I have chronic rib injuries from karting. I bought my kart four years ago and I have only been able to do three races and 15 or so days of practice because of my ribs. I have seemingly tried everything to try to mitigate or prevent it. I have a good fitting seat, a good rib protector(Bengio Bumper), ultra low profile seat bolts.
A little background on my injury, I broke my ribs in an indoor rental kart crash 5 years ago. I keep on this cycle of, I get 3 to 5 days at the track before I reinjure my ribs and have to wait 6 months to get back to the track. Thankfully no repeat break but pretty severe pain in the intercoastal area of my ribs. It’s always in long fast left corners and it’s always towards the end of the day. Specifically turn 2 at Mcminnville CCW for those of you in the PNW. I have had a number of x-rays that never told me anything other than it looks like you broke them in the past. Same story for the MRIs that I have had. Physical therapy didn’t really help. I met with an orthopedic surgeon and they told me there’s not really anything they can do that wouldn’t cause more damage. Tried to get a CT Scan but the insurance company gave me the run around. The only thing that offered some relief was cortisone injections but was only temporary and not a permanent solution. I am a reasonably fit 28 year old, so core strength is not really an issue.
One odd thing about my anatomy is I have one rib that hangs out a little farther than the rest, its slight but its definitely there. That does seem to be the rib that causes me problems. I do think that the rib sticking out farther is not caused by the injury because my father and sister both have the same thing but have never had a rib injury. I haven’t come up with a good method to distribute the force around that rib.
Does anyone have any other solutions that I haven’t already mentioned? We are coming to the point where I either need to get this figured out or I need to sell the go kart and find a new hobby. I love karting, it’s such a great sport that I don’t want to stop, but at this point being in pain just isn’t worth it. Any advice will be greatly appreciated!
My fix was a deepseat, I also switched to a tillett P1 when I switched to the deepseat but I feel like the seat has been the big help. I ran my KZ at Mac this year for Padholder and had no real rib issues after hurting them in Tri Cities weeks prior. Laser therapy also can help with healing and pain management.
I feel for you, there’s nothing worse than rib injuries when your hobby is karting.
There’s one guy here I’ve raced with a few times, drives KZ and DD2. Never ever wears rib protection, I asked him after my injury how he does it - his answer:
There’s a muscle group called Serratus Anterior which protects your ribs, basically. This guy worked hard in the gym to build up this muscle group and much prefers that to a rib vest.
Reading your situation I think I would go down this route - buy a good muscle building whey powder and spend a few months building those muscles. That’s all I can come up with, you seem to have tried everything else.
I second the DeepSeat. I seem to be prone to rib issues as well, I have fractured a rib twice on a normal seat, never on a DeepSeat. Try different rib protectors as well. I have used the Bengio Bumper vest, but I am trying to find a vest that will allow me to run a normal seat so will test a Tillet P1.
Deepseat thirded. It basically takes the ribs out of the picture by distributing the lateral forces up instead of allowing the top edge of the seat to be the pressure point. It also wraps around your torso a bit (kinda a clamshell).
As much as I’m not a fan from a tuning perspective, I have customers in Ribtect seats that have gone from getting ready to sell their karts to running up front in Masters. They really do a good job for the right people.
What is your fitness level? Do you work out on a regular basis? I would focus on overall fitness and core strength, along with specific muscles in the rip area.
If your body is a wet noodle in the seat, your ribs are likely taking a beating.
I agree. Unless you running regional/national racing, the deepseat/ribtect is fabulous. I guess the ultimate endorsement was Mr. Koyen Sr. acquiring the company when TJ’s younger career was at risk from rib injury.
For us masters and club racers, it’s a no-brainer. It certainly didn’t stop me from podiuming against the other old farts!
The Ribtect seat I tried was also significantly stiffer than the DeepSeats we were making.
And I’ll note as I have before, I did run a DeepSeat at USPKS 2014 and lead every session basically in TaG Sr. until I popped a chain leading the final. So yes, there may be some tuning decisions to make to help the kart work better with a non-standard seat, but don’t let it scare you too much; it can still be very quick and work well. And if you need it to keep racing, you need it.
Rib protector, tillet P1 is by far the best and is still light weight, bengio is bulkier but should be slightly better for when you are injured
It seems that you started in a big chassis class and haven’t had the years of light work in the minis to build up your strength, so you need to make up for it in the gym. 1 part is building core strength and the other is build the muscles that surround the ribs to protect them. Core exercises are pretty standard and I would also recommend overhead rows (lying down) to build the muscles that surround the top ribs (might be the same thing that Richard Jacques said above) it acts as a meat shield to your bones and smaller muscles that are in-between them.
Make sure that the seat fits you and adjust it with padding
While driving don’t let your body lean out of the seat, there are vary few situations where doing that is faster and keeping yourself centered and letting the chassis work is usually best
Since you are already injured do physiotherapy. When I got injured I had 1.5 months time to the championship final where I was fighting for a world champs ticket, I was going to PT 3 times a week and also used kinesiotape to help when I got back driving the week prior to the race, I was still driving in a lot of pain but pushed through it. I was only back to a comfortable level about 3 months after. It takes time.
Try a zoombang shirt, I got one but never had to use it after employing all the above although I’ve heard good things from others.
PS I’m very against changing seats since they play a massive role in handling
One thing to think about is that a good-fitting seat is great, but maybe not for your situation where you have one rib that’s different. Generally speaking you want to pad around the area of trouble. For instance, my hip bones were prone to really bad bruising - putting pads where my hip bones go just adds pressure to that area. What you need to do is pad around that area so that that area isn’t getting hit at all during runs.
Another thought is to do a custom molded seat that accomplishes the above and fits you perfectly.
Hey Auddie, I was wondering why we have not seen you in a while! Rib injuries suck and I’ve been in a similar situation. Turn 2 is killer for sure on the G forces! My “iffy” side is my left ribcage so CW layouts are typically more of an issue for me personally.
All last season and the beginning of this season, I kept popping a rib on my left side nearly every race. Similar situation to you: I cracked it at Sykart a few years ago and ever since, it doesnt take much to aggravate. What I realized was that the curvature of my seat was pushing my Bengio protector down into the front costal cartilage area of of my lower rib cage and THAT was what was causing problems. Basically I realized that the leading edge of the Bengio side “plate” (under the velcro in the front) was curved inward and very rigid. Additionally, the way it fit me, the ledging edge intersected the sensitive cartilage in front down low on my rib cage. The pressure on the seat through corners basically dug that leading edge inward into my ribs and caused the injuries.
After swapping to an NEK seat with less of a side curve inward and slightly larger, the problem became slightly better but still happened. Finally at one race earlier this year when I wasnt going to be able to finish the day due to rib pain, I was willing to try anything. I bought a Greyhound rib protector from Randy Word at the track as a “what do I have to lose?” option.
The Greyhound is basically a 1:1 replica of the Tillet P1 protector. What sets it apart from the Bengio is that the side “plates” can be adjusted forwards and back with a Velcro patch located at the rear of the protector. This allowed me to spread the two sides apart so that the leading edges of the side plates sit closer together in the front of my rib cage when it is strapped down. As such, the leading edge of the protector no longer intersects my problem rib area. Additionally, the curve of the side plates is far less severe compared to the Bengio. Ever since swapping to it, I’ve not had any rib problems!
Everyone is different, so your mileage may differ. I talked to Don about a RibTec or DeepSeat and he said they were too stiff to be “good” in LO206. However, if it is between racing and not racing, I’ll take racing with a less optimal seat all day long. You might be able to compensate by not using additional seat struts or by trimming the rolled edge of the seat.
Oh, also make sure you are using low profile seat hardware! I like the low profile Tillet hardware personally! I also put some 1/4" high density foam on the upper “wings” of the NEK.
My ribs have been hurt all year. I’m stubborn and motivated so lots of CBD icy hot combined with pain killers and then good tequila at the end of the day.
Tried different seats this year and hated the way the kart drove so I guess I’ll just continue to deal with it.
I tore the muscle between the middle ribs on my right side in the first practice of a double header Skusa shifter race weekend years back. I was able to make it through the weekend using something a martial arts instructor taught me as a way to take a punch to the gut.
It is a way to firm up your torso by sealing your throat and pushing with your diaphragm. If you time it right, it neutralizes the punch by kinda hitting back with your body as the punch lands.
When I figured out how to time it in the kart, the injury didn’t hurt nearly as much.
Now as an “old guy”, when I drive I instinctively use that technique and it helps support my ribcage big-time.
Tl;dr: you can learn to use your diaphragm and torso core muscles as pre tensioned springs to help support your ribs in high load situations.
That is part of it. The diaphragm/throat thing you can do if you say “huck” really fast, but try to leave out the “u”, then hold your throat closed on the “k” and try to push air out.
Circling back to this, I bought a new chassis over the weekend and got fitted for a seat for the first time, and tried the Tillet rib protector. For context, I had been running either a deepseat or the used seat that came with my first kart. I also tried adding the Tillet Ribcage protection system to the normal seat at some point, which helped, but still left me with bad bruises that kept me out of the seat for weeks.
After a full practice and half a race (the heat and final were called off due to lightning) this combination of the correct seat and protector seems to be an improvement - I am sore today, but my ribs are not injured so this combination seemed to work.
My seat is also an ultra soft, I wonder if that helps?
After wondering whether I just had weak ribs or am prone to injury, I learned that seat fitment is crucial, and the rib protectors just fit differently, so try as many as oyu can until you land on the right combo that works for you.
I tried a race in a 206 for the first time in awhile this weekend and after a couple sessions in a standard seat I had to toss a deepseat in as they were starting to just bug me enough to worry about over a couple days of driving. Glad you were able to get through a day without issue.
I do excessive core work every day I hit the gym, mainly 45# weighted crunches, & have driven KZ without a vest several times with no pain. That said, 1 good sideways yank could cause an injury, so I wear a vest as a preventive measure.
My stubbornness and attempting to drive through rib pain came to a head this weekend when I finally had to cut short track time because I just couldn’t take the pain anymore. Hadn’t been in the kart for a few weeks and thought I was rested and “healed” but popped something wrong in the first session of the morning and had to cut my day short due to the level of pain.
Been doing Ice / heat and resting but not sure how that’s going to pan out for race day this weekend.
I ordered the Tillet Rib vest to try in place of my Bengio to see if changing things up on the vest front helps at all. Hopefully something makes this a little better for this weekend.
