Essentials for rain day?

@tankyx hey can you describe your rain driving? It’s the best I have seen and it’s just like TJ describes. You seem like you should fall off track you drive so hard but it works.

Armful of lock is one way. It’s counterintuitive (Desk\Math racers will argue), but sometimes it’s what the kart needs.

Which is maybe the biggest point: give the kart what it needs. If that’s a seemingly ridiculous amount of lock… then give it that.

The kart won’t spin if you’re driving in hard enough, because the fronts will understeer first. The kart will resist rotation. That’s why you drive in hard and crank a bunch of wheel in, to get it to rotate. You will need to be using your body a lot too. Lean in whatever direction you want the grip to go.

The physical scrubbing of the front tires being put into understeer is what I mean by using the fronts to slow down.

I’ll post my favorite pic of me for the billionth time on here:

As James said, you don’t always need to be this aggressive, you need to have a very good feel for the grip limit of the tires at all times. Sometimes you need to coax the kart into the corner softly, sometimes you need to physically force it to work. But my experience is the fast guys are really charging the entry to the corner in the rain. Mediocre and slow guys are too cautious and always drive too far under the tire limit to make sure they don’t spin or go out of control.

2 Likes

turn hard to induce understeer, got it. What kind of turns do you think this applies to best? is it held throughout a turn or just at entry? Ive found myself in the contention for the championship, or at least top 3, so im desperately trying to learn.
ill post my practice day vids on the same day so maybe I can get advice before race day.
Love the picture, and thanks for the help

Tighter stuff usually. Once it starts to rotate of course you’re going to unwind the wheel. Since most corners it’s an extreme late apex, you go in, steer hard, once it rotates you unwind and straighten the wheel and come back across the normal racing line with the wheel mostly straight, so you can accelerate without wheelspin.

Wheelspin wont be a factor, as we run a 3.1 gear ratio on 13hp motors at this track. at least I hope it wont be…

Any time I need information on rain driving, I just look across the pond where they have the most experience with it.

2 Likes

I’m assuming In rain you will almost always want the grip to go to the outside, as you’re already struggling for grip? In which I should lean to the outside

Well, @tjkoyen said everything :sweat_smile:

I learned racing in the wet by driving ICA engine (36hp 100cc direct drive) on slicks and if I spun I had to push start alone. And in my region, we have the same weather as the UK. So I learned very quickly :grin:

I have two main techniques for the wet, that I use depending on the turns.

  • Entry with tons on understeer, then clip the inside kerb to create rotation and tighten the turn radius. Usually slow and tight turns.
  • Entry creating a slight oversteer with the brakes, and ride with 3 tyres on the dry racing line and the rear outside tyre outside the racing line to keep traction. And I keep the rotation with the throttle. Usually on fast sweeping turns.

Also if the turn allows it, you might aim for a later entry and a later apex than on the dry, instead of right the whole turn on the outside

2 Likes

Fantastic battle in the middle video between Corking and Wilkins (spelling? sorry). Really interesting tactically. Outside vs inside lines, frequent over and unders.

I digress a little but had to chuckle as 100cc power claims continue to escalate. This puts FSA at 40HP now :joy:

This is what the bench was showing on a 2007 Maxter, IIRC. We were as fast as the KF2 on the same chassis/tyre

1 Like

Any idea why all of the karts are running metal rear crash bar instead of plastic unit in first video?

Watched a bunch of videos, looks like you want a really quick hard input to induce under steer, unwind once the kart starts to rotate and later apex to straighten out exit. Super excited for this race as it’ll be a big one. 180+ entries. What sucks is I’ve only done the full track once, and there aren’t any videos of the full track that I can find. Only one I found was shifter karts and that won’t help too much.
On a side note, how does one wash a suit? I have no special products for race wear. Just assume what a normal household has

I toss mine in cold cycle and then let air dry. I go light on the soap. People seem to love Molecule, however.

1 Like

How long does it take to air dry?

1 Like

Do you think tide free and gentle would work?

I use whatever we normally buy. Tide etc. I think it’s important to understand that most people put waaay too much soap in the washer. This stuff is super concentrated and a very small amount is sufficient. Too much soap (what most do) actually makes it less clean.

I have a very thick Torq suit made for UK conditions it seems (Terry interior).

I haven’t timed it but overnight always works fine. Another option is to put it in tumble low to no heat.

It’s gonna be raining and close to 100f! Oh boy can’t wait!