I’ll open with this…Mario Andretti I am not. I’d be lucky to be Janet Guthrie (a barrier-breaking driver, who sadly won no titles). However, I’m glad the owners of Pinballz finally took my nagging request to start a league. What they really did was woo away a gentleman who ran it at a rival business and he’s pretty cool.
So what’s involved? For the next six weeks, we all have a practice run to shake off the mental cobwebs, etc. See how are times are. Then we have a break to let in some paying customers. Second run is for time and how well you do there determines you placement for the final race which counts toward points. There’s only nine drivers, thus first receives nine, second gets eight and you can calculate the rest. I thought I had a decent practice with a average time of 20 seconds and change a lap. HA! These other people are out for blood and have probably booked time at the KOTA (the rival place with gas-powered karts). I didn’t care about having the ninth seed, I still got to be in the official race to get a point or two.
Although I came in last, again, I am proud to say I was NOT lapped in the race for all the marbles! Did I expect to suck this much? No. I figured I was going to be middle-low on the curve at best. Being last has a silver lining. I can only get better from there and I was averaging a little over 19 seconds a lap, something I rarely get to do. More importantly, I’m having fun. At my age, it’s too late to turn this into a career and challenge AJ Foyt or tax-dodger Lewis Hamilton. Racer M will finish!