check it out. We played games for a bit and took some more pictures until we realized we had worked up an appetite from racing. After a fun and adrenaline pumping time go-karting, we ended our first go-karting experience by going to Buffalo Wild Wings to put the stamp on an exciting and memorable day! |
I find it really odd that two car-guys have never been Go Karting, and that our first experience would be at a place in Burbank. But that is what happened. I love to drive. I’ve been driving since I was fifteen and I’ve put thousands of miles on my cars, driving around aimlessly in the middle of the night. And it's not like I’ve never had the opportunity to go there. I have friends that go, and have been invited to a Go Karting place for somebody’s birthday, but I just never ended up going. So when the opportunity to do this as a challenge with Eduardo came around, I was very open to the idea, and although most of my friends were interested in coming along, it seems that everyone has a little bit of a resistance. All of a sudden, spending twenty bucks was way too much money and everyone moaned and groaned about going.
We ended up going with one of our architecture classmates, Maoqiang, who happens to be in our journalism class as well, who also happens to have never been Go Karting. During the car ride to Racer’s Edge, I assumed that our friend Maoqiang would be the fastest one out of us three, given how he drove. When we got there, the place was empty. There’s all sorts of motor sports related decor, a NASCAR sitting in the lobby area, checkered flags hanging on the walls and a bunch of arcade games. Since the place is empty, we start taking our photographs but a big family with four kids show up and take our place. This ended up being a good thing because it allowed us to observe them and see what it was like to drive these electric go karts. We sign up and get our tickets for a 16-lap circuit. We put on our helmets and go through a quick orientation on operating the machines, then we line up in our karts and wait for our turn to drive. |
Links |
7500 |
|