A Weekend at Winchester
Conquering The Great Outdoors
Kimi and scheduled a whole weekend for karting in Winchester. It’s not exactly a happening place but the views are incredible and we found some legit diner food. It’s also a short drive to Riverside where you can visit the March Field Air Museum which we did and highly recommend.
From the first time Kimi and I hit K1 Circuit, it wouldn’t leave my mind. I studied it obsessively, I often dreamt about driving on it. Roberto Soto, San Diego record holder and friend of this Substack who had the audacity to move to Florida, has several videos of his runs on it. It’s better for me to watch someone I’ve raced with. I know his ticks, I can tell when he’s lifting and braking. Otherwise body cam footage is a bit of a riddle to me.
After my first go on this track I knew I was lacking confidence. I needed real quality time racing it to feel comfortable. We spent most of the weekend on the North track with and without chicanes. I was slowly creeping down from my comfortable 37s laps into the 36s zone. Kimi was knocking out 35s laps no problem.
We got plenty of track time and we also had LOTS of company. I got bumped around and at one point, someone spun me out. These people were slamming karts left and right and yellow flags were plentiful. My lap time improvement froze immediately. Kimi’s accustomed to me moving around traffic and being incredibly gap greedy when it came to indoor karting. At one point he even called me on it. “You look scared out there.” And I told him I was. “I know there’s a lot to process, it’s pretty overstimulating. You just need time. There’s plenty of room on this track to deal with dipshits once you know what you're doing.”
On the second day, I tried pushing myself out of my comfort zone. We were given an opportunity to race on the South part of the track for the first time. There’s more straights which means more speed along with some treacherous curves including a bus stop that haunts my dreams.
Now, Roberto made it clear in his videos, this is a flat out endeavor. That was NOT happening on this run but regardless, this was the shakeup I needed. My heart was in my throat. It was sketchy as hell out there and we still had psychotic yahoos to contend with. I managed to finish without incident and eager to hit the South track again.
Our last race was back on the North track and I found my way to a low 36s lap. It was not the 35 I wanted, but I could feel my feet getting lighter. Despite frustrations and setbacks, I loved that weekend so much. I came home, slept like a baby and felt incredible.
One souvenir I got was Kimi managed to capture some footage of himself which would come in handy on my next trip to the Circuit.