Sunday morning, Vero and I packed up our cars with the final load of small items to the bring to the house. Our house now looks like an elephant walked through it! We did unpack a few boxes but we then headed back downtown to pick up Chantelle as we were heading out to Top Karting in Hull for Vero’s birthday.
We arrived there right behind Mike and Trish and met up with Joe inside. I haven’t seen Joe in a year or so and it was good to catch up. The rest of the crew showed up and we had a few beer and got ready for the go-karting experience.
I was in Group #2 so we sat it out while Vero tore around the track. There were some great racers in that group…James, Piraz (sp?) and Dave were the cream of the crop. Some of the cars seemed like their brake was on at 90% power! I especially enjoyed how Melissa started out the race going as slow as she could, holding up all the racers, and giving everyone the Queen’s wave.
Next up was our turn and we threw on some coveralls and headed for the track. I was second in line and quickly overtook Mike for first spot. I found out afterwards that the poor guy got a whiff of some gas fumes (the place was full of them) and felt sick the entire race.
I did manage to keep my cool (although Vero said that keeping my cool consisted of an angry looking face while going around the track. I figured it was my ‘in the danger zone’ face!) and kept my first place until Simon smoked me from behind (or the side…I couldn’t really tell what side I got hit on), but then coming up right on my side was Joe and he t-boned me! My knee smoked the steering column from the force and it took me out of first place. Corinne ended up bypassing us all and kept up the pace to win the race. Argh! Mike also ended up in front of me at one point and managed to block every attempt for me to pass him. Well done, but I’m pretty sure they should have given him the blue flag.
I will say one thing…it wasn’t until the end of the race that I realized I was driving like a regular car and I was thinking of cranking the steering wheel. I think I could have done much better if I had realized this at the beginning of the race!
I came in third place which is fine by me. We then headed to Le Cage aux sports which is a neat sports bar in Gatineau. Trish and I split some mini-burgers which were NOT of high quality and Vero ended up with a birthday brownie at the end of the meal for her birthday.
Thanks for everyone for coming out and celebrating Vero’s birthday!