It’s happened. I have officially become old!

Why?

I have fitted a tow bar to the MG, so that I can….. well…. tow things. I’m slipping rapidly in to middle age! This isn’t quite the full story though.

About a month ago, I decided that I was getting a bit portly and some exercise was needed. Being a gym hater, I pondered all the other types of exercise that I could do to reduce my girth and the only one that really gave me any enthusiasm was karting.

I used to kart quite a bit, mainly endurance racing, which took me all over the country and used to keep me very fit. In recent years however, I gave it up, mainly down to the difficulty of trying to get reliable team mates. Unfortunately, once a racer, always a racer and in the back of my mind I have always wanted to get back out on track. This time though, I decided that I needed to be self sufficient and that my involvement would be on a strictly open practice day basis, just to get me fit. Well, that was the plan anyway.

The idea was to purchase a cheap twin engined Honda Prokart, which would be inexpensive, reliable and easy to run. Maintenance is generally non existent and a decent race set up one can be great fun, unlike the heavy clunker hire versions that you find at many an arrive and drive kart centre. So I hit eBay with a mental limit of £500 and an itchy bidding finger.

A couple of days later I was picking up my winnings, an unknown chassis make complete with newly rebuilt trailer and spares package (read a load of karting bits the guy just wanted to get rid of!). It wasn’t the most wonderful kart in the world, but for the money it was right and I could get back on track again. The only thing I would need to do was adjust the seat to fit.

This is where it all started to go wrong.

There are certain things that you do in life that give you pleasure. They shouldn’t, but they do. Prepping a kart is one such thing for me. There is something very cathartic about cleaning down, tightening, tweaking, and generally working on a kart for me, and I hadn’t realised it until this point.

Looking a lot better for its tinkering, the kart and I ventured on to track the next day. I had decided that it was just exercise, and it didn’t matter if the kart wasn’t that quick, the important thing was that I would be building my stamina and getting fit. Except that it didn’t happen like that. At the track was another Prokart, which whilst neatly prepared would have not caused me any problems in the past. Today though, he was quicker, no matter what I did, and that didn’t sit well with me.

Aside from my extra weight, main problem were the tyres. Fitted to the kart when purchased, it was clear that the compound was too soft and they were creating too much grip for the chassis. The next issue were the engines. Ignoring the grip issues, they were feeling lazy and unable to rev out properly. So, off home I headed with a mental list of bits I needed to get the engines feeling stronger and me lapping quicker.

As I sat on eBay surfing for newer chassis, valve springs, Alfano digital readouts and race prepped engines, I realised something. Gone was the mind set that I was doing this as a cheap way to get fit, it was now about winning, being the fastest and best. I wanted to race again. I wanted to win.

It’s a curious thing, human nature and the need for competition. As much as we try to fight it, we always manage reverting to our basic instincts. At this exact point in time, I have an engine stripped down on my work bench, several bids in on eBay and order in for a new race suit. Inside the fire is still burning. Where did it all go wrong…….?