Wellp season 2 begins on the 27th. There’s still time to enroll.
Some new changes:
We will now employ weights. Up to 60 lbs per kart.
The 2 nights are now Weds. or Thursday league.
The super track has been approved and will somehow work into the league.
In the meanwhile, we have had a couple Bring a Friend practice days…
I invited @AndreLafond of Formula Ford racing fame to come try out the gladiator karts and he seemed to enjoy it.
If you are still up in the air about whether or not you want to sign-up, well i have a little bit of news. We are actually going to be starting something new this league and will be adding weights to the karts!
I know that this is something that has been highly requested and we feel that adding it will only make the racing that much better.
Spots are starting to dwindle a bit, so be sure to email me right away to secure a spot!
Ok so…. The thing me and @nikspeeds have noticed is that since we started the league, the karts have started to exhibit a very noticeable performance gap.
Perhaps it is because we were new and didn’t notice at first, or perhaps it’s because the karts have gotten beaten up (savaged, really) but there are certainly fast and slow ones. The bulk of them are fairly equal, however. Outliers now exist, for sure.
It’s nowhere near what it’s like with gas karts, but it’s a thing with electrics, too. Fleet parity isn’t ideal.
@Artis_Daugins was kind enough to sound off on our question why 2 of the fleet are really fast. He said basically, that, in most cases, the nature of electrics is such that you can discount the idea of a stronger or weaker engine. The power plants are the same and there’s no way to have one get more voltage or whatever accidentally. He said that what they noticed in their instances boiled down to mainly mechanical differences, that can be quite subtle…. Ie a little different alignment, caster, whatever.
That makes sense to me, particularly for the ones that are “slow”. I can readily accept that bent spindle or something similar can affect the cornering ability, grip, etc, resulting in overall poor relative laptimes. Perhaps the fast ones have freer bearings or something, but that’s harder to square. I’d be interested in also hearing @hallkbrdz thoughts about why a couple karts would exhibit 1s a lap greater speed, consistently, relative to its peers. (We always race 100% charge, 65% total output, on consistent tire pressures).
Anyways just throwing it out there. My hope is that SC has a plan for fleet replenishment, something along the lines of a lease and replace arrangement, but I don’t know.
If anyone has any thoughts, feel free to pipe up. Our brains are too smooth to answer the “why faster” question.
30kg, technically ~66lbs. I have a feeling I’m going to be pointing this out when we’re there instead of someone sneaking off with a few lbs 
Probably should be a heavy division for all the guys 215+.
It’s coming up soon….
Hey Dominique,
It’s hard to believe but we are almost a week away from the second league session of 2024!
If you want to get the opportunity to race at our ELITE LEAGUE SPEED with friends or just to compete against the top drivers, this is the place to be.
And… don’t forget about the fact that we are now putting weights in the karts to try and keep everyone around the same weight.
Remaining spots are really starting to get low, so reach out quick!
Wednesday: 26
Thursday: 35
Will Mills
Also, BAF practice speed 4 this week. Tues and Thurs, 8-10pm. I’m gonna try to go so if you want to come, ping me.
Ok so Quali day 1 has come and gone.
We did weights which basically involves getting folks up to a minimum of 220lbs (if possible). The karts have 6 round holes that each hold a weight that is 11lbs, so max of 66lbs.
In my case they added 4 weights bringing me in at 225 (rounding up). Obviously some of the lighter drivers will still be way below weight, but it’s way better than nothing.
I can’t say I noticed a huge difference in how the kart felt with the extra weight. I kept my seating position the same (far forwards). The weights go by your side, so it seemed to make sense to me.
Regular Cam H1
Barf-o-Vision
The back end did not feel more planted, but maybe the front a bit more positive. I clipped a few walls on turn in, getting used to it.
That being said, the kart did not feel slower uphill or anything, felt fine. Times were kind of slow overall… I set the fastest lap of both weds and Thursday night quali in heat one with a 45.275.
Thats not a fabulous laptime, given that my best in past leagues was a 44.2 and that Ben has managed 43.x. (He weighs like 120lbs). Heck, our pal @nikspeeds pointed out that his PB is also a 44.2 and he weighs 50+ lbs more than me!
What we experienced I think was twofold: more weight but also cold track…
For quali they ran only 3 groups of about 13-15 drivers each so there weren’t enough heats to get track warm. We had 11 folks not make it night one, it seems, which resulted in only 3 groups.
I am quite sure we will see lower times as the season goes along, particularly coming into warmer weather.
Nik does a quali
Next up for week 2 of quali is track 2, which is the “longer” track. I am interested to see how that plays out with added weight. I assume it will affect the longer runs on the top end, but I could be wrong!
Nik passes recalcitrant Qualifier
Anyhoo… I did fine… won overall for both nights with fastest lap in heat 1. In heat two, I was unable to improve on things on the slightly warmer track and got p2, behind Tyler Iken.
In quali they randomize the first night and so there are new and experienced folks driving together. In heat 1, I got lucky and managed to have a bunch of clear track, in heat 2, not so much! Still it was great fun!
Regular Cam H2
It was cool to see the folks who were d2-d5 last season do well and move up the rankings. We will be seeing folks from d2 in d1 this time around, for example.
It seems like we have less racers this time. Like I said we had only about 40 show up for Thursday, but it seems a bunch missed the evening.
See you all again on Thursday on track 2.
I have exciting stories from qualifier day 2…
But first I share with you my latest BigBrain™ moment:
Ok so @nikspeeds and I are gonna go battle in Sundays 2hr enduro at NJMP. With any luck, we will get dry weather and come home wealthy and content.
In the past, I have attempted to solo this but have been told that it requires a minimum of 2 drivers per team…
So, it occurred to me: buy two team slots for two drivers:
Team A: Rebel Scum Racing feat: Dom Callan and NikTrenchi
Team B: Shake and Bake: feat Tik Nenchi and Com Dallan
1 swap at midpoint refuel, trade kart seats…
I am a genius!
I am totally gonna see if we can pull this off sometime this summer. 
Well @RandallC and Richard Denisar used my idea and ran two teams (coyote and road runner) and did the two guys two teams strat.
It was a really fun enduro: the sun was out, the karts were good, all was well!
I went first for our team (me and @nikspeeds) and managed to get a lap up and “win” my heat, which was nice!
Close behind was Richard in 2nd (Coyote). At the swap, they had a good kart and Randall was able to make up the 1 lap deficit and ultimately de-lapped his team and took the win! Randall being lighter than Richard was able to find some more speed and thus Rebel Scum dreams of cold hard cash were dashed.
@nikspeeds gorgeous footage with polarization and ND filter
It was really nice to get outside on a beautiful day and run a bunch of laps on old fashioned asphalt! Congrats Randall and Richard!
Warning: 1hr of trance/house/techno
I screwed up my setting end ended up with fisheye which had to be zoomed and cropped. It also affected stabilization. I have to say that I really like the cropped and enlarged version.
I must have had a rocket ship last week 
can’t believe I was doing low 45s in the rain, and now this week I was still at low 45s in the dry. I thought it felt a tiny bit slower in practice but bc we were passing everyone I was like huh maybe not.
Also it was:
Our kart was pretty good but maybe you had the screamer last week? I guess Richard’s weight held him back in heat 1 relative to Randall’s speed. Still, that must have been exciting for Randall being a lap down and coming for you! Since they did that two teams and spent all that money, I’m glad they won!
FYI I can’t tell from timesheet where swap happens, can you?
Nm: lap 80… coincidentally I did my fastest lap, 44.6, just before the closing lap.
I also noticed that I hand many laps within hundredths. I had a 4 lap spell of .0x it looks like. It also looks like my fast laps were mainly 44.8.
Yeah I guess 
, looking at Rich’s and Randall’s times, they’re both ~1s faster with Kart 22, but overall Rich’s times are times are still much slower than Randall’s in each of the same Karts, so I’m assuming that’s where the weight comes in. I must have just had a great one last week.
I skimmed some of my footage and there’s definitely plenty of spots I could have done better. It looks amazing with the ND filter though. Can’t wait to sit and play with it.
Nik I couldn’t agree more. We Musta had the fastest in the fleet last week because that track was an oil slick. Crazy that we were running almost similar times. Being a newbie, I find it fascinating that electric karts handles the variations of drivers weights much better than gas. I’m not much of a gambler, so I don’t anticipate myself doing the double run anytime soon, but boy was that fun and a great experience. Felt like I learned a ton, and was really fortunate to have the quickest kart on the course. Great times with a great group of folks. Couldn’t ask for a better Sunday! 
From a money standpoint, the heats are unequal. H1 is an hour but heat two has a bunch of time wasted from a refuel standpoint (clock doesn’t stop).
Total 131 laps
1st heat 80 laps
Which equals 60% approx.
For @RandallC
Such an understatement considering the time wasted isn’t even the physical refueling itself. The mid way stop was almost 20 minutes which is pretty disgraceful. I thought it was a fluke last week in the rain, but no it’s the same BS having to go and get the gas cans from the other side of the world instead of having it ready track side.
IMO if you wanna be so relaxed and take your time, sure; then stop the timer.
So 20 minutes of a 2 hour race. 1/6 of what you pay for is the pleasure of staring off into the abyss 
And then they paid Randall and Rich the wrong amount at the end and tried to blow it off like we were wrong and it was a hassle to get them to double check! Which is especially messed up because the one time Rich won he gave all the money to the employees.
I love njmp but… Cmon. So many little things are annoying
On my way to Florida.
I really liked the track, last I was here. It’s a cool 360 Designs layout. They also use the cool LED blinky LED perimeter lighting.
One of the quick employee fellas here told me that it’s best to use the boost on the downhill bit, as it overrides the auto slowdown. I shall try to remember that. Also, iirc boost was on a 45s timer.
I should take some pics again and do a little google review. Perhaps I shall.
Ohh, on the Supercharged front…
We had an exciting weds week 3 race, apparently! Andres Lourens reports that the track had a layer of dust from construction work that made for a very slow and slidey session. They were struggling to break 48s or something crazy like that,
For us, on Thursday, things were much better. Heat 1 was indeed slick, but not crazily so, and we managed decent laps, heat 2 was fine.
I somehow got sent out 9th. I’m not sure why because I woulda thought I’d be top 3 or something, having placed 1,4. But, whatever.
Sadly the kart was, very, very slow. It was a nice handling kart, however, and quite fun to drive. I had a grand old time battling a bit in heat 1 and running much faster laps in h2. A fun evening, placing 9th and then 3rd.
I also link the heats of the formidable @nikspeeds:
I was quite pleased with my driving, and I thought I made the best of both karts, getting progressively faster. Sometimes you get to the the Williams and sometimes the Ferarri.
And for @speedcraft may I tempt you to consider a brief exploration of F=MV, sand board style?
Are those sandboarders practicing for a big competition coming up next Saturday? 
