GO-KARTING is an adrenaline-pumping, high-speed sport that demands technical skill and precision, as anyone who's tried it will tell you.

It has also recently become much of an obsession of mine - a natural extension of my passion for cars and speed-demon-like tendencies.

What I didn't expect from this thrill sport, however, was its ability to also teach me some life lessons. And that came about quite by accident - as most of life's lessons do - at a karting event last Sunday.

The event was Singapore's first Caltex National Karting Challenge, which saw almost 500 karting enthusiasts from around the island taking part. Two days of time trials had whittled the field down to just about 100 competitors by the time the final day of the competition - last Sunday - approached.

Four novice go-karters from BT, including yours truly, decided to throw all caution - and possibly good sense too - to the wind and take part in the media portion of the challenge.

This segment of the competition saw 12 teams from the media industry - many of whom were driving enthusiasts from local car magazines like Wheels Asia and Torque - taking part.

Needless to say, pitted against these more seasoned karters, we were a nervous bunch. Going by the race name 'BT NewsKarters', we were two journalists, one sub-editor and one account coordinator. But some of us had never even been on a go-kart more than once before the race itself.

And the butterflies only increased as our motley crew made our way to the race track early that Sunday morning.

The sight of East Coast Park's massive carpark E1 (right next to the seafood restaurants) being transformed into a genuinely challenging go-kart circuit was a nerve-wracking one.

The parade of teams picking up their gear - gloves, helmet, rib-cage protectors (yikes!) - and suiting themselves up was even more so.

It wasn't quite Formula One - but still, the weekend's roar of engines and the smell of burning rubber was enough to get one's pulse racing.

Still, we good-naturedly told ourselves that if we didn't completely humiliate ourselves by finishing dead last, we'd write about living to tell the tale.

So, by now, you know we weren't last.

We weren't. Not by far.

We surprised ourselves by finishing fourth - out of a total of 12 teams - behind oneshift.com, AsiaOne and AXN Asia, and ahead of most of the car mags. And we even set the fastest lap time for our segment of the race, in which we raced five other teams at the same time.

Just how did we do it? Especially against teams whose members have all but been inducted into the Hall of Fame for their speed records at Johor's Permas Jaya track, the closest circuit for serious karting buffs?

Well, listen up, because I believe the reasons make for compelling life lessons as well.

In karting, you learn that it's not only just how hard you step on the throttle that counts, but also how well you take the various curves and corners.

Achieving the best time for any one lap comes from knowing how best to approach a corner, ie being able to see the racing line as you approach, braking at the right point, hitting the apex of the curve and then accelerating once you're past it. In other words, it's not only how fast you approach the corner, but how quickly and smoothly you get out of it, that matters.

And here's where I believe our team scored. We may not have been the speediest of all Gonzaleses, but each one of us took the corners calmly and smoothly, coming out fast to maintain an impressive all-round speed - especially when compared to those teams which lost precious time by approaching corners too recklessly or too quickly, and landed up slamming themselves into tire walls.

So, if it isn't already apparent to you by now, here are the life-lessons I learnt from this karting experience: 1) life isn't always straight and smooth; 2) there are often twists and turns that test your endurance and mettle; 3) knowing how to handle these twists and turns with serenity is the key to getting through life well; and 4) as with every trial and tribulation in your life, know that there is an end to difficulty and suffering.

Drive safely, everyone.