He waved me off and said he just wanted us to enjoy it. I kept pushing. Eventually, he muttered, “I don’t feel very fit.” I called him a boomer. He laughed and said, “My time here is little compared to yours.” He always drops lines like that. I hate how they stick.
If you’ve followed our Sun-side escapades, you’d know one thing for sure: we don’t travel without Chamara. He’s the lovable newsroom elder, a man who has turned being a map-holding boomer into something of a personal brand. He prefers participating over planning, but this time we thought we had him cornered. Our destination was SpeedBay at Port City, a go-karting track tucked into the surreal sprawl of Colombo’s most futuristic zip code.
Along for the ride were Pathum, our photographer with a surprisingly gentle foot on the pedal, Yashmitha, a fellow writer who never seems in a rush, and me, mildly competitive on a good day and terrifyingly so on a track. Kithsiri, our transport driver for the day, joined too. That wasn’t the plan, but apparently, he had a thing for karting. The minute he said, “I’ve done this before,” I knew this wouldn’t be a casual outing. This was war.
SpeedBay doesn’t feel like Colombo. It’s clean, crisp, and slightly cinematic. Judging by the confused excitement on our social media teaser, not many people even knew this track existed. To be honest, neither did we until a few days earlier. But now we were here, strapping on helmets and holding our egos close. The staff were kind and careful. They took us through a detailed safety briefing and a training session that made me feel a little less like I was about to die. The karts were powered by Honda GX 200 engines and could hit up to 65 kilometers per hour. Seven corners. One chicane. Not for the faint-hearted or the overconfident.
We were each assigned a kart. I took the first one because it felt like a winner’s pick. Pathum followed. Yashmitha, always calm, quietly took the third. Kithsiri picked the last one and looked just a little too comfortable in it. We were given a generous five-minute trial round to get a feel for the track. Our helmets had cameras fixed on them. Everything was being recorded. I muttered to myself, “I’m going to win this.” Pathum and Kithsiri needed humbling. Yashmitha didn’t seem like competition. Spoiler alert: I was wrong. Chamara, who had sworn he would sit this one out, wandered over to the edge of the track with a camera in hand. Earlier, I had tried to convince him to race. He waved me off and said he just wanted us to enjoy it. I kept pushing. Eventually, he muttered, “I don’t feel very fit.” I called him a boomer. He laughed and said, “My time here is little compared to yours.” He always drops lines like that. I hate how they stick.
And just like that, we were off.
There is a strange calm that lives inside speed. Once the kart found its rhythm, my mind went blank. The track felt familiar even though it wasn’t. I became part of it. Everything felt far away except the wind and the corners. Until I saw a flash of red ahead. Yashmitha. She had overtaken Kithsiri. I blinked. Had I underestimated her? I barely had time to process it before she clipped a turn and spun out. Classic Yashmitha. Chaos with a smile.
From then on, it was me versus Kithsiri. Pathum looked like he was towing a refrigerator. I joked later that he probably skipped lunch, and his body was in crisis.
I was focused and determined. It wasn’t even about the win anymore. It was about the feeling, the air, and the rare stillness that came with movement.
Chamara was still filming. We could see him crouched near the curve, recording every turn like a stage mom who had somehow found himself in motorsport. When the race ended, he looked like a proud father at a school play. Pathum pulled in third and claimed he didn’t overtake me because he loved his life too much. Yashmitha waved at Chamara every time she passed him, cruising like she was on a tuk-tuk in Galle Fort. She finished all six minutes. Took her time. Made it hers. I won. But more than that, I walked away feeling full. There is something grounding about doing something fast when your life is going slow. There is something healing about competing with people who know when to laugh and when to let you win. Chamara never got into a kart. But he was there until the final lap. And somehow, that felt like a win too.
SpeedBay at Port City Colombo is a little time capsule of thrill and lightness. If you go, book through the Port City App on Apple or Android. And if you’re lucky, bring your own Chamara, Yashmitha, and Pathum, who cheer you on, make you feel like a winner, and sometimes even hand you the win.
