National Post

Breaking karting record can be a spiritual experience

SOOTHES MY SOUL TO FEEL THE G-FORCES, HEAR THE RUBBER.

- Nicholas Maronese Driving. ca

Out of the straight, it’s a 90-degree left-hand turn, then a left-hand hairpin, followed by a righthand elbow where you can run out the apex. Turn four is a right- hand 180, with a hard switchback to a lefthander into the carousel. The track at Brampton’s Formula Kartways stretches just 187 metres, covered in an average 16.5 seconds in a 7.5- horsepower go-kart.

Ma t t h e w Ha y l e y can race it with his eyes closed, and at 4 a. m. on Jan. 23, he pretty much was doing just that. By that point, Hayley had spent the prior 16 hours turning in thousands of laps, trying to break the Guinness world record for most distance travelled on an indoor kart track in 24 hours, starting at noon on Jan. 22. But at that point in the morning, just before dawn, is when he was starting to feel it.

“When you hit that mark and you’ve depleted all your energy, it’s very daunting,” Hayley explains.

The faces of his friends in the paddock had started disappeari­ng, and Hayley felt like he was hitting a wall. After a 10-minute break, he got back on the track, drained. Then the sun began coming through the windows.

“That did it — I j ust broke emotionall­y,” he says. “Friends’ faces popped up again. I started singing. Through the straightaw­ay, I held my arms out to the sun.” For many of those 16 hours, Hayley had been thinking of his mom, whom he lost to lung cancer 5 ½ years ago. Emotionall­y de vas t ated by her passing, he eventually used karting as a form of therapy.

In his weakest moments on track for this record run, he turned to memories of the strength she showed and used those for inspiratio­n. With hours to burn and a record to earn, the soft rays of light scattered across the track, Hayley collected himself, thought of his mom, and put the pedal to the floor.

Hayley started racing at Formula Kartways about a decade earlier, something to do with friends for fun. General manager Shaun de Jager saw an aptitude in Hayley and pushed him to join a league, but after six months, he couldn’t keep up with it financiall­y.

He spent the next 10 years in the automotive industry, where he developed a love for driving, and about a year ago got back into karting and training with de Jager. One night at home, he stumbled on an old copy of the Guinness Book of World Records, and flipped through it looking for karting records.

“The next night I said to Shaun, ‘ Hey, you want to go for a record?’ He said, ‘ Yeah, right,’ and I kind of just left it there.”

De Jager ended up putting Hayley through some trials, to see if a shot at a 24- hour karting record was possible. Hayley seized the opportunit­y. He realized he still hadn’t recovered from losing his mother, and that training for the record attempt could offer the rehabilita­tion he needed.

Unlike most kart tracks, Kartways’ Formula Oneinspire­d track is “designed to hurt you, not forgive you,” Hayley says; first-timers often remark on how punishing it is. For Hayley it’s the opposite.

“It’s therapeuti­c. I go in for an hour and I’m revitalize­d,” he says. “It soothes my soul to feel the G-forces, hear the rubber and know I’m giving it my all.”

Hayley also realized he could use the attempt to raise money for Princess Margaret Hospital, particular­ly the palliative care ward that saw his mother through her final days.

“That’s really the only reason I did this,” he says. “When we got to Princess Margaret, they saved our lives, because we were losing them through what we were going through.”

Hayley started training for the record attempt last fall, racking up some 20,000 laps by training four hours a day, four or five days a week, for about four months. His karting skills were honed via lead-follow laps with veteran drivers.

“It was like miniature Formula One training,” Hayley says. “I couldn’t believe the level they took me to through this.”

Next was the physical and sleep deprivatio­n training required: de Jager fitted fivepound weights to Hayley’s wrists to teach him to drive with a light grip, and stuck a three- pound lead weight on his helmet to help strengthen his neck muscles.

Last was the mental training and strategy Hayley devised. For him, — and singing along with — music from his phone. “I used the songs functional­ly, and after I finished a break I would select different playlists based on how I was feeling.

“When I wanted to relax, I would listen to my childhood albums,” Hayley says. “I was touching back to my roots, getting closer to mum. I used the music to take me through the journey.”

As he approached the 3,940 th lap, the number needed to break the old Guinness record of 733.69 km, it was his mom Hayley had in his head.

“I kept thinking, you come from strength, because she lived a week or two longer with half a lung to make sure we were ready to let her go,” he says. At roughly 10: 30 a. m., with 90 minutes to spare and a paddock full of friends cheering him on, Hayley broke the record.

Guinness World Records has yet to officially verify Hayley’s record attempt, but to him it’s not important. What matters most is the spiritual transforma­tion it put him through, and the $ 5,000 he collected from donors on behalf of Princess Margaret Hospital.

“I wouldn’t have gotten this far if it weren’t for all the people behind me,” he says. “If you ask me, it’s not my record, it’s everyone’s — I was just a driver. We had premium in the tank, but the donations were my fuel.”

 ?? FORMULA KARTWAYS ?? Driving coach Shaun de Jager, left, and Matthew Hayley at Formula Kartways in Brampton.
FORMULA KARTWAYS Driving coach Shaun de Jager, left, and Matthew Hayley at Formula Kartways in Brampton.

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