my-Kart's last "proper" Driver event seemed to have been held in a different era, it was still the Year of the Fire Pig and wthe government was still telling us everything will be ok, and "correct, correct, correct".

Of course, a lot has happened since then, and funnily, all centred around the theme of water - yes, after the Chinese New Year festivities where many of us would have enjoyed endless Yee Sang lunches, round 3 was a total washout but luckily salvaged by a super "Wet Wings" session purely for the sake of our publicity on ESPN! Immediately after, we had the political tsunami, I flew to the UK immediately after to be greeted by one of the worse storms in 20 years (hmm...I wonder if the Rainman's trying to send me a message here...that he's gone international??).

March was also one of the busiest months for me at work and studies, and I felt something was missing from my life, and tried to fill that with F1, parties and binge drinking...all of which didn't work.

After today's event, I realised that what I really needed was not women, drugs or debauchery, but rather, the high adrenaline thrills of the my-KART Driver Event, and with it, the camaraderie, social interactions,high octane dramas on and off track, and basically the fun times that we usually have at these events. In summary, what I'm trying to say is...I miss you all lah!!

Running these events is not easy, and requires total commitment, teamwork and volunteerism from members. This is the beauty of my-KART, and the reason why it offers the total motorsports experience for all who join.

Although the club committee sets the direction, strategy and defines the operational processes for running the events, it is the spirit of volunteerism that enables events to run efficiently and allow us to run 18 races within a space of 5 hours, or about 1 race every 20 mins, between 8.30am to 1.30pm, with at least 50 participants each time. Hence, this level of efficiency not only requires precise coordination, but commitment from each member to turn up on time, volunteer for roles such as safety briefing, kart allocation, admin, and marshalling.

On this note, I would like to recognise a few people who really stood out today to embody this spirit of volunteerism - Edwyn, who has shown great enthusiasm in building up the Chicken Wing sessions, and also volunteered to present the pre-race briefing; Marcy, who has turned up for the last 3 sessions, I believe, just to help with the race admin and essentially keep my sanity in check during the registration process!, and Mark, who today, despite not being able to race for reasons best known to him, manned the lap chart station for the entire event, and thus living up to his nickname by turning lobster red under the blazing morning sun! The three of you get my "Certified" seal of approval...no, not the yummy one..but you know what I mean!

Anyway, what a long intro! I've decided to split my reflections into a couple of postings now, so the next one will touch on my race experience!

Well, back to this posting. I'm sure there are others who have come forward to help today, and so apologies as I may not know all your names, but as examples, I was not short of help during the the set up of K3, K2, as participants readily came forward to help, so thank you!

As mentioned above, in order for us to have maximum fun, run all the events, and go home at a reasonable time, we all need to play our part. So, in short, the earlier we arrive, the more help we get, the faster we will finish.
I don't want to target this to the two individuals that turned up late today (you know who you are, but pls don't take this personally! ), but when we set the deadline for registration, it is for good, practical reasons. Since these events are held only once a month, all we ask is for participants to make the effort to wake up early and arrive between 7.30 - 8.00am. Registration officially closes at 8.15, after which we get the important safety briefings.

From my perspective, it is usually very amusing to see how much effort is instead put to bend this rule...the endless phone calls to say "I'm on the way", getting friends to register on other's behalf, and most amusing, the begging,sadness and sometimes anger that's shown for those who turn up after registration closes.

To explain - one of the key enablers for my-Kart to operate so efficiently, is that we use Fazz's homemade IT system to run the event! Once registration closes, it means we then need to start preparing the race admin sheets (lap chart/grid), for the race to run.
I think there are Macros that Fazz must have developed with NASA, that run and allocates karters, to grids, etc!...and therefore, if you turn up AFTER we have generated these charts, it will disrupt the whole flow of events..ie we need to re-input your name, run the macros, print the charts, etc...AND get your payment.

Remember, all this waiting means that your friends who turned up on time, will need to wait longer for you.

OK, I didn't want to dwell too long on this, but I think the point's made. It all turned out well today, but let's not get into these situations in the future!

Now, on to the next posting...