Mariembourg Rental Championship round 6 report

Kart Race Reports, Driver Diaries and Schedules
1

Well, the 6th round of the rental championship in Mariembourg was happening yesterday, and a lot of questions arose after that.

But first here is a sum up :

  • Qualification :
    My first kart was pretty slow, clocking the slowest laps of the bunch, almost 1.4s slower than the top 5, so I decided to change and I got instantly 1 second faster, which got me to P10. It was quite decent considering I didn’t get any clean laps and less laps to get the tyres up to speed. I guess a top 6 was possible.

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  • Race 1 :

So my kart was good, average acceleration but really good top speed and really neutral chassis which I enjoy and I had a good start, pushing to top 7 and closing in on the top 6. I am still really good on the opening laps, and I felt like I could have been in contention for the win. Alas, my average acceleration gave the people behind me the impression they were faster and decided to fight instead of help. As soon as they were getting in front they would lose all their pace, making us lose touch with the front pack. This frustrates me a lot, as it happens all the time. I guess I need to lose those 8kg.
One of my actions rewarded me a black and white flag, as well as a stern talking to which led to an heated argument with the race director. The move is at 2:41 in the right hander. I am pushing the guy on the outside wide, he hit the tire wall and spun. I will admit my move wasn’t clean as I gave no choice whatsoever, and I was pissed off of people fighting on lap #2, but it being the slowest turn, yielding wouldn’t have cost that much to him.
I finished P9 which is quite disappointing as I miss on a chance of a top 5 again.

  • Race 2 :

This one didn’t last much, as I got put in the wall on lap 2. My kart was bad anyway, 1.8 sec off pace. This is because people didn’t change such a bad kart out during quali so I had to cope with it. Nothing more to say, finished 2nd to last, 1 lap down.

  • Conclusion :

This is the first time I felt this frustrated, I had no fun whatsoever. I was unable to do anything good, got yelled at, had people come to me saying they were happy to see me in the wall in race 2. Never have I felt a crowd this hostile and toxic. I would admit I am not the most easy going person out there, but even in the US haven’t I felt this much hostility. I just felt I lost all passion for karting and racing, totally disgusted. I just feel like I am not good at it anymore and I don’t want to drive ever again. Any input ? @speedcraft @tjkoyen @Bimodal_Rocket

2

Ping @Alan_Dove your input would be insightful too :slight_smile:

3

Tricky situation to advise. I don’t think you should put yourself in places where you’re not at ease. There’s nothing wrong with taking your business elsewhere. I don’t subscribe to the notion that karting should always been a ‘fun’ experience as such, I focus more on meaning which I know is a bit abstract. I think lows are as important as highs. however, when you say you’re losing passion because of that environment, I’d advise to get out and take some time to re-assess.

4

Pretty much what my girlfriend told me when she saw the mess I was after this event. Next race is on November 9th but I might skip it.

True, but I have some misplaced ego that pushes me to succeed, even though I have nothing to prove to that crowd.

5

Hmm.

I watched race 1 so far and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with your driving. I was expecting you to lose your shit after you got pushed off, but you didn’t. You remained calm and got sharper.

That was indeed, a nice kart, and it did look neutral, playful. You were able to make it do nice things.

If you hadn’t told me about it, I wouldn’t have known you got a black flag. It seems that caused drama they isn’t immediately visible. From where I sat, it looked like you were defending hard while also making forwards progress. With the exception of the one time you accidentally push a guy, you were super clean.

You seemed to have advance knowledge of when you were gonna get screwed as both times you get pushed off, you wave hands a corner prior. It looks to me like in those cases you weren’t unreasonable at all.

So you made a mistake which put a guy in the wall. I get the impression you were retaliated on. This went down in the next race, I assume since you say you got put into wall immediately.

I didn’t see any nasty driving on your part, really. You were quite patient and fair.

This I agree with. Karting without purpose is pissing in the wind. But I think this series has purpose and does meet your needs in many ways.

1: driver standard is high/appropriate competition
2: facility is on point, equipment on point
3: many karts

In short, it’s the real deal, it’s not easy, and you are struggling, a bit, to find the podium you know you are capable of. But, it’s not your driving, at all, as far as I can see.

You aren’t having “fun” right now and are frustrated. It feels bad. But, I don’t think walking away from the race series will solve your current quandary/state of mind.

What are your goals if any? Why are we doing this? This is a deliberately annoying question.

Indeed the lows are perhaps more defining than the highs. It’s a long time until November race. Maybe that’s the problem, in a sense. Racing has become so infrequent, that maybe each time out takes on outsized significance.

But, it’s not reasonable to expect absolute peak performance from yourself if you are racing once every 6 weeks. The laws of Racing tell us that if shit can happen, it will, and that getting bent out of shape about it is pointless. But, cumulatively, over time, your decision making and execution is superior and very effective. Just sometimes you have bad luck. Race more and have more good luck days. It ain’t your decision making that I can see.

6

Take your business elsewhere. The karts are inconsistent and the drivers are annoying.

Everyone has bad weekends, just accept it wasn’t totally your fault that the karts were poor and you had a frustrating couple of interactions.

Is it possible to take some time off, save money, and get back into owner-karting?

7

That’s a good point. Maybe it’s time to get into owner karting again and have the control over those variables.

1 Like
8

It might not have been a mistake for the black and white flag :eyes:

The issue is that it is consistent, and the top 5 is also consistently in there, so either I am incredibly unlucky or I am clearly messing up somewhere.

I just want to feel like I gave my everything and I got a satisfying fight from that.

I am just fed up on how consistent my misfortune was. One good race for one bad race, I can’t have a good round. I did only one mistake on 10 races.

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That might be the good thing to do, but it is expensive so I will need to budgetize

9

Well Ok then, that’s your problem. You stuffed a guy and you feel bad. You carried that with you and it affected your day. Your driving was fine considering. Wise, even. I noted that you were deliberately careful getting around slower karts.

10

I sometimes wonder about this in a particular series. How is it that the same group of fellas seems to get the fastest karts regularly. Hmm.

It would be interesting to know how you are screwing up (if so). I have not seen any self-sabotage of note in any of the races filmed.

Also, you are top 5th in results, which isn’t bad considering you feel it’s been a hot mess. With some persistence you will figure it out and rise further, I would imagine, if that’s what you want.

11

I agree with what the others have said. The driving standards in this series, for this season so far, have been a joke (at least once you are out of the top 5-8). However, maybe some of that was influenced by the weather in previous rounds. From what I could see in this round, the driving generally looked pretty good… I mean other than just being punted off in T1/Race2.

As for the race 1 ‘incident’, the guy drills you in the side in the proceeding turn, so I don’t blame you for giving him a firm back off or go off option in the next turn. If he chooses to ignore his previous transgression, and decides to go hero-mode around the outside of one of the fastest turn, well tough :poop:. I wonder if they gave him a stern talking to about making better decisions. :roll_eyes:

To me, the bottom line is racing should be a alchemical process that takes your goals, expectations, & skills, combines that with your time and money, and in the context of the environment, produces something you value:

  • A feeling of fun and/or comradery
  • The feeling of being challenged and meeting or exceeding the challenge
  • The opportunity to connect with that deeper part of yourself that does the driving
  • The opportunity to illuminate areas where you can improve

If your time and money are being transformed into: frustration, anger, disappointment, self doubt, regret, etc. then that’s a waste of your time and money. Actually it’s worse than a waste, because what is being produced is harmful to your psyche.

In the case of this rental racing series, you can’t really change the environment; you can only drive your own kart, but you have no control over your kart’s performance potential, and you have no control over driving standards.

So, it seems like the only way forward would be to have an entirely different approach to this ‘racing’, where you just kinda abandon expectations and take what you get, and do your best with it. However, I suspect for a true racer, this lowering the bar approach might be very hard to do, and again may still result in you feeling like you’re getting full value from your time/money.

Anyway, just something to think about.

12

Maybe this is what’s required with rental arrive and drive. No maybe about it, actually.

13

@speedcraft thanks for your answer, food for thoughts !

I guess either I accept the way it is and go with the flow, but I have been struggling with that, or I give up and find something else that suits my needs better.

1 Like
14

The rentals have always been problematic for us. I would love to see what you would do in owner karts again.

Part of what makes karting a challenge is finding a way/series to participate that works for you. I have yet to find one that has decent karts, isn’t too far, etc.

What I want to do is tent with some guys and go race uspks ka100 old fart series. What would you want?