Cracks In Cork

General Vinnie: Comrades, the President seeks our help in fighting terrorism. So Major Tom, are we ready for the battle?
Major Tom: Sir, yes sir! I have already set up a recon operation in order to find out the hideout of the enemy.
General Vinnie: Good, tell me when Seargant Paddy is back.
Seargant Paddy: General Vinnie, we have made out a camp in the first floor.
General Vinnie: Okay, Team Blue and Team Red head out for the operation. Major Tom, you lead Team Blue. Seargant Paddy, Team Red is yours.
Seargant Paddy: Private 1st Class Fez, Private 2nd Class Terry, you take the matress and follow me.
Private 1st Class Fez: Sir, yes sir!
Private 2nd Class Terry: Sir, yes sir!
Major Tom: Now listen, I want complete silence in the corridor. No one speaks a word while on the operation.

[on the operation]

Seargant Paddy (whispering): Private, you open the door, Team Blue and Team Red, you immediately storm the room silently and wait for further instructions.

[in the room, whispering]

Seargant Paddy [pointing at a figure lying in the bed]: There is our target. Team Red, come here with the matress. When I say now, you slam it on the target and everyone gets on that matress. Now don't forget, the target will try to free himself screaming and acting pathetic, but we will show no mercy.
Now!
Target [poor boy sleaping]: What the fuck! Shit! What you want?? I can't breathe!
Private 1st Class Fez: Shut up!
Private 2nd Class Terry: Fez, he's trying to get away...
Seargant Paddy: Major Tom, we need your Team. Now come on everyone, get on that fucking matress!
...

This is no fiction out of my brain friends, this is reality. Everything described above occured in a youth hostel in Cork from 2 a.m. till 5 a.m. All students, between 17 and 23 years old on a weekend trip of the karting club to Cork. This happened on the second and final night, on Saturday. In fact I had initially planed to go to bed early as I was extremely tired from the fabulous outdoor karting session in the afternoon. But in the last moment some power persuaded me to take part in the evening activities together with the rest of the group. Otherwise I would have been that poor sleeping target buried under a matress with six people jumping on it. Instead I could follow all this safely in the second floor in the "headquarters" of General Vinnie, a fierce 150 kg bull of a man you better don't mess with.

Then there were some pub-crawl issues as well that night, but don't want to get into any further details about that. Its all more or less the same stories of little children drinking a lot and doing funny things. You know what I mean, don't you?

Its only on this trip that I realized that Indoor karting is for small kids. Outdoor karting, thats the real thing! You reach maximum speeds of upto 70 km/h on that small car and the curves, whew, there was that one curve right after the start, a long one going right. The centrifugal force you experience there alone is worth doing this trip again. Then there were some slow curves where you have to jump into your breaks (which were quite weak), and in case you don't manage to slow down on time, the go-kart does what it wants and that can cause danger. Like I lost control over the car once as I was too fast in one curve and it felt like viewing everything from that one camera attached on the top of a formula one car. You can't do much.

There were actually alltogether two problems on that particular day, and I am to blame for one of them. 1) It was damn cold and even if you wear those (cheap) gloves your fingers start to die off after 15 minutes continous racing. I think I experienced that last but one stage when you really have to cut off the finger. It was not only shivering, no I could feel my pulse on my fingertips. It was as if the blood inside the fingers were shivering!

2) I am quite weak in my arms. From Sunday evening till Tuesday morning I couldn't really use my right arm for anything as all muscles of my forearm were paining like hell. When you are in those tight curves you have to put in a lot of effort to turn the steering into the curve and that thing has no powersteering. So mind it, racing is a very demanding sport, even if you are sitting the whole time.