"You're going the wrong way! Sir."

(Something that happened to me this summer.)
It was supposed to be a simple thing. I knew people half my age who had been doing it for years. I was confident I could do just as well as them. After all, hadn't I passed my driver's course on the first try and been driving real grown-up cars for three years?

The go-cart track was a simple thing. . . deceptively simple . . . a quasi round track with a few sloping curves and an overpass. The car was simple too; a brake pedal and a gas pedal that you pushed gently start and then crushed to the floor for the rest of the race.

There were only four other people in the race. Two of them were my brothers and the other two were my cousins. Five cousins duke it out it out Highland Mini Sports park raceway (which also doubled as a car wash.) It was going to be a momentous occasion.

We paid our five dollars to lady attendant -- it seemed steep to me, but the others handed it over without balking so I figured I must just be tight – and proceeded in an orderly fashion to the car of our choice. Well it would have been orderly if my brother hadn't tried to beat to the car I wanted. I lost so instead of the bright red car with the cool flame job at the front of the line, I had to settle for a car at the back of the pack. I imagine it was once a pretty little blue car, but that was several years ago. It looked like it had a habit of hopping off the track and running cross country to the nearest demolition derby. Things were not off to a good, start, but I figured I'd make it up on the raceway.

When I tried to enter my car, I discovered that this contraption was obviously made for midgets, not a youngish guy who was often referred to fondly – or not so kindly depending on the situation – as “lanky”. I wondered briefly as I forced my legs out from underneath my chin and into the pedal arena, whether maybe we were a little too old for this sort of thing, but I dismissed that. After all, my one cousin was a year older than me and he was doing it. Although, on second thought, he doesn't measure out at 6'2”.

Once I got all my limbs in the right place and wrestled the seat belt into position, I looked up for my instructions. The girl who was in charge of our little group had already started her memorized speech. She looked bored and in her right hand she held a remote with a bunch of buttons. I'd missed her little introduction about safety, but I caught enough of the beginning to hear the important part: How to start the car! She punched a little button on her remote and a light appeared under a switch. In unison we all flipped the switched and the cars roared to life. Actually, it was more of a sputter, but with four rough-running engines all under one roof, it sounded like a roar. Yeah! This was progress! I couldn't hear the lady with the remote any more, but now that I had my car started, I figured I could take it from here. It didn't look like she was saying anything important anyway. She had the look of an instructor explaining to a group of adults something a group of kindergartners should already know.

The lady with the remote was closing her speech by the time I had figured out which pedal was the gas and which was the brake. The only thing I couldn't figure out was how to get the thing in gear. No matter how hard I stepped on the gas nothing happened. I found my answer when she punched a button on her remote and everybody else headed out of the garage for their practice lap. The gas! Of course! I fumbled around in the unknown pedal arena until I found the gas pedal again. It worked this time! Apparently she had changed something with her remote and my car had been given permission to listen to me when I stepped on the gas. I started to wonder just how much control she had over us. After all, I was here to race, not ride around in a remote controlled dune buggy! However, the upshot of the whole thing was that I had discovered forward motion. I was pumped!

By the time I made the discovery, everyone else was well on their way to the track. Determined to catch up by the end of the practice lap, I stepped on the gas hard. This produced an ungainly lurch out of my car. No matter how I tried to smooth it out, it still bucked like a bronco every time I tried to change it's pace. Apparently it had two speeds. Fast and stopped, and the only way to get from one to the other was to ride a passing leapfrog. However, despite the bucking the wheels had started to roll faster. I decided it was time to see if the car listened to the steering wheel of if that too had to wait to for it's orders from the master remote.

I turned the wheel hard and found out that I was definitely in control of the wheel. The only problem was I wasn't really in good control of them. When I turned the steering wheel, the tiny front wheels responded by doing an about face and my car veered wildly to the right. I corrected the slight problem and veered back on track. I realized by now that this thing didn't have power steering and that if I was to make anything except right-angle turns on the track, I would have to use a fine combination of extreme strength and hair-thin precision. Fortunately I was well in command of both so I should have no problem. The wheels were rolling, the motor was rumbling, and the steering wheel worked as my car and I rumbled out from the safety of the garage. Now we were going somewhere! The only problem was I wasn't quite sure where.

While I was busting my bronco, everyone else had saddled theirs and had disappeared. I had intended to follow them and catch them by the first corner. The only problem was I didn't know which one it was. From my snake's eye view, I couldn't see if they had gone right or left when they left the garage. I looked around quickly for any markers that would tell me which way to go. No luck there. (I found out later that I was sitting right on top of it.) Not wanting to stop the car and ask for directions – I am a guy after all! -- I aimed straight ahead for a long as I could, still frantically searching for my direction. I didn't find it. In a moment of desperation, as the guardrail loomed up in front of my car, (and partly because I had turned right out of the garage and it was now a conditioned response in a panic) I whipped the wheel to the right and set my course downhill. Then I saw the marker, a big fat arrow painted on the ground – pointing right at me!

Apparently the lady with the remote saw it too before I had figured out that one a racetrack one really ought not to drive against the arrows, she came running out of the garage shouting and waving her remote. I took the hint and figured a quick U-turn was in order. Hoping that two rights make a right, I whipped the wheel to right one more time and tried to turn my leaping frog around. It didn't work. The track was much to tight even to allow my spectacular right-angle turn. Deciding to make it a two-point turn instead of a U-turn, I mashed the brake before just before running into another guardrail and I searched in the dark for a pedal that would make the car back up. I found out then that this car really was simple and in addition to having only two speeds and two pedals, it only had one direction – forward. With only one option left, I turned the wheel even further to the right and ramped into the guardrail in an attempt to right myself before the lady with the remote got to me.

It didn't work. Apparently she had decided that I was some sort of idiot and the easiest way to deal with me was to take matters out of my hands. She punched another button on her remote and my car obediently died. Walking up to me with a disgusted look on her face, she informed me rather emphatically that I had done something that I gathered no one else had ever done in the history of the course.

“You're going the wrong way! Sir” (I loved the way she added “Sir” on there. It made it sound like I was a grown up idiot instead of just a little one.)

“You need to listen to directions when I tell you to turn left when you get to the track!”Still glaring at me, she clicked something on her remote began pushing me backwards.

“Okay, turn the wheel left.”

Now I know how to make a two-point turn and I had already decided to do it the other way, so when she told me to turn left, I assumed she meant her left and I whipped the wheel right one more time. This got another glare from her and in her eyes I read the desire to tell me what she really thought about my driving abilities if she had been allowed to. At least she wasn't bored any more! My guess is that she hasn't had the kind of excitement in all the years she's been doing that job.

Finally I decided to do things her way -- after all she had the remote and I gathered she was about to use it again to pull me off the track! -- and with a little bit of uneasy teamwork, we managed to get my car back on track. By this time I was expecting to see my cousins and brothers come roaring around the track. Fortunately, when she stopped my car she had the foresight and decency to stop their cars as well so they didn't come up and rear-end us as we corrected my little mistake. It also meant they didn't have to see how red my face turned as I struggled to prove to the lady with the remote that I really could drive and that it was not a hazard to local security to let me finish the race. However, while they were stuck on the other side of the track, my uncle and aunt who had come along to watch were doing just that. My car was making a lot of noise so I couldn't hear them laughing, but I happened to look up when she was pushing me and my uncle's face was bulging and kind of red, like he wanted to laugh but wanted to save it for when I was closer and could really appreciate it. My aunt looked like she was trying not to laugh, not because she wanted to do it in my face but because she wasn't sure she wanted other people to know that she was associated with me and my predicament.

By the time I had my car righted and ready for action once more, she had released the rest of the cars and they were coming off their warm-up lap. The reached me about the time I started rolling and we all moved from warm-up speed to racing speed as the lady decided I really didn't need my warm-up lap. My brother passed me immediately but my car's bucking ability finally paid off and I managed to wheel into line just in time to cut off the rest of the pack. . . a position I managed to keep for the entire race. It turned out that once you found your place it really didn't matter how good a driver you were because all the cars were the same speed you could go full speed around the entire track.

When we finished our last lap, the lady with the remote reigned back into parking speed. I got another look from her as I parked my car, but I ignored her and moved off in the company of people with a better sense of humor, people who could appreciate a real idiotic maneuver when they saw one. Needless to say, I had to repeat the story several times before they got their fill and have retold it many times since then, along with the story about another time when I went the going the wrong way. Incidentally, that also involved a right turn into the wrong lane. . . but that's a story for another time.