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Monday, April 2, 2012

K1 Speed Racing School @ Anaheim, 3/26/2012

Check out my experience at the K1 Speed Racing School that was taught by professional Racing Driver, Patricio Jourdain!



As I mentioned in a previous post, I decided to take a class at K1 Speed in Anaheim, CA. For those that don't know, K1 Speed is an indoor go kart racing company with 11 locations throughout the United States (with 6 of them in California). They are an 'arrive and drive' type of go karting and utilize Electric Go Karts (I'm more of a 'gas powered' kart guy but these electric karts are pretty fast!). K1 Speed offers leagues that you can join and compete in, which I plan on doing later this year, and also offer a Racing School (more of a class, only 3 hours) that is taught by Professional Racing Driver, Patricio Jourdain. 




The class costs $99.99, and goes from 8am to 11am (K1 Speed open to the public at 11am, I like it this way as there aren't a huge amounts of people watching lol). Anyway, I've been to this location one time, 2 years ago, and I haven't done any indoor kart racing in a long time (which is why I plan on doing their 'Adult League' later this year). The class is made up of 12 or so individuals, not too big and not too small, so you get a chance to learn in a good sized group. The class start's off in a classroom, where Patricio Jourdain explain's the "Racing Concepts" in a short Power Point presentation. 

Unfortunately, the projector wasn't working so we were given the power point slide in a packet...which actually helped, as I could take notes. Here are the points that were covered in the presentation:

Racing Concepts
* Weight Transfers
*Over and Understeering
*Braking and Acceleration
*Ideal Racing Line (Fastest Way Around Track)
*Cornering-Apex
*Overtaking
*Race Starts (Standing & Rolling)
*Flags
*Sportsmanship



Once the presentation was over, we went out to the track, and walked the track while Patricio pointed out where the Racing Line was, Braking Points, Apex (there were cones on every apex), etc. Once that was over, we got our head sock's and helmets on (provided by K1 Speed) and were assigned a kart. This was our 1st of 3 sessions out on the track, it has been such a long time since I've been in a kart and driven on this track, I wasn't expecting to be the fastest of the bunch, I was just focused on me and the kart/track. 

The session was made up of 14 laps, each of us being watched by Patricio as he was taking notes. One of the problems I had was that we were all let go at the same time, so unless you were in first position, you had to be careful not to bump anyone. Nonetheless, I passed a few guys and was trying to figure out where the braking point's were and figuring out the way the kart reacts. After the session was over, I finished in 5th position with a time of 30.161 sec's. with the fastest being a 29.649 sec's

We were then headed back to the classroom, where we were given our results and feedback by Patricio. My feedback was good, I just needed to work on my line coming out of the final corner into the straight and work on braking "deeper" and accelerating "sooner", took notes on that and kept that in mind. So after everyone received their result's/feedback, we were then ready for our 2nd session. 

This time, I seemed to have figured out the track and the kart, and managed a 3rd place finish with a time of 29.540. I was much quicker than last time and the 3rd fastest of the group. We went back to the classroom and I had good feedback, of just braking deeper and accelerating harder. Once we were ready for the 3rd and final session, we were told (earlier) that this would be a race and that are previous times would be where we qualified. So, I qualified 3rd which wasn't bad as I had less traffic to work with. 

We were each sent out, and were given a formation lap where we would end up in a standing start. Once everyone was in their positions, we were given the "green flag" and we were off! To make a long story short: All I was focused on was getting to first position, after a few laps, the 2nd place guy went wide and I managed to get in front of him...now I was second. A few laps past and the guy behind me managed to catch up and pass me, lol. Now I was back on the chase, a few laps past and all of a sudden the 2nd place guy braked late and hit the 1st place guy spinning them out and I passed them, putting me in 1st place!

There were a few laps left and I managed to stay in 1st! whew! I was proud of myself as I have never done anything like this before. We were then sent to the classroom and were each given our results and the top 3 were given trophies! Patricio Jourdain announced my name and said that I had improved a lot from the first session, and was given my 1st place trophy. It is a good feeling having a Pro. Race Car Driver telling you how good a job you did and giving you a trophy for it, :D


All in all, I enjoyed myself and learned a whole lot in the process. I plan on taking another K1 Speed class with Patricio Jourdain at another location, the one in Ontario (SoCal not Canada, lol), because that is where I'll be participating in their Adult League. Anyway, you also get a free shirt! Your choice too! :D That's about it, check back often to see any new developments. 

3 comments:

  1. Nice job! Sounds like the school was a pretty good deal.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank's! I took another class this past Saturday (April 7th) at the Torrance location, will blog about it later, but I did pretty good at that one as well.

      Anyway, thank's for the comment Mike!

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