Joined a rookie go kart league - kart driving advice?

[twobone]

OK, so I know how to drive, but how to drive fast is different.

I think they are 6.5hp karts

Any secrets of speed?

[URY914]

Never lift.

[icemann427]

Go on a diet. Be smooth...Way smooth. Late apex's. Late braking. Experiment with tire pressures. Use new tires when you race.

[vash]

my buddy worked at one of those things. him and his brother both dwarf me in weight and size. one time at the track, they both took turns passing me. it was like i was dragging a weight. i followed their lines as they both pulled away from me..i then noticed what they were doing..they were leaning their weight to the outside. very counter intuitive. they put the weight on the outside tires of every corner.

when i pulled over, i asked them. they laughed at me and wondered how long until i caught on. those two stoners could drive!

[Lothar]

You will make huge advances at first. Learning the line and braking points will get you much of the reduction in lap times. The last little bit will come from fine throttle control. You will find ways to feather, rather than dump, the throttle in corners. This will provide better track-out.

Are you driving your own kart, or competing in a league with rental karts. If you are driving at a karting center with rental karts, you will have to learn to adjust quickly to different karts if you get random kart assignment.

The last thing is to remember that, even at indoor tracks, track conditions change and the lap times that those conditions will yield change one day to the next. Temperature and humidity have a big influence over grip level. If you have no control over tires, remember that their performance will also change one event to the next.

[Zeke]

I guess vash's method might work for some karts, not the ones I raced for nearly 40 years.
The best drivers are anything but long lanky dudes like me (not so "lanky" anymore).
They sat low and sat like a rock. No body english unless there might be something you could do in a particular corner that you learned after running that corner a 1000 times in 100 different conditions.

I remember one time at Adams kart track when I was competing in an Over 40 class at about age 41. It was over the Thanksgiving weekend and it was some kind of unofficial state championship. One corner called the Snackstand was never a no-lift corner for me, but some could. The real fast guys could, but my kart wouldn't hold. That weekend I bought new rear tires; a sticky compound. It was cool weather. I found I could drive the Snackstand flat out for the first time. I won the championship that day.

I went back to the track in late Jan or early Feb the following year with the kart just as I had put it away. Similar weather that day except for the moisture in the winter air. I finished dead last that day. Couldn't find the handle and had to lift at the Snackstand well before the entry.

I never went back. I had started road racing again and had a laydown kart. I focused on that for a few years before getting out the old sprint kart and converting it to a sit up road race kart. I finished out my karting days at age 47 after a couple years in sit up (that's what they called them at the enduro races).

My top speeds were 101 MPH at Willow in the laydown and 85 in the sit up. Same Yamaha KT 100. Average around Willow was closer at nearly 80. Sprint top speed at Adams for a Yamaha well sorted was about 65 at the time. The karts of today are quite a bit faster except for the controlled spec class. And that's a great class to start in.

Drive until you're black and blue to learn. And you will be black and blue somewhere on your poor ol' sore body at the end of the day. By the later years, I wore pads on everything but my nuts and I probably should have been using a cup.

[romad]

I'm assuming this is a rental league. Generally, karts understeer, You are going to be running hockey pucks so more so. Smooth is a relative term, you don't want to be sawing the wheel down the straight and around corners, but you may have to be aggressive on your turn ins. Trying to steer smoothly thru turns usally results in oversteer on exit. Try different lines and run the ones you can run deep requiring an aggressive turn in to set up a nice four wheel drift. There are probably 4 cycle engines so you don't want to lift off completely, try tail braking combos. You have to keep that engine rev's as high and long as possible thru the turns. As ZEKE said Don't play the body shifting game. it could hurt you as bad as it might help.

Also as all already said , the only tuning you will have available is a diet. Every pound counts. By the end of the year you will have forearms like Popeye's.

[Tervuren]

Originally Posted by Zeke

I guess vash's method might work for some karts, not the ones I raced for nearly 40 years.
The best drivers are anything but long lanky dudes like me (not so "lanky" anymore).
They sat low and sat like a rock. No body english unless there might be something you could do in a particular corner that you learned after running that corner a 1000 times in 100 different conditions.

Rental karts carry a lot of extra bumper and chassis weight, they also tend to not have ideal suspension setups. When you drive your own outdoor kart, you get to setup so that the inside rear wheel comes off the ground naturally, in the rental karts, it may take putting the weight outwards. I do 24hr, and 24hr races, so I relax in the seat, which puts the weight outwards. Leaning in will destroy your precision, as you are working muscles too hard.

A lot will vary from track to track, some places, never ever let it slide out, others, a lot of sideways works i na few corners.

Focus on the slowest corners on the trak, and getting a good exit from them. Also focus on cutting left/right transition times with your steering wheel.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by romad

Trying to steer smoothly thru turns usually results in oversteer on exit. Try different lines and run the ones you can run deep requiring an aggressive turn in to set up a nice four wheel drift. There are probably 4 cycle engines so you don't want to lift off completely, try tail braking combos.

+!
That's been my experience. On 9 hp karts I never let completely off the gas. I do use body english to try to encourage the back to come out in corners where initial understeer is a problem. Not sure it does any good. It always seemed to be a struggle between time wasting initial understeer and time wasting oversteer on exit. When you have both, you know you're doing it wrong.

[David]

With low HP like that, smooth is the key. Don't scrub speed and get as much track time as you can.

[porsche4life]

No advice, but it sounds cool. Wish I lived near a track to get involved with something like this. I'm not bad at autocross, but invariably get my ass handed to me when I go cart with the BMW club. Mostly because all of those guys cart way more than me....

[emcon5]

[9dreizig]

Originally Posted by David

With low HP like that, smooth is the key. Don't scrub speed and get as much track time as you can.

David, what's your favorite beer to drink while winning cart races??

[porsche4life]

Those houston guys use everything as an excuse to drink don't they?


My liver may not be up to the trip....

[9dreizig]

Sid, you don't have a chance,, it's like boot camp for future AA members..
With lot's of practice you may be able to snatch the pebbles from Davids hand.. (of course you'll have no liver by then;-)

[Jim Bremner]

Right foot stays planted left foot STABS the brakes to upset the car.

Do hire a coach to watch what you do. $200 got me 2 seconds quicker on a 31.6 second track that I had raced on for two years.

[David]

Originally Posted by 9dreizig

David, what's your favorite beer to drink while winning cart races??

I haven't raced for a few years now but I drink Miller Lite and ran in the 125 light class when I raced. One of my racing buddies was heavy enough to run 125 heavy but ran with the faster/younger guys in the light class even though he was handicapped by about 20 lbs. I suggested he quit drinking Heineken and switch to light beer. He said he'd rather keep the extra 20 lbs

[fred cook]

Keep the wheels/tires on the bottom. Rolling a gokart is not a fun thing to do!

[Willem Fick]

Foot on the floor 'till you see god, touch the brakes and back onto the throttle through the turn!

[Joe Ricard]

Smooth, relax, look ahead, set up for the next corner by entering the preceeding corner correctly. Use as little wheel input as possible. Don't scrub front tires and don't slide rear tires.

Slight lean outboard in turn to get the inside rear wheel to lose traction (Karts don't have diffs). not completely off the ground just skipping. When you feel like you are just carving through the turns you will just know it's right and it will be fast.

We have arrive and drive karts here I use them as great driver practice. I also chase my son in his Mini max using a World Formula powered kart. When he gets to beating me I bring out my ICC shifter and count the number of times I lap him.