The Bramalea Insurgent

So fricken cool. If the range is more than 200 km than I’ll line up a home depot and pick up the parts to do this to mine.

I knew this was going to happen. It seems they are surprised that this speeding law doesn’t target racers, it targets everyone. But we all know you can speed in any car and every one is always in a rush.

Here’s a solution. You want safer roads? Then drivers need better training. Anything less then that is an insincere effort. A law is not going to prevent someone from speeding, but training will save lives.

Lets take for example motorcycles. Everyone knows these crotch rockets are dangerous. But people are still allowed to ride them? Why? Because when you ride a motorcycle you know full well the dangers of it. And even though you can hop on any bike with an M1 every other motorcyclist will tell you to take the training. You don’t rely on stupid laws to keep you safe. You rely on your training. It’s no different in a car. 4 tires and a cage don’t make you safe. Good driving makes you safe. When people will start looking to themselves to be better drivers then they will realize that it’s the drivers that make safer roads, not the laws.

Fantino is a tool.

With an average of 38 busts a day and a total of over 1060 our streets should be much safer. Obviously it isn’t. Even he was surprised by the numbers. I’m not but I’m still wondering where the outrage is.

I want to write this down so I don’t forget.

First is if police are busting 38 people a day and charging them with this law, what were they doing before? Think about it. In Ontario we’ve always had laws dealing with people going 50 over. So I raise the following question: At what rate did the police issue ticket for going 50 over before this seizure law was put into effect?

I was hoping for an easy answer to this question. I hoped to find the answer at the MTO Site. I thought the Ontario Road Safety Annual Report was a good place to start. While the stats are useful, they are not broken down enough to answer my question. According to the 2003 report under the Conviction, Offence, and Suspension Data, 716,120 people were charged with speeding. To my dismay that number is not broken down any further then that. How many were 10 over or 25 over or 50 over. With out that data, it is impossible to see if what Ontario is doing is having any effect. I’ve found a Freedom of Information form online so I will request the data. I’ve never done this before so I’ll write back and let you know how it goes.

Here is what I expect to find. Enforcement of this new law will be up. Fantino expressed surprise when looking at this months numbers. That leads me to believe that they were not actively looking for speeders before. At least not with the zeal they are doing now. Think about it for a sec. Now the government can say “Yeah our road ways are dangerous because look at all the cars we impounded.” Of course when you step up enforcement you will always find what you are looking for. Further more when you really look at it closely you realize that now the police have every incentive to pull you over and charge you with this law if they can. First the fine you pay goes to their budget. Second is the money received trough towing and storage. And because suspension and seizure are done on the spot without right of appeal, they will always find it worth while to use this law. That source of income pretty much mandates enforcement of this law and is a recipe for abuse of power.

Well the first thing you need to do to drive fast at Formula Kartways is to make sure your kart is in tip top shape. There are a few ways to do this. First way is to do this is find out which car had the fastest time of day. This method is not always reliable, but can work for you. Be aware that the condition of the karts change dramatically during the course of a day. Just because the kart was excellent during the morning does not mean it’s going to be great for the night crowd. The second way involves taking a look at all the current lap times at the karts on the track. This is not a great way to find out. Sometimes a fast kart may be in the hands of a bad driver. The third way is asking one of the staff for which kart is fast. They will usually be straight forward to you and tell you.

Another thing you need to do is know the track. There are 3 or 4 areas that you will have to go part throttle. The rest is WOT. To get fast times (At least in my experience) the driving line needs to be clear. I’ve never seen a fast lap while someone was passing. All of my fastest times were with cars far enough ahead of me that I did not have pass them on the same lap.

But the thing you need most to be fast at Formula Kartways is skill. Look ahead! Any good racer will tell you that. At least 1 turn ahead. If you are looking where you are going, a strange phenomenon happens. You drive were you look. If you look ahead, you will hit your apexes no prob and set up for the next turn no problem. Also there is carrying speed. From a power stand point, these karts suck. There is no torque at all. So you have to carry a lot of speed in turns as to not bog the engine when exiting. If you are drifting through the turns you are going to fast, or taking the wrong line, or both.

Despite this, if you really want to gauge how good of a driver you are, there are a few benchmarks you can check. You average lap time should be within a 1 second of your fastest one. That will tell you, that you are consistent. If there is a lot of traffic, look at you 5 fastest. They should also be within .5 secs of each other. Again, consistency. Also look at you fastest lap time and compare it with that dates fastest time. if you are within 1 second, you’re cooking. Within 1.5 you’re good. Within 2 and you are average. Typically I can get a 34 second lap times. 33 on the right track conditions and car. 32 if I’m lucky. I’ve been told that the fastest time ever there was 29 seconds. The lowest I’ve seen is 31.

I’ve hope this has been helpful. See you on the track. And good luck.