I need help with
Not overheating the tires and keeping pace in the later laps.
So I have a race coming up in a couple of weeks and I wanted to get a couple suggestions. I am based in Texas so it gets extremely hot and humid during the summer months. [During the race it is going to be in the mid 90’s] This will be my hottest race of the season and up to this point I have really struggled with keeping pace when it has been hot outside.
Are there any different driving techniques that could help throughout the race or would it be more effective to change something with the setup of the kart?
Here are what the tires look like right now. Mind you this is about a month since the last race but they never look too different to this even seconds after I get off track. After I get off the track they just always tend to be super hot to the touch and quite pliable and squishy even when they are full of air.
They are MG yellow tires which I know are not usually used for LO206 but we are on a very low grip concrete track.
What PSI are you running? I would expect a bit higher because of the concrete but Yellows run around the 8-10 PSI range from what I understand. It may be different in a 206 however. Whether the kart is tightening up too quickly or you as a driver are just tiring out is something you would have to figure out, but I know I can struggle in 85+ degree weather if I’m running longer stints
You’re in a weird situation, because on the fresh track surface, you’d typically want higher pressures, but with the heat you would want to keep pressures lower to prevent overheating.
As far as driving, one thing you can do is back up your braking points a bit to limit trailbraking and focus more on straight-line braking. Often drivers who trailbrake a lot will wear the fronts prematurely (myself included) and pick up understeer as the day goes on, because you’re asking the fronts to scrub some of the speed off on entry.
It might be worth experimenting with higher tire pressures as well, just to see what happens.
