I REMEMBER the first time I heard karts at kartzone. I was on the way to Offroads for a rare date--engineering students rarely went to coffee shops in my time--when I heard the karts and my first thought was, I bet it sure would feel great to be behind those karts.
Fast forward a few years later, John Pages, the then Sportswriters Association of Cebu president, managed to strike a deal with Kartzone to allow sportswriters the experience of a karting race. Boy, was it fun. For the first time I experienced racing and got lapped but thrice. I was the last off the grid. I remember thinking, “How the crap do these karters take these corners so fast?” while I was chugging along.
That was the last time, too, that I went to kartzone for a karting event. I returned a few years later, but it was to test-drive an e-bike. These days, every time I pass by kartzone, I rarely hear the karts. Karting in Cebu has taken a nosedive. There are many factors, and this space isn’t enough to write them all.
What’s good, though, is that a group of karters and their supporters are planning to get the sport--pardon the pun--the revolution it needs. We’ve had some great karters, despite the kartzone track, which I learned over dinner a couple of nights ago, is one of the worst in the country. We have great karters because of kartzone bumps and all.
Over dinner, I met a couple who are part of a group who plans to revive the sport in Cebu because we have a lot of talented drivers. I could mention their names but I think, like the guy who changed Cebu football, they’d rather stay in the background. And as we were talking, I couldn’t help but draw a parallel to Cebu football; we have a lot of great players, some in the national team, despite the state of our football fields. Sometimes I think our players are better than those who play in pristine pitches because of the pitches they played in.
Parents getting involved is always a good thing in any sport and in Cebu, it was the parents’ involvement that saved the sport, when kids--girls and boys--as young as six got in the sport.
There were hiccups, of course, but along the way Cebu football has learned to pick itself up and is now being used as an example of how FA should be ran. If Cebu karting were to borrow some of Cebu football’s best practices, it is this—to set clear roles and limits for parents and coaches.
In a game of football, there’s a technical area where parents aren’t allowed, only officials and coaches are. Cebu karting doesn’t have to do that, but may borrow the rationale behind the rule; parents have to step back and let the kids play, or in their case, just let the kids drive.
Fair play. That’s a football concept, one that I love most in sports. It’s also the reason why the name of this column is fair play. In football, it is basically this, one team doesn’t take advantage of another’s misfortune; to deliberately stop play because a player from the other team is injured.
You can’t ask a driver, of course, to stop mid-race, but hey, fair play isn’t limited to the track or in the game. It’s may also mean everything that happens before gun start.
The parents involvement will boost Cebu karting, but I think it is also how the parents will define their involvement that will sustain the sport.