"Hey!, Watch It Pal!"

For brother Scott's 50th birthday party a group of us went to "F1" in Braintree, Massachusetts where they feature two indoor race courses with souped up Go-carts that travel up to 40 miles an hour. The course we were on had a hair pin turn, a tunnel , and a couple straight sections so that you can get the feel of a racing experience similar to the formula one "Indy" car type racing. Everyone had to sign an injury waiver in case you hurt yourself while racing and also a next of kin notification in case you flipped out of the race course and killed yourself so they would know who to call to pick up your corpse.

Prior to the race we all had to watch a movie which detailed all the different flags that the track officials would wave from various sections of the course during the race such as the white flag,checkered flag, red flag, black flag, and some other flag that signified that the driver was driving with a foot on the gas and brake petals at the same time. Each driver had to wear an official racing helmet, a full fire retardant racing suit, and some sort of black thing that you put over your head before you put on your helmet. The pre-race movie also stressed not to run into the other cars while racing as these cars are racing vehicles not "bumper cars.

During the 15 lap race, each driver's lap time, race position, and overall time was electronically calculated. The race started with a warm up lap. I started in fourth position but ended up getting caught on the hair pin turn on the warm-up lap as I didn't allow enough room for the metal barrier the surrounds each car and ended up falling into last place on the starting lap.

In addition to our group there were a few young "hotshots" in the race. I recall going through the tunnel "S" turn and getting slammed by these "daredevils" on both sides of my racing car at  the same time as one car passed me on my left side and one car passed on the right. I yelled out "Hey!, Watch it Pal!", but I doubt if they heard me as it gets pretty loud out there on the course during the race.

It was a fun experience, and no one died or was injured so we all can come back another day for future "F1" races.