Go Karting

I feel a bit mean about not recommending this as I was very kindly invited along by some work colleagues - they organised it really well; a great group of people, and also the track was brilliant, but...

You have to remember that despite the UK's concern with health and safety this is a different world.  This is a place where you will be tearing round a small track at speeds of up to 50mph.  Even so, if you are a halfway decent driver it would be quite difficult to do yourself any serious injury like this provided you follow the basic safety rules.  But then add up to 9 other drivers - most of whom are guys high on adrenaline and testosterone...

I started off absolutely loving this - in my first race I went from 4th position to 3rd - hoorah!  

The next race I was in pole position - "no one is going to pass me" I thought - and of course I spun the car on the first corner and ended up stuck on a wall waiting for someone to come help me out... I raced to catch up with the rest... and did it again... I managed to pass one or two other drivers, but because I started in pole I came in dead last!  

The third time I started third, and passed the two other drivers getting into the lead - "I'm really good at this" I thought for about five seconds, until the guy behind me rammed into me.  (Now you are not supposed to have any contact with the other cars - but he had obviously forgotten this!)  It really hurt.  So I went faster, trying to avoid getting rammed again, and that's when he collided with me again, knocking me into the crash barrier, where the steering column smacked into my leg.  I fought back the tears, but there was a moment when I thought I had broken my leg.  Within a few seconds the race organisers were beside me checking on me.  I wanted to stop so they asked if I wanted to drive off or walk off the track.  Bravely, I decided to drive off, but the car wouldn't even start it had been knocked so badly.  So instead they pulled me from the car, took my helmet and helped me limp off.  It was pretty bad, but they gave me an ice pack and I decided to finish the day's racing.

I was very nervous getting into the car for the fourth race.  We started off, I was going well, safely but still fairly fast, until... all of the drivers in front of me collided in a pile up, I pushed down on the brake but there was no way I could prevent smashing into them at speed - this time it was my ribs!  I carried on for the rest of this and the final race, just hoping not to come in last, (and I came in second to last on the final race - someone else's car died) but by this point it just felt like I was going through the motions - a bit scared of getting hurt again, and feeling that I had lost whatever edge I had started with.

I actually felt quite sorry for the guy who hit me - he was disqualified twice, all the other guys were giving him a really hard time, and the organisers kept offering to let me hit him with a sledge hammer - on or off the track - but in fairness he was just falling for the feel of it - let's face it most of the time you do something like this it's in an arcade, or in bumper cars, where it's hard to really do serious damage to someone else - it just hadn't really registered with him that this is a dangerous sport with very necessary safety guidelines.

And that's the thing - you just do not have control over the other drivers.  When you get on a go karting racetrack you could have a great time, or you could wind up with someone a bit too aggressive, or with the best will in the world you could end up spinning your car, or right behind someone who spins theirs or end up in a massive pile up.  

Quite frankly it’s not worth the bother of having to sleep with your leg elevated and not being able to walk properly for several days (there are plenty of other things I could do for that - which are worth the bother.)

I love speed, I enjoyed the adrenaline, but overall I just didn't feel that the pleasure outweighed the risks and it's not something I'll be trying again.  (Maybe on a smaller, slower, safer track though!) 

Don’t get me wrong, some of these are excellent, but I couldn’t, in good conscience give them a Pearl Recommendation.  Sometimes they were just beaten to the punch, or I couldn’t decide a clear winner, other times they had a lot right, but I felt they just weren’t there.  I don’t really want to give bad reviews, but anything I felt was really best avoided you’ll find in the Jellyfish section.