NELLI - Events
Coming soon - F1 Boston!!
Preview of upcoming event - take a look!
Foster Cooperstein, George Cheney, Bud (George's son), and John White took a trip to F1 Boston recently to check it out for a proposed upcoming event. It's GREAT!! This, as the owners point out, is real RACING, not an amusement park ride. For those of you who don't know about the place, F1 Boston is an indoor kart racing facility in Braintree, Ma., just off Route 93/128. There are two indoor tracks, and an outdoor circuit will be available this spring. The karts are really cool and are aluminum and carbon fiber construction with single gas engines. They run racing slicks and every driver is supplied with a racing suit, helmet and neck brace as part of the entry price.
Pit lane - the drivers get ready.
The karts are lined up in the pit lane and the drivers get aboard. Then they pull forward to the pit exit and wait for the green light to enter the track. After about 2 or 3 practice laps, the race starts.
Green flag!!
One course goes up and over a hill and down through a tunnel, so there's a lot to keep things interesting.
The tunnel.
A certain amount of bumping is tolerated, but if you are deemed to be driving too rough or otherwise offend those in charge, you go into the penalty box for a 10 second stop and go. We saw a fair amount of penalties given out. George and Bud decided they would give it a try.
George #26, and Bud #22 get ready.
They tagged onto the end of a group and off they went. For a first try, their times were reasonably good, about a second off the average, but 3 seconds off the best time that we saw - around 19.5 sec. That guy had obviously been here before.
The karts go fairly fast and they will slide and, if you're not paying attention, spin out. As in any racing event, passing is allowed anywhere on the track, and we saw a lot of it in the races that we watched.
George and Bud at speed.
The guys both said the karts were great fun to drive and they are anxious to get their times down. The times, by the way, are posted every lap on a electronic scoreboard that shows position, car number, driver name and lap time. Every driver gets a printout at the end that shows all of his lap times for the race. Makes the bench racing afterwards a little less embellished, but we're here in search of the truth.
The kart below is the one that will be used in the upcoming outdoor 10 race competition, and is a little fancier, but is a lot like the indoor karts.
The new competition kart.
NELLI is planning an event at F1 Boston sometime around the end of March, so stay tuned!!
Last Updated: January 20th, 2003