After race, compare your footage to some other faster guy’s youtube footage to try to see where you were different.
Elaborating on why I said to film races.
If there’s anyone you know out there ask if you can follow them. I was stuck in pace during quali once, but once I was able to follow people in the pre I gained over a second. It’s crazy how much you can pick up by just following someone. I’m talking huge differences, at least for us beginners. Just drive your line, hit your points, stay smooth, and relax. You’ll have a hell of a time out there. Good luck
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I still have a few things I need to button up on my chassis. Its currently down as I wait for replacement brake bolts. But in the meantime, I need to figure out why I have a slight bind going on with the rear end. I was looking at it yesterday and I noticed the inner brake pad is way more warn than the outter side. Like 70/30% left on either side.
Not super knowledgable on floating brakes. I tried to snug up some bolts on the brake carrier and I guess I had a bit of a gorilla grip on them and they sheared off. (Insert Homer Simpson voice here)
Do"h
So I’m going to loosen everything up back there and try to determine if the bind is coming from the brakes or if something else is going on.
As for filming the race. I don’t own a GoPro but I’d like to get one as I see value in having one.
My two best suggestions would be to bleed the brake system and make sure the rotor is centered between the pads when they are at rest.
An air bubble in the system will now allow the pads to engage with equal pressure and one pad will wear faster than the other. (ask me how I know)
Using your hand, depress the brake pedal and watch the pads as they contact the rotor. If one side looks to touch before the other, you may need to adjust the rotor side to side until they are equal. If the pads do not back off the same amount as well could be a sign of something wrong with the caliper. Either Air in the system or gunk in the seals. There are rebuild kits available to replace the seals in the calipers.
As for hardware. I often go to my local hardware store. Lowes and Ace carry a good selection of stainless nuts and bolts for Metric and SAE.
So I disassembled the entire rear end and checked alignment on everything. Changed the brake pads, and things are alot smoother now- now that everything is lubed up and realigned. I also got my Alfano totally hooked up with the addition of the head temp sensor. Once my new brake bolts and rims come in, I’ll mount the new tires and hoepfully be good to hook for next week at CKNA!
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I like getting bolts from Suburban Bolt in Roseville MI, because they will drill either the head or the shank for me for safety wire. They will even drill Allen-head bolts for wire, which is a nasty job.
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Okay I could use some of your experience with todays test. Went out to Jacksonville to practice for Cup Karts South in a few weeks. The Maxxis race was last week, and the front of the pack was in the high 41’s to low 42’s (seconds).
Running a #219 Chain on my intial set up (19-65) my best lap was 44’s at 58 MPH down the straight and hitting my rev limiter 3/4 down the straight. Very sluggish in the turns.
Switched gearing to (19-67) and my best time was 45’s at 52 MPH down the straight and hitting my rev limited 1/2 down the straight. More responsive out of turns.
On that track, I only hit my rev limiter on the long straight away, its a pretty shorts track at .6 miles.
I thought going up a tooth or two added RPM. Why is this happening in reserve? Is it because I’m on a #219 vs #52 chain?
Was going to test more, but I ran out of gears as I only had the two with me today. Should I run 19-66?
I’m confused. You say you added two teeth and hit the rev-limiter sooner, correct? That’s exactly what is supposed to happen.
More rear gear means more acceleration and higher RPM. You are accelerating off the corner faster and getting to the limiter sooner.
It sounds like you need less gear if you’re banging the limiter that much. You probably want to be on the limiter a bit with the 206. But if you’re finding it’s slow off the corner with that gearing, it’s likely it’s driving that’s causing it to feel slow off the corner. Just not carrying enough apex speed through the corner.
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That sounds right, adding teeth to the axle sprocket will increase the torque allowing you to get out of corners quicker at the expense of overall speed.
So I got the concept backwards. . .
Massive props for attending that race though!
Not a race, just a test session at the track I plan on racing at in a few weeks. Met another guy at my local track who is from Jacksonville. He and I both have the same engine, same chassis, and we will be running in the same class (Senior/ Heavy). So I wanted to run around with him for some drivers coaching and see what input he could provide me as a more experienced racer. He was gracious enough to come out and play and help me prepare.
He was about 2-3 seconds faster than I am. But when I was there I was also following the lines of some other locals, cadet class locals, but hey my ego ain’t that big, I can learn something from anyone, even if its from an 11 year old. 
Can’t knock the Kids. Some of them are very quick! Biggest difference will be their braking points. With less mass to slow down, they can usually brake a few feet later.
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First.58 mph seems a very respectable speed for a low powered engine limited to 6100 rpm.Calculated from a 19-65 ratio and 11 inch dia wheel I make 58.3 so spot on.
2 teeth on the back sprocket should bring this down to 56.5 not 52 on the limiter so not sure what was going on there but certainly the change in gearing didn’t help your times
Makes no difference which chain you are running 219 or 35 it is the ratio :teeth on back sprocket/ teeth on front sprocket that matters.
Do you know what gearing, tyres and weight your faster mate was running? unless significantly different to yours I would think it is just a matter of appreciating how much faster you can get round the corners than you think at the moment.
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Went back to do some testing, and it was a rough day. Understatement of the YEAR!
Put the 66 tooth out back to see what it would do. Turned one slow lap to get the tires warm and BOOM, my chain starts skating loosely over the teeth and my new gear is toast. Turns out I forgot to realign my chain after moving the engine over ever so slightly several days prior. Bone head move on my part and of course I had no spare 66.
So I put on another 67 just so I wouldn’t lose the day. I’d be on the wrong gear, but I’d still get to turn some laps and get to know the track better. Turned three laps, and I spun out 4 times. WTF over! Every turn I was going into at the same speed last week and sticking to the track like glue, I was now doing the same thing and spinning out. 
Took a short brake to get my thoughts together and beter understand what was going on. Had my buddy (A much more experienced/ faster racer) take my kart out to see if something was wrong and/or needed adjustment. He flew down the track smooth as silk, besting my lap times by 4-5 seconds. 
On the last lap I heard a grinding noise and he immediately ducked off the track. Turned out one of the bolts holding my brake caliper in place checked out; and of course, like a newb, I had no spare.
I keep having this thought in my head. “Life is hard, it’s even harder if your stupid.”
I know I’m new to the sport and learning, but Jesus H the learning curse seems steeper on certain track days than others.
6 days until the big race, no pressure right!? . . . 
A lot of bad luck there. Good you got rid of it all in one go, I like that thinking!
Insofar as track is concerned, it’s strangely variable and looks can be deceiving. I have had a session or two like you describe, but in 7 years I can only think of three lousy days, total. 
Sorry to hear about your bum day. Still a day at the track is better than a day at work, good or bad. Have you had the tech guys do a safety inspection on your kart yet? Most groups require safety wire, cotter pins or double locking nuts on critical components. Especially brake calipers and steering components. Ask me how I know about the latter.
But look how much you learned! I learned a lot that way too last year. Went thru 2 chains one day before finding out my motor mount bolts were loose! Come off the track and my motor is tilted side ways. Luckily no damage and had some guys around to help me get it ready for the next day! But I learned and now I double check set screws in axle and motor mount bolts after every session. Bummer of a day that was…but the beer was really really good that night!
Keep your chin up! I have been doing this for 3 years with 3 Karts (1 206 Cadet and 2 206 Seniors) and just last week we forgot to check the set screws on the axel of my sons cadet. 4 laps into the practice and the kart is grinding into the pit with the brake disc all torn up and the rear gear/chain guard toast. The chain never popped off so that was a plus, HAHA. I say all of that to actually say you will never stop learning as long as you are trying to get better!!!
Cheers and good luck this weekend!
Okay my first race is now over, so here is the sit-rep:
Practice went amazing, I was besting all my previous laps by 3 seconds or more then last weeks practice, so my new gearing set-up seemed to be on point. I was only about 1 second off the pace of the leaders, so I was cautiously optimistic, and having a ton of fun.
Went into the first heat race and I was lined up in the back. Which was okay by me as this was my first race and the first time driving around other racers in close proximity. So starting from the back was going to take alot of nerves and pressure off me, which was fine with me. I also thought if there were any wrecks, it was going to happen early, so being in the back I might avoid them if I’m not in the immediate mix jockying for position.
I made it past the first two turns and watched as everyone battled for position. I ended up (to my suprise) passing 2 karts as we approached turn 3. As I enter the turn, I left off the accelerator to get the kart to rotate. Just as the kart rotates and I get back on the throttle BANG! Some dude dive bombs into the turn just straight t-bones me. Dude hit me so hard we both fly off the track and his karts goes over my motor and he lands directly on top of me. As I pinned underneath my kart I hear the engine revving and hitting the rev limiter and my clutch is smoking as it was trying to engage. As I’m pinned I cannot immediately reach the engine cut off button. So with murder in my eyes I grab the dudes kart (with him still in it) and I flip him off me.
Damage Assessment:
- Burn out clutch
- Bent intake manifold
- Broken carb cap
- Bent sprocket guard
- Damaged air cleaner
- Underside of the Chassis got scraped up as he sent me over the curb
The other racer, (I’ll call the “Dive Bomber”) immediate starts profusely apologising. His kart had zero damage! The whole time I was thinking, “Hell, it didn’t dawn on me I had to worry about people wrecking into ME. I thought it would be the other way around and I’d be the problem.”
I signed up to race in two classes, so the turn around time between races was pretty tight. We tried to wrench on my kart, but couldn’t get it done in time so I missed heat 1 on the next race. Lession I learned, if all goes right racing in two classes sounds great. Especially for someone like me who is just trying to gain experience quickly. However, if something goes wrong, and you have to feverously wrench, the stress isn’t worth it. Might be different if I had a team, but it was just me and (luckily) the other experienced racer I was practicing with. Which thank gawd he was there, or I’d be hosed when it came to assessing damage and applying appropriate fixes in a pinch. Plus the Senior Heavy class was stupid fast. So I think I’ll fair better with old folks in the Masters class, but they are extremely fast as well. But not like the Senior Heavy class who just freaking flies down the track like a bunch of crackheads on too much Redbull.
All the other heat races went down hill from there. I was dead last in every race and my kart was not running well. Even without being hurt, I wouldn’t have been very competitive anyhow as these guys, skill wise, were WAY out of my league. They were just so freaking fast, and at times they were pulling away from me like I was standing still.
I did have one racer who I confessed to that I was racing for the first time. He looked at me and said, “Dude you have a ton of balls mixing it up at this level of competition for your first race. That’s awesome.” So that felt kinda good as I didn’t feel like a complete retard.
Next race in the series is in a month at my local track. I’m going to try to fix everything I can this week and try to make the local next weekend to get some practice in. I’m hoping if I can get the kart dialed in and healthy again, I might, I repeat MIGHT, fair better as its my local track . . . (Maybe 2nd from last )