F46 Season Finale em Volta Redonda

What a painful race … starting in fifth, finished in fourth after spinning on first lap, priceless! Volta Redonda is $#*($#*#*! distant, but also provided a #@($#*#@! big fun, with a good track and interesting fights in other categories. But let’s get on with it, because here i’m the star of this blog! hahaha …

We got there late … What a huge track. It had been raining heavily in that morning, so the track was very wet. It was crazy to know what to do, where to pay, etc.. But everything went fine! So I debuted my brand new race suit that I should have got six rounds ago (ok, my fault). Had never entered in a 13hp kart, in a track that I had never raced. So the qualifying went underway, and I waited for someone to follow and learn the track, and it earned me a surprising fifth place out of ten drivers. The scene: The track marshall pointed to me to line up in fifth – “Really?” Me, fifth? Are you serious?”.

Already lined up, waiting for the lights down, and I thought: “F$#*” h$#&, the guy who I had followed is in third, I might be able to dream with an unexpected podium.” Lights down, we’re gone.

This is where the adventure begins, and an old weakness that always hinders me both in karting and online games, made another appearance: The famous enthusiasm of those who think “Yes, I can”. After half of the first lap, I spun and was sent from hero to zero, in dead last. “Ah, f…! not again, noooo!”.

Well, what could I do? I carried on with it and tried to do my best and hoping for other drivers mistakes, which actually happened. After a few laps, I was in sixth. Suddenly I saw two rivals scrambling in front of me for fourth place. “Hey, or they spun, or I’m a rocket today.”

I was in a rocket. I had been drawn with a kart, the number 8, which was a monster down the straights. I just needed to work hard to get out of the corners well and use all that power down the straights. I did a few errors every time I approached them, but went back in the hunt and easily came close to them again.

The biggest difficulty was under braking. I was so prone to losing the rear wheels when I was locking up the brakes, but I had to try to have them almost locking up, if I hadn’t, I’d have had understeer. Sometimes I got it right, sometimes I didn’t. Gradually, I got there.

Now I was closer to the sixth placed driver and went for it on first attempt in the first corner. I was about to spin again, had I not been held up by the other guy beside me, trying to keep ahead of me. I was lucky. And In fifth place now. It was an aggressive move, but I did it.

The rocket number 8 once again blitzed the difference on straights to the fourth placed driver. And again, the same corner, I went on the same way to overtake him. And walked away with a fourth place in the pocket, without looking back (And for what? With a damn good kart, just had to look ahead!).

The third place was far and the race was almost over, just had to bring the car home. Well said and job done. I finished without any idea of what position I was, how many laps I had done, nothing. When I spun at the start, I was just focused in pushing hard. Nothing else around me was more important, I was immersed in another dimension. I only found it out later, now back to the real world, while reading the timesheets with a shocked face…

And to finish off a good day, I had set the second fastest lap of the race. That is, the kart was so fast, but so fast that had I not done so many errors, I could have been third or fourth even without relying on other drivers mistakes. Who knows? I will not complain now. It was very good, even better than if I had spent the whole race sitting in fourth place without having had some great fights.

Oh, my thanks to Felipe Marcel’s courageous ride without a GPS to Volta Redonda (ha ha ha!) And to Casemiro for his pair of gloves, I promised him that I would return them clean, and so I did.

Bring on 2010!