The white Ford van was packed full of family and stuff. The rear end of the van was so heavy with stuff that the front end appeared to be just holding its own. Up and down they went through the Kentucky landscape. The Blue Ridge Mountains were quite a site and that may have been the downside to the whole trip.
The signs pointed to “Next Oasis 26 miles.” The family drove on for about ten minutes when all of a sudden the mountainous terrain said steep grade, next 10 miles. Then it happened.
The Van ran out of gas. There we were, no power, no gas station, just a hill. What do we do? Take advantage of the God given power, namely gravity. And that is what we did. And we coasted down to the bottom of the mountain.
Thankfully, somebody in their right mind had a gas station set up just at the bottom, so we just drove right up to the pump, plenty of speed to spare. “I remember we were all a little tense “ the mom said. “we were wondering if this whole vacation was going to end with one of those roadside flag em down situations. But, no we made it, pushing the van with prayer!”
The response of the gas station attendant was priceless: “Looks like ya coasted in.” He said it so non-chalantly that it took them off guard. It was as if this was a common occurrence. His “ya just coasted in” was another one of those flat-landers not being prepared. To him it was one of those guys who was pushing the limits and didn’t know what he was getting in to.
Thank God for the “ya just coasted in” guys. They are the ones that save our necks, especially in uncharted waters.
One of the marvels of this story is the free market. What?! Hey I want to learn about go-karts not economics. Uh, hold on we will learn a valuable lesson about go karts, but economics first to get the point…
The lonely entrepreneurs positioned himself at the bottom of the hill, not in the middle of the hill, but at the bottom knowing that people would need to stop and fill up, use the washroom and so forth. He was there to help, and we thank him for that.
When we are running a go kart project, often times we think we know everything and we get blindsided by all the wonder of the project and get slammed into the wall of hey I am out of gas and I can’t figure out the rest of this project.
Very often there are guys who have all the answers and they look at the guy building his own go kart as a novice, or unprepared. Some of them just don’t have the patience to deal with you, but others do. At least the guy who said “ya just coasted in” understood where we were coming from and the natural tendency to push the limits and not fill up for gas.
There are various periodicals and internet resources that are designed to help you through this go kart process. The one thing they are there for is to answer your questions. So if you have any, just ask. You may get the “ya just coasted in response” or you may get a really helpful answer.
