Memo Gidley recently spent five days on Oahu in working vacation mode while promoting shifter kart racing for the fledgling Hawaii Karting Center. Gidley assisted in the launch of the school's 2000 semester and provided information on his expertise in shifter kart racing to local junior karters and other interested spectators on December 10 and 11, despite dark clouds and heavy rains which interrupted the on-track proceedings more than once. So it's been a great trip. I think that if you can be successful at racing, whether it's go-karts or whatever, you can transfer what you've learned and basically be successful at anything, because more or less, everything is the same. Gidley has no difficulty relating to wide-eyed elementary school students.
Kids are very smart.
They just a lot of times don't speak too much, especially when you're new and they're a little bit shy, but basically I just try and ask them a few questions and get to know them a little bit, and try and communicate with them on their level. For me, that's easy, because I enjoy being around kids. You know, it's fun. We talked about the track, we talked a little bit about racing, we talked about how to drive around the track - the difference between driving on the wet, which we had, and driving on the dry. I just try to let them see me drive a little bit and see if there were any questions, but basically let them see that I'm really no different than they are.