Go-Karting: The Best Choice for Team-Building Event

Me and my housemate were tasked by our manager to organize a team-building event for our department last month and it finally happened! We chose go-karting because we're both racing and car buffs (I have to admit I'm slightly more fanatic). It was held last Saturday morning at the Sepang F1 Circuit's Go-Kart Track. It was the closest the 23 of us could ever get to racing at Sepang, I suppose.

It wasnt easy being an event organizer and at the same time, raring to go racing but I was able to do it cause my Shell buddies were great folks and helped a lot during the position tracking and point scoring when we were racing. Sayang sekali for my housemate, he had to work night shift the day before and couldnt make it for the event itself:( All in all, I didnt have as tough time as I thought:)

There were 2 phases to the event. The first part was the qualifying races which were used to place the drivers into 4 teams based on the positions the drivers finished in each quali race. There were 22 males and 1 female. Ok, everyone thought it was gonna be like unfair for the lady but plenty of male egos were bruised as she outqualified all the males in her group, which was incidentally the first group on track, by a pretty large margin. It pretty much helped to set the pace of the day as everyone gave their best, no holds barred from there onwards:))

After that, the four teams with 5-6 members each then raced in 6 races with each team sending 2 drivers out for each race. My team was a bit "handicapped" as we only had 5 members. 2 of us had the chance to race 3 times rather than twice. None of us were complaining:P Guess which team won in the end???:)) The handicapped team of course!!!! We did the Renault over the rest as although we only won 1 race but we had a lot of 2nd place and 3rd place finishes (just like how Alonso won his championship:P) and won by 8 points. Btw, the scoring systems we used were those sanctioned by FIA for Formula One with 1st=10pts, 2nd=8pts, 3rd=6pts, 4th=5pts, 5th=4pts, 6th=3pts, 7th=2pts and 8th=1pt.

Everyone had loads of fun and wanted to come back again for next round. Well, guys, there might be a slight problem cause I actually under-estimated the budget. Not my fault, the Shell Karting Club president forgot to tell me about track rental fee being a separate amount and I, err, also forgot to count the in-laps (laps you take after the race to bring the karts into pit):P Hopefully all will be ok as I'm still sorting out the budget with the track organizers as well:)).

Ok la! After so much text, here are all the photos:)

Had quite a bit to do in the early stages. So had to distract my colleagues with food (background) while I got things sorted out:P
But once the races started, things smoothened out by themselves and everyone just jumped head-long into fun fun fun!

Wasnt long before it was my turn. Boy, did I had a lot of fun or what! I started a bit cautiously not knowing where the limit of the kart was. But it wasnt long before I threw caution to the wind and started sliding the bugger around the track like nobody's business. The g-forces around certain corners were fantastic. The full-throttle last corner was absolutely spot-on. First corner was tricky but fun. One really absurd thing did happen to me during my qualifying race. They didnt put enough petrol in my kart apparently and because some of the corners were banked, my kart actually died twice:)) As I sat in the kart, waiting for the marshals to come start my kart again, I thought to myself, "So this is how Raikonen feels everytime his car dies" :)) Thank goodness it happened in my quali race and not my actual race. How I fared? Not bad la. 2 3rd places and 1 5th place. Satisfying cause I always finished above my starting positions. So, that's a consolation. Also realised it's so easy to do a Fisichella, i.e. drift out of the race mentally and not give a 100% at every corner every lap. Guess that's why there can only a be a few Schumachers and Alonsos around.

Last but not least, some victory poses:

Group photo:
And of course, lunch at everyone's favourite Golden Arches. "I'm Lovin' It!"
More photos here.;)