Nitzan been egging me on to join him at indoor karting so that he has a worthy competitor since last time I beat him over at Lemans Karting in Fremont. Although the last several times, my experience at LeMans Karting has sucked so bad I decided never to go again. I went to a newer facilify in Burlingame called GoKartRacer, but Nitzan claims they suck even worse... I think he's the one smoking crack, GKR is not bad at all. Their service and overall enjoyment was so much better, I don't know exactly why Nitzan bashes it but maybe he'll happen to read this story and we can have a rematch at GKR. :)
My response to Nitzan's email sent to the private tracknutz mailing list a few days later when I just happened to go to GoKartRacer with a buddy: From: Kenji M
To: NSXtrackNutz
Subject: Re: [NSXtrackNutz] Lemans Karting - kinda long
Alright, so I went to GoKartRacer this past saturday... I don't
know what Nitzan is saying when he says the place sucks. The
karts are faster, there are less people, the track is wider and
faster, and there are other decent racers there.
My buddy and I got there around 5PM got a new club card made adn
was on the track for race by 5:45PM. It looked like it was just
gonna be the 2 of us doing the 20 minute race. At the last minute
another guy showed up with his own helmete with HANS device.
I knew I'd have some competition when I saw that. He got pole
by .1 second and he beat me in the race overall race by 2 seconds.
It was a great run and we kept the pace together pretty well,
I lost but I had a lot of fun. We lapped my other buddy twice
in 30 laps. After the race the other guy told me his is a
Formula Dodge racer just moved out here from east coast.
Anyway, I'm gonna take my money to GoKartRacer for now.
-Kenji
I think Nitzan should give GKR another chance Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 13:15:10 -0700 (PDT)
From: Nitzan
To: NSXtrackNutz
Subject: [NSXtrackNutz] Lemans Karting - kinda long
So I went with Matt and another friend to Lemans on
sunday. The timing was last minute so I didnt get a
chance to send an email out.
Overall I had an enjoyable experience, but several
things definitely bugged me and I think Lemans has
taken a turn for the worse with the new management
(although its still way the fuck better then those
asshole go kart race fuckers.) :)
First of all we give them a call and ask if they even
have room for us. The dude tells use that we can
definitely come and we dont even need a reservation.
So we show up, and guess what! They have a birthday
party starting right the fuck then which rented out
the entire track! So the guy tells us the birthday
party will take 1 hour, but they can squeeze us in for
a practice session before that and an extra long race
session afterwards. So we say ok and get on the track.
In the practice session its me, Matt, my friend Denny,
my wife Yasmin, and 3 NASA guys who think they are hot
shit. I am the fastest, but these NASA fuckers are
obsolutely oblivious to anyone else's presence on the
track. I try and do a clean pass on the guy, I am side
by side going into the corner, and he turns right into
me, and the stupid shit corner workers give me the "no
bumping sign" and shake the furled flag at me. So I
try again, this time getting ahead of the guy going
into the corner, he completely ignores the fact that I
own the corner, t-bones me, and again *I* get the "no
bumping sign". This continued the entire session, so
that was pretty fucking annoying.
Then the head-honcho dude tells us that this birthday
party is actually going to take 1.5 hours! So we wait
for 1.5 hours until we can finally go on the track. We
head out, and my kart pulls to the left so badly I can
barely get around the track and back to the pits. They
give me a new kart, and as I exit the pits I see
Matt's kart died on him a corner away. So I slow down
to laugh and point at him when my kart dies too! So we
both get new karts, mine is the slowest kart on the
planet, while Matt's dies 2 corners later.
So Matt gets yet another Kart, and by this time there
arent any working karts left so I am stuck with my dog
slow kart. And this was still in the practice session!
So finally the race starts, since Matt and I are the
only people running decent lap times, and since I have
him beat (he weighs 100lbs more then me) I slow down
and we start duking it out. Luckily the flaggers
figured it out finally that we are having fun, but
then suddenly one of them decides he is going to show
us how its done and jumps into a kart. At that point I
am behind Matt trying to pass him, and the guy who
works there is behind me. I get past Matt, go into the
corner, and the worker dude just t-bones me to get
past me! I was pretty fucking shocked, if I had done
the same to him I would have been black flagged for
sure. So I set out to chase him down, when he pulls
into the pits! So he pretty much went out for a lap
just to t-bone me!
So in the end I have to say I was not impressed with
the way they run things there. The karts are worse,
some of the guys working there are total assholes, and
they took out the chicane in the middle making the
track one of the simplest and boring tracks I have
ever seen. In fact the corners are so fast that its
now even harder to pass (cleanly!)
They still kick Go Kart Racer's ass though. Which
makes me think that, when it comes to choosing between
two evils, isnt it better to rent out own warehouse?
;)
Nitzan
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