GRX 2025 - Media and Musings

Bimodal_Rocket · March 17, 2025, 3:25am

GRX 2025 - Media and Musings

And so we begin again. The new season brings us new faces and new fun to be had. We started on a gorgeous but moist morning, bright and early 8am qualifying. The track began the day as a rather amusing slip and slide, making for a challenging start for some of our new racers, who had yet to experience outdoor karting, much less in the wet. Despite this, we had no major incidents and I think everyone enjoyed the challenge.

As the day progressed, and we moved to the heats, the track got progressively drier. I qualified P1 in my group, placing me in the A division along with old friends like @RandallC and @nikspeeds.

I had a pretty good day, finishing P3 in both main and prefinal. The main was the most fun, with an extended battle with fast fellow Kamau and a speedy Raman. The heats were long, 21 laps in the main and 16 for prefinal, a good value.

The karts were much better than last year, with Keith and the gang having massaged them a bit. I am sure they will get mangled by the pub sessions as time progresses, but for now we only had one kart that was significantly off pace (sorry @RandallC).

My only issue was with my gloves. GRX is a physical track, and the centurion steering wheels are hardened from time and Sol, making my grip sus at best. In the long main, I was struggling to keep grip. It’s time for new gloves, methinks!

Thanks to David, Keith and the gang for putting on a remarkably smooth race, and thanks to all of our racers for a) showing up on time, and b) being awesome!

I’ll post more as the season transpires, but for now, here!s some pretty photos and videos of our lively and lovely day of racing. Enjoy!

The Races

KeslerDesignWorks · March 17, 2025, 12:37pm

That looks like a really good time! If you wander back out West we need to do an event together.

Bimodal_Rocket · March 17, 2025, 12:55pm

It was and generally is. Chill. Track races so well, it’s brilliant. It also feels special in how it presents itself, with the amphitheater and all, kind of timeless, grungy but not… reminds me of buying small oval in iracing, with all the little details, kinda derelict, kinda wow.

Yeah we should do a race out west, an endurance of some sort. Beat you up a bit, slowly.

KeslerDesignWorks · March 17, 2025, 1:48pm

If you come back out to K1 let me know. About a 5hr drive for me. So not bad at all. I should be out there testing quite a bit this year anyways.

Bimodal_Rocket · March 24, 2025, 12:13pm

WEEK 2 2025

Another week another race, this time with 3 divisions.
We began at 8am with a 10min quali to divvy up the racers.

It was a beautiful, clear, but frigid morning, around 30 degrees. With the wind chill from driving, we all struggled mightily with frozen fingers. I was better off than most, having brought my thicker rain gloves, but I still fumbled miserably, trying to remove the harness at the end of my quali heat, fingers uncooperative.

Fortunately, things warmed up a bit in time for the heat races and we were spared further agony.

I got the days hot kart for quali, finished p1 and moved on the A heats, placing 4th in pre and 8th in the final.

My kart in pre was decent engine wise but was incompatible with left turns, causing me to struggle somewhat and was unable to keep up with the front pack. So, I soldiered on alone in p4, with the rest of the gang having a grand old time duking it out a half a lap behind me.

For the final, I got the 2nd worst kart, and finished 2nd to last, p8. This bad boy not only had a serious dislike of left turns, but also had a laconic approach to accessing the top end. I lost about 2s a lap trying to compensate, hammering brakes to force rotation up into chicane. But, better that than plowing straight, I suppose.

I had one exciting moment in the final. Perhaps in an attempt to make up for its lack of speed and turning ability, the brakes were absurdly firm. Applying normal pressure resulted in locking up the rears.

So, having navigated the t1 fiasco, and momentarily being in the lead pack, I spun suddenly, while trying to trail into t3. Oooops! It was great fun watching the pack flow around me mid corner! Props to all for not t-boning me all the way to Trenton!

I gathered myself and my wounded pride and banged out the remaining 19 minutes of the main, ultimately getting lapped by p1-2, whom I let by when the time had come to do so.

So, a typical day of rental racing, with its ups and downs! But still good fun and always better than not racing at all.

I will miss week three as I am going to do Matt Hass’s 3hr indoor enduro at Xtreme Zone on Sunday. This is probably a good thing as it looks like we are in for cold and wet weather this week. I shall report back!

Bimodal_Rocket · June 30, 2025, 5:10pm

Racing with Nick at GRX

I forgot to update the thread so I am belatedly doing so. I haven’t been able to get out to GRX as much as I’d like this year, but did manage to introduce my son to its awesomeness, and tossed him unprepared into a league race on May 25th. I figured he’d love it and I was right!

We had a fabulous race and Nick got lucky with kart draw and had good results for his first time out, placing P1 in quali despite never having turned any laps there.

My quali involved a flat tire so I was unable to post a good lap and was put into the B group whereas Nick was in A. But, no worries, we met again in the A-Main since I won the B-Prefinal and was upgraded to the back of the A-Main!

I then got to chase my son in the final, finishing 4th to his 3rd and had one of my better races! I got a kart that handled well but was sadly lacking in top end. My race involved trying to make the most of my course knowledge and trying to offset the time I was losing on the long straight, relative to my peers, by being better in the twisties. While I had no chance to win or even podium, I had an excellent race trying to catch up to my son (who started in 6th ahead of me last in P8).

I was actually really proud of this race for 2 reasons:

Nick did very well, adapting super quickly to a new track, and showing more natural ability than his tryhard Dad. Thats mah boy!!!
And,
I drove very well and was really trying to get the most out of what the kart had to offer. I was able to make a few spots and finished p4 behind Nick, and felt that I was able to stay within the tire and drive tight, strong lines. It was really fun catching the guys Nick battled ahead of me and I appreciated his unintentionally bringing the racers back to his old man.

I hope to bring Nick back out there again, soon. He agrees that it’s a special place and one of the best tracks he’s driven. It was really nice to race with him again and our next race will be the Xtreme Zone 3hr, which should be awesome fun.

tjkoyen · June 30, 2025, 6:10pm

Liking the edits Dom.

Bimodal_Rocket · June 30, 2025, 7:49pm

That’s kind of you to say! For me, I find that karting isn’t about a race exactly, it’s about the day or weekend for which the race is the supporting act. Someday I’ll have better stories to tell, but for now I’ll just take pics and babble.

Bimodal_Rocket · June 30, 2025, 10:39pm

Oh, one other thing… Keith bought a bunch of used CRG centurions second-hand (OVRP mebbe?) for GRX which is what we have been using.

I do like these karts, but they are unusual looking. I don’t think they fall into the “Oooh Sexy, I want one!” category but who am I to judge your choice of dance partner?

That being said, I can’t help but think of the Dalek from the old Dr. Who BBC program when I see a centurion. I almost expect to hear “Exterminate…Exterminate…” as it drives on by.

Dalek
A Dalek is a fictional extraterrestrial cyborg race from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. They are known for their distinctive pepper-pot-shaped casing, single eyestalk, and their hatred of all non-Dalek life.

CRG Centurion
The CRG Centurion is a go-kart designed for rental tracks, with a focus on performance, safety, and low maintenance.

Bimodal_Rocket · July 8, 2025, 12:48pm

Leader takes the Top

Nick and I headed back out to GRX this past Sunday for another go at the league race day. It was a lovely morning, sunny and warm, sneaking in between the heat-domes and deluges that seem to have been alternating of late.

Joseph explains the format

The timing system was down for some unknown reason so we had to get creative. League racer Joseph Gorringe suggested we try a fun format called “Leader takes the Top”. Its something they do in oval he told us, and we said, “let’s do it”.

Las Vegas GP start delayed our heats a bit…

The premise is pretty simple: if you are in the lead position, you must take the long way around in the final sector, if not, you take the shorter Joker lap route. The difference between the two is something on the order of .75-1s a lap.

Two rejoin perspectives:
Following leader

As leader

Coming together

As you can imagine, this livens things up considerably and makes for a leadership change pretty much each lap. It also really helps with the inevitable kart disparity such that the “hot” karts get slowed down a bit and the pack has a better race.

It is a bit squirrely in that the kart taking the joker and the lead kart have to come together into the final turn, so care must be taken. But, experienced league racers with reasonable kart control and situational awareness allowed it to work out safely.

Collectively, we pretty much just sent it instead of trying to be tactical. There is an Achilles heel in that you obviously don’t want to be leader going into the final lap. One could imagine some shenanigans around that scenario involving braking etc, which could be dangerous, but fortunately for us, we lost our white flag!!! So, we had no clue when the race was winding down, which negated last lap strategy.

3 wide is best wide

I had a terrific couple of races and so did Nick. In my first heat I went up against the hot kart of the day and came out P2. In my second I had a relatively poor kart but managed to drive it to P4 by getting some lucky breaks. Nick had a really really close almost win in his first heat but ended up P3, falling victim to the last lap lead. In his second heat, he had a stinker compared to his first heat kart but managed to hold off another fellow chasing him, which was also really fun, and finished P4.

Dom

Nick

It was a great day of racing and was just plain old fun. No pressure, just a bunch of drivers having a batshit crazy playdate, which is a really nice thing from time to time.

Thanks Joseph for the brilliant idea and thanks GRX for being nuts enough to let us do it.

Bimodal_Rocket · August 11, 2025, 2:27am

We had a fun final race for the “season” this past Sunday. We totally lucked out on the weather, enjoying one of the few “nice” weekends we have had this summer: dry and not too hot!

It is August, now, and the famed Jersey corn grows tall. Soon to be buttered.

Connor Stroh, Joseph Gorringe and Kamau Selby duked it out for the title in this final race, with Kamau’s points lead being ultimately insurmountable. Congrats Kamau! Now please go get fat and slow. Kamau sweetend the pot by offering up his hair as tribute, win or lose. So, after the final, P2 and 3 shaved his head for him. Fun!

League champ Kamau gets head shaved by Connor (p3) and Jospeh (p2)

Speaking of fat, I may have gone a bit overboard with the karting on Sunday. We had the league race at 8am and I ended up sticking around after for the open public sessions. I karted until 6pm and did something like 10 sessions after the busy league morning, clocking over 2hrs of seat time. When I got home and weighed myself, I had gone from 185lbs to 176lbs. I was also starting to cramp up and my fingers were having trouble unbending. The drive home was therefore entertaining, being barely able to hold the wheel.

Immediately following the race, me and some of the league guys did a few sessions and a mock race on the new CRGs that Keith got from OVRP. Since they haven’t been mauled yet, they are quite a bit more sorted and we really enjoyed breaking them for Keith. I also spent some time helping a fellow racer named Cruz by doing some lead follow and advising him on earlier braking points and the like, which seemed to be helpful. Slow in, fast out!

I may have managed to separate the engine cover from the kart in an out of bounds incident, or maybe that was someone else. If I am responsible, I would offer that the kart is now a bit lighter and therefore faster, so in a roundabout way I have improved things for everyone.

Then, Crystal Pi and her partner and a pal or two showed up and we played chase for the rest of the day, which was great fun. Crystal’s pal Jack has a bitchin’ GT3 RS and Crystal and her partner have a very cool 944, so we made the parking lot very, very Porsche, which was fun. Did ya know the gt3rs doesn’t have a frunk? Now you do!

Crystal, GN, Jack and me pose with our Porsches at GRX

Crystal recently dethroned Kamau as the lap record holder so we had a good time playing the “who can go fastest” game with her and friends and Kamau was able to jump in with us. Excellent battling. Sadly, I was the slowest of the 3 of us, but I was close. I’m older and fatter, so that’s my excuse.

Are you OK in there?

It was a lovely day and pretty darn busy. I spent a fair amount of time helping rescue beached karts and thoroughly enjoyed myself. We had only one major incident (no injury) wherein a patron managed to bury themselves under multiple layers of huggy barriers. Despite the undoubtedly significant impact, they were fine, but pretty squished and uncomfortable looking, what with all that plastic pinning them and the kart down.

Unpaid Intern Dom at work

No champagne? No problem.

So, all in all a very pleasant day. I look forwards to the next league.

Unfortunately it looks like E-Town is being sold and will become condos. Such is the way of the world, alas. I am unsure what the timeframe is before we lose the track forevermore. But, until then, we shall persist and send it twice as hard.

Bimodal_Rocket · August 18, 2025, 4:23pm

Let’s do it again: new season, new faces, new podiums

Once more into the breech. We fired up a new “season” of GRX league racing this past Sunday. It was a lovely day, and super well-attended. A large group of new folks showed up and we had close to 30 racers.

Connor and Joseph reconfiguring the final sector

For this round, we decided to run the “new” karts and the better “old” karts to round out the field. We only have 6 of the as of yet un-mauled Orange CRGs, so me and the fellas selected another 4 of the older blue karts to race alongside as well.

Reminder to check fuel as 2 ran out of gas in final

Although the karts are all the same, with same engines (GX270), the newer karts have less bent bits and the engines are perhaps less tired. They seem to be about .5-1s faster than many of the old blue ones, so it was nice to race the newer ones this time.

Banana for scale

We did 3 quali groups and then combined B+C into one large group for the Heat races. A ran alone, but the winner of the prefinal went up to A for main.

We had good seat time, this way… 10min quali, 15min Heat 1 and 30min heat 2. This worked out nicely for yours truly, who won the A main due to the fella who ran away with the lead, conking out physically in the long final race.

GoPro footage review

I sympathize with him, having been there myself. GRX is a very physical track, with boatloads of grip, and very hard on the hands. If your gloves aren’t nice and sticky, you end up having to death-grip the wheel, hoping that your fingers don’t get smashed by the steering wheel spokes. Its exhausting. A half hour heat can be excruciating, particularly when it gets hot and humid, which it was.

The battle with Kamau

Personally, I had a very successful race. I had a terrific battle with Kamau for the lead of the prefinal, trading places with him in a hotly contested dogfight. Kamau pipped me at the end, but we finished p1-2 bumper-to-bumper. Great fun!

In the final race, I got a mediocre start, having gotten walled coming out of T1. But, that’s to be expected when folks are 3 wide and doing their best to not get shuffled back. Perhaps I should have lifted a bit!

The A Main

Barbarians at the gate

But, no matter, I rose to the occasion and managed to recover, ultimately taking P1. As mentioned, despite the other fellows significant lead, he ultimately fell off as exhaustion overcame his strength and mistakes crept in, allowing me to narrow the gap over the long race.

We had some excitement in the combined B+C main. With the newer drivers, we had significantly more incidents, as expected. Kamau and Connor had re-configured the closing sector, making it very tight and quite challenging. This proved to be exciting.

Ironically, the one big shunt we had was not in the tight bits but rather on the main straight.

An over-enthusiastic racer plowed the fella ahead of him sideways, which resulted in him bouncing off the immovable outer wall, collecting the driver behind, who then got sent into the moveable inner wall after colliding at full throttle with the spun guy. There’s nowhere to go there, on the narrow main straight, and the ensuing “Bonk” could be heard all the way to Trenton.

Thankfully, no one was hurt and the karts appear to have escaped unbent. I believe the offender lost their GRX privileges, tho.

The fella who had been plowed, amusingly, was able to indicate his displeasure with a provocatively pointed middle-digit, whilst gracefully spinning into oblivion. Points to Gryffindor were awarded for this thoughtful and well executed gesture.

I should have gotten tomatoes

So, the season begins with yours truly as the unexpected points leader. This means that I should show up for the other races, I guess, and if my luck holds out, maybe a trophy is in my future. Racing, however, is a fickle lady and I’m sure I will get screwed somehow along the way. But that’s part of the deal in rental racing, it’s a feature, not a bug!

See you all next week!

Bimodal_Rocket · September 1, 2025, 1:39am

Summer into Fall - Week 2

We gathered for the 2nd race on Sunday morning of this holiday weekend with only 4 racers registered. Fortunately, a bunch of folks showed up, bringing the count to 12 or so, which was enough to have a lovely morning of racing.

We were visited by some new faces, a father and son duo all the way from Long Island, another middle aged fart like me and his sweet daughter, and a couple of new younger guys. They were all good racers, too, so no crashing today, thankfully!

Tie yer boots

We decided to revisit Leader take the top as it was so enjoyable last we did it, and it proved, once again, to be great fun. Also, since we have 7 newish, orange karts, we used those for the quali and prefinal, which was much more equal. Since they haven’t been mauled yet, the oranges are quicker than the legacy blue karts, and tend to not have steering issues due to bent parts or broken welds.

Silos on the way to E-town

For the final, we decided to combine the A and B groups into one big race. We gave the B group the fast orange karts, and the A team rolled the dice on the blues. Results varied, but the faster blues were competetive with the orange, given the more experienced drivers being able to draw upon their course knowledge.

A rocky start, redeemed

Format was 10minutes quali, 15 minute prefinal, and a 20 minute combined final. We were actually done by 11am this time around, which jibes nicely with it being a long holiday weekend with family obligations.

Someone painted the walls, I like it!

Congrats to Micheal on his first win, taking P1 in the main after a hotly contested B prefinal where he was denied his first win by the hair of his chinny-chin-chin.

We combined A and B mains into the battle of the orange vs blue karts

Our usual victor, Kamau, got screwed with a broken belt and slow karts, but such is racing. This helps build caracter or something. But, it does suck, when it’s your turn to get bitch-slapped by Lady Luck.

Noir et Blanc

I had a good day, all things considered, qualifying P2 behind Kamau. For the prefinal I had a good kart which had great potential, which proved useful after a semi-spin in the final corner of lap 1, putting me at the back of the pack.

Once upon a barn

I put my nose down and rallied, driving progressively stronger and stronger laps, ultimately gaining back some lost ground and finishing P3. In my humble option, I coulda taken P1 had we had a longer race, as I closed relentlessly on the leaders. I was happy with P3, however!

Sunflower farm

The final race was a total hoot. With 12 karts on track, we had a busy race and the faster karts, in the hands of the newer guys, were wielded well.

My kart was so-so, so I had to drive smart and let the others battle ahead of me, letting guys by rather than wasting time fighting. But, I bided my time and took back spots in the final laps, as everyone else lost their composure, fighting for the win.

The race was really fun for me, as I was able to stay in barking distance of the fastest pack the whole race, thanks to all the jockeying ahead and some careful, precise lapping on my part. We had a good crowd of about 8 of us racing in the lead pack, which never let up and no-one was able to run away with the lead, due to the leader takes top format.

So, another fun weekend with gorgeous weather and results I am proud of. Sadly, I will put myself out of the points lead by missing next race, as instead, a bunch of us are heading to NJMP for the Sunday AM two hour mini-enduro. That will likely be a worthy sacrifice, as those races are always a great time, especially with a gang of friends.

See you all next week and thanks for racing!

Bimodal_Rocket · September 7, 2025, 11:42pm

Swamped Sunday

The NJMP 2hr that was supposed to happen this morning was cancelled due to excessive water on the track, David from GRX, however, invited the league racers to come on out and drive the partially flooded track, standing water be damned!

This was most excellent fun, and great rain practice, which is something you don’t get very often in rentals. Most facilities don’t allow it at all or end the sessions when the water starts pooling up and everyone spins.

In the case of GRX, a blocked drain means that the start finish straight turns into a lake. While it wasn’t raining hard, the track was very, very wet, and the constant light rain kept it that way until late afternoon. It was quite challenging and well worth the drenching.

We had fun doing some “races” that devolved rapidly into chaos, which was sort of the point. Some of the folks got to experience driving in the wet for the first time today, and I thought everyone acquitted themselves well!

Thanks David for making this fun day happen, and thank you all who came out to slide around!

Bimodal_Rocket · September 14, 2025, 5:00am

Saturday Sunset Session

Kate had a night out so I jumped on the opportunity to go get some evening laps in at GRX. It was an insanely beautiful day, 73 degrees, the most beautiful light.

I got 8 or 9 back-to-back sessions in, and had a lot of fun. I got to break in a new engine, had an exciting crash (no brakes), and got to enjoy some high grip conditions.

Tomorrow am is Sunday league, which I look forwards to!

Bimodal_Rocket · September 15, 2025, 2:48pm

Sunday, League Day

Won both my heats and think I maintain the lead, 3 races in. At some point, kart draw will bite me on the Heiney, but, not yet.

I’ll spare you the boring video of me running off with it. Instead I shall post some brake failure crashes from Saturday evening practice…

Bimodal_Rocket · September 29, 2025, 12:54am

We had another fun Sunday league, this time going from wet to dry. It was a lovely day, but it had rained hard overnight, and the track was very wet for the qualifiers. I was in the first group to head out and it was a very entertaining slip and slide.

The track improved for race heat 1 and was almost fully dry for the final. We ended up combining both groups and ran a single big final race, which was excellent fun. Unfortunately the timing system went down so we had to take our best guess at finishing order.

I had a really nice kart for the final and started in back. I made my way up to 4th, and had we had enough laps, I would have caught up with the leaders. Sadly, we pulled the plug after about 25mins as my kart apparently tore the timing strip off the track and was dragging it around.

In any case, it was good fun and also great wet practice!

Bimodal_Rocket · October 20, 2025, 9:31pm

GRX Halloween 4hr Race

At the last second, I joined up with a new racer named Adi and participated in the enduro as a 2man team. Since it was Adi’s first race, I had him do the qualifying and the race start, to get the full experience.

It couldn’t have been a nicer day and the race was well attended. Our team came in last, I think, but I bet the experience was valuable to Adi and I certainly had fun.

We had a decent kart but it would not register any brake pressure in the fast corner, end of straight. It worked fine everywhere else, oddly. So, we weren’t as fast as we could be in that we had to be creative in that one brake-less turn! I ran 3 heats, two long and one short. I thought I drove fine.

Next week we have OVRP 5hrs. Marc and Andre will attend, which should be fun!

Bimodal_Rocket · November 9, 2025, 9:09pm

The Fall Final