Dromo 1: Four out of five stars

So last night, as planned, I met Mark and T.W. for a bit of preseason thunder at this indoor karting place over by Disneyland, called Dromo 1. It has all the aspects of a real race, just toned down. You have to be smooth to get around quickly, use all of the track’s real estate to get around the corners, and above all get the right entry speed for each corner. Traffic can make or break your race. If you can get on the throttle before the other guy on the corner leading to the long straight you can pull two or three kart lengths easy. It’s a lot of fun.

We got three heats for just $50, and while I didn’t cover myself in glory, I didn’t humiliate myself either.

Race 1:
Mark had been there before and T.W. got a race in before I arrived so for the first heat I just sat back and tried to keep them in sight. There was a wide full throttle right hander that narrowed into a hairpin and I kept entering the darn thing too fast. My plan was to get it right during the next “qualifying” session.

Race 2:
Best laid plans; they switched and ran the track in the opposite direction. I got a better start, got alongside T.W. which gave me the inside on the first tight corner for a nice clean pass, which put me right behind Mark. Within the next lap or two, while the tires were still a bit cold, Mark got a bit sideways and which gave me a really nice hole, which I used. The one thing not to do, if you can avoid it, is to overdrive these karts since they start with a bit of understeer, but rapidly switch to an oversteering rotation that will bring you nearly to a dead stop.

At that point I thought I was going to check out, since I drove and drove seemingly all alone except for just one slow guy to lap about every thirty seconds or so. But it was too good to last. I started getting a blue flag, a really fast regular was coming up, the race leader. You can’t see behind and they have no mirrors so I had no idea where he was, but thought he must be close if they’re waving the blue flag at me. So nice guy that I am I started giving him some room. One corner…Two Corners…Three Corners… no pass. So I told myself to forget it, I’m losing time, and went into a corner on my normal line and bam. That’s when he tried to pass. To put a cherry on top of the whole bit Mark was right behind him, saw it coming from a long ways off, and shamelessly took advantage. So after all that I gave the position up. My bad.

Race 3:
Was a disaster. I lost a spot at the start and the guy who took it would throw the kart sideways and wind up parked on the apex. So I tried going outside and he’d turn out from the apex to block. So I tried a throttle jump going onto the main straight and he pinched me down against the inside of the track as soon as I got alongside. So I tried a throttle jump going onto the main straight while going around his outside and he started weaving. Real cars or karts, at a hundred and twenty or at ten miles per hour Mark and T.W. are fun to race against, as are most all of the Mazda GT guys. Its drivers like that stranger that I wish would stay away from racing, even karts, because they just seem to live for the sole purpose of ruining a good time.

Anyway, I give Dromo four out of five stars. Well worth the time and quite a bargain besides.