Before I even start, I must tell you that the Press Team in the Inter-Company Karting Challenge was abysmal. We came in last out of ten teams and our fastest lap was nearly two seconds longer than the fastest one out of the lot.
I suppose it should have dawned on myself and team mates Joe Grima and Malcolm Naudi as soon as we saw people putting on their own helmets, fire-proof suits and using their own Ferrari pit-signs.
But we thought: “We are here, lets make the best of it.”
The challenge, sponsored by Solo Opticals brought together ten teams for a qualifying session and a 45-minute endurance race. The only condition was that each team must make three pit-stops.
The event, which is held every six months was held at the Badger track on the outskirts of Mosta, well it’s nearer to Ta’ Qali actually.
Badger issued a press release to announce important race facts, next day and almost every team was mentioned apart from ours (a good thing actually because we had the worst statistics for everything!)
HSBC competed with two teams and BOV had one team, Consolidated biscuits were back to defend their title, WSC also had a team participating, other entrants included CJ Power tuning, the IKC team, Fraksi Power and Simiana. HSBC team A claimed pole position during the qualifying session with IKC 2nd and CJ power 3rd on the grid. (We were last).
From Badger’s point of view, the race was a classic with at least six different teams holding the lead during the course of the race; excellent overtaking manoeuvres as well as shrewd pit stops being the order of the day. In a dramatic finale to the race the IKC team got the chequered flag by the closest of margins from HSBC team A which finished second while The BOV team finished third.
The HSBC team A, with a scorching 30.49, recorded the fastest lap of the evening. Our fastest time was registered by Joe Grima at 31.91 seconds!
The drubbing and the humiliation apart, it was a thoroughly enjoyable event. It is definitely a sport where the more one practices the better one gets. It is a high adrenaline sport where one must use very shrewd driving tactics. Powering away at full speed just will not work, you will spin out. But for relative novices, we didn’t do too badly, finishing about four or five laps behind the race winners.
Whatever the position, I can speak for the whole team when I say that we really enjoyed it.
For those who might think a full-blown race is too much, one can always just turn up and drive with other novices.
If you are after some fast cornering, an adrenaline rush and raw fun, then I suggest you give it a go. Registration forms for the HSBC National 4-stroke Karting league are now available at Badger Karting, forms may also be obtained via email on [email protected].