Let's Take This Outside
First Trip To K1 Circuit
The idea of racing outside never crossed my mind when I started karting. I recall hearing at the start of 2024 about K1 putting together some kind of outdoor track. As the year progressed, rumor turned into fact and then this project had a name, K1 Circuit. A brand new outdoor track with electric karts.
Events were happening in the summer but they were very need to know and invite only. As fate would have it, I met a young Texan karting champ named Kaitlyn while racing at Corona. She was racing in the teen championship at Circuit the next weekend. She put me on her guest list so I could watch her kick ass and see the Circuit. I showed up and watched the races obsessively. I studied the lines and in between races I was reading up on the specs of the karts. My studying continued until December, when it was finally time to get my ass out there.
It was crisp, cool Sunday morning where I woke up at the ass crack of dawn and headed to Hollywood to pick up none other than Kimi.
**For those of you just jumping into Kart Sesh, I nicknamed the person who introduced me to karting as Kimi. As in Kimi Räikkönen, F1’s most charismatic and approachable driver. **
As you may recall, this rat bastard left me high and dry for his sim chair several months back. Luckily, Circuit had him more than curious. It was a 2 hour drive straight East. The location is beautiful desert land with sprawling hills. As soon as we arrived I fell in love with the view. We walked up to the track entrance only to find several familiar faces from Torrance. It was a very adorable hivemind moment.
We watched the safety video, suited up and were in a kart in less than an hour. We left the pit and right as I tackled the first uphill climb, I realized I was brand new all over again. All the studying didn't really mean shit. Everything I had ever raced on was flat and indoors. The only karts I knew were cased in thick bumpers, these karts leave way less to the imagination. I also had to compensate for things like wind.
I decided to slow down and take my time to get to know this new environment. My biggest foe was the goddamn rocks. We had a couple folks in our races who loved kicking up rocks and dust on the track. This creates slip and the bigger rocks feel like boulders when they smack the undercarriage. At a certain point, I got a rock chucked up right onto my visor. I know people often clock me as a brave and even reckless person because I’m a mouthy idiot. This is a misconception. I am perfectly capable of being cautious out of fear and have no qualms admitting it. Despite all the shit I was getting from my peers, on this first day, I was only going to push on my terms.
Meanwhile, Kimi was off like a shot, no copycat opportunity there. I expected as much given his track experience. He fell hard for Circuit after our first race. Something Kimi and I have in common is our default facial expressions are rather stern looking. On this day his face resembled that of a kid sitting among his opened presents on Christmas morning.
We were only racing on the North part of the track. It's very technical with a downhill section that I quickly identified as the spot that scared me the most. A clear indication this was the spot I should focus on first.
Downhill is not what I thought it would be. At first I would lift and slide quite a bit. Then I started putting my foot down more and to my surprise, I found more control. By the end of the day I was feeling more confident in that section, but I would not say my fears were conquered.
I had never felt this intimidated while racing, which only added to the adrenaline elevation. I left understanding I had a lot to learn with a burning desire to get back there as soon as possible.