I’m about to have my first rain race coming up, and I have no idea what to do. What do I need to wear, how should I adapt my driving style/lines, and how should I set up the kart? Any other tips and tricks on how to be not miserable would be awesome too
If you can afford to do so, buy one of those rain suits. If the rain is heavy ALL of the water on track will be in your lap. Sorta depends on how hard it’s pouring.
Max width up front, and go as narrow as possible in the rear. For gearing for up 2-3 teeth. You also may want to sit on some extra padding or something to raise your center of gravity. There’s no grip which makes it difficult for the kart to jack appropriately, so all these changes are to help with forcing the inside rear tire to lift.
For driving, you’ll find that the rubbered-in parts of the track are now extra slick, so most of the grip will actually be off of the normal racing line. You’ll also want to be extra aggressive on turn in, and really throw your own body weight to the outside. Again, this is all to help force that inside rear tire to lift with no grip. Otherwise you’ll find that the kart just wants to go in a straight line.
Rainex on the visor is a huge help both with keeping it clear of water and fogging. Some people have dedicated rain suits that go over your normal suit, others have light rain coats from Walmart. I’ve seen people also use rubber gloves over their normal gloves. I’ve also seen plenty of people go out in the same gear they use in the dry.
I’d also make sure you drill a hole in the bottom of your seat to help the water drain, otherwise it’ll collect and you’ll find yourself sitting in a puddle. And depending on your engine package you may want to buy a cover for your air box to keep water out of the engine.
Hope that helps! I’ve always found rain racing to be a ton of fun, even though I’m terrible at it.
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Jake nailed it.
Don’t be afraid to charge the corner, crank the wheel, and use the front tires to slow down a bit. Aim for the outside of the corner on entry, get the kart to jack with an aggressive input, then try and straighten out as you get back to power and come back across the rubber to eliminate wheel spin.
For the kart, you’re looking for maximum weight jack, so anything that does that is what you want. Max caster, max front width, narrow rear, raise the seat (or sit on something), raise rear ride height etc.
Wear a rain suit if possible, or get a poncho from Walmart to put over your race suit. Duct tape the cuffs so you don’t get water in and keep it from flapping all over the place on track.
Take your gear off between sessions and hang it up so it dries a little bit and airs out. Pretty easy to get everything smelling real stanky when it’s wet and sweaty.
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Do you have any videos with this kind of driving technique? I’ll buy a poncho but I don’t have a rain suit and no website that sells them will ship on time. So I’m aiming for a wide entry and late/wide apex?
Also, I’m assuming my GoPro will be fine in it’s normal skeleton case?
Some wisdom from Alan’s brother.
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Yes. You can take them in the pool. All the models I have owned (session 4 through hero 7 black) are waterproof.
Rain is fun!
Try different lines and approaches, look for the grip on the track. Don’t be afraid to throw the kart around it’s often faster to do that vs being super smooth. Do what you need to in order to rotate the kart and get it pointed nice on the exit
You’ll find your entry speed can be a little higher than you might expect.
Wet tire pressures, consider the inflation pressure affects how “open” the tread is to disperse water. Higher average speed and or higher water level = higher pressures…
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Cancelled due to thunder :(
Rescheduled to another rainy day! Yay… are rain boots necessary?
I would get some kind of rain boots or shoe covers or even just a back-up pair of shoes to change into. Wearing wet racing boots all day gets old pretty quick.
I have limited experience in rain as well. When I ran yamaha we had caps for the air intake made by RLV, so that spray from other karts and fronts doesn’t as easily get into the air box. However running KA100 now I’m not seeing much available to do this. I see someone makes one that is printed and not exactly cheap either. Any suggestions?
Big empty Gatorade bottle, cut it in half vertically, duct tape it on.
Otherwise if you want to do it the cleaner more professional way and you have one of the old Yamaha/HPV airbox covers, you can trim the holes out where it fits onto the airbox so it sits on the KA airbox. That’s what we do.