Cool to see. Nice work. Finish them. FATALITY!
Yeah, looking forward to do so! I did have a small race today with other guy who was in specially prepared kart. Although I was 0.2s slower on average (traffic, errors) and he overtook me, I returned the favor in upcoming laps. First time I properly raced someone on my level and in the karts that were the same.
Cool. Next year hopefully you can do the actual race series. Thereās a lot of great stuff happening in races as compared to lapping. TT is great fun but it does get a little obsessive.
Nice close times on that leaderboard. 3 and 4 are sooo close.
Yes, I will most likely drive the series. Sounds fun, the people driving are fast, fair and yeah, new experience! A lot of people bunched up. Especially 5 and 6, .001s hehe
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Congrats on the top 10! Hope thatās where you finish.
Thanks Robert! I will try my best to do so!
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Finnaly got the video of the first session:
Not sure what was going on during the session, but my first sector was perfect all the time, second was alright and third was poor. No clue really, I got a record S1 14.5s which is like .3s (one lap) down to my normal time. S3 was up .3s (on average) and S2 on par. But at the end, lap 11 was a perfect one, all 3 purple sectors and that is what made that lap. Let me know what you think!
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Lap 11 looks so clean and smooth. And with a really nice switchback pass. well done.
In general really nice. For example, turn 1. I like the timing of your turn in and you are now accelerating through the apex.
2-4 is very nice now. Apexing both 2-3 very nicely and you seem to have the trajectory between them correct. Your exit from 2 is more smooth and powerful and your run to 5 is visibly improved.
I think you were making changes to switch back. Itās hard to see. The mistake in lap 11 when you went wideā¦ whatās your guess on that. You did seem to carry more momentum but the lap was compromised.
8-10 is great. I particularly like 11-end now. Itās not changed but itās consistently the same and looks like you are on it.
Thanks @Bobby. I was also wondering. Was that too aggressive considering that contact? Was his lunge too aggressive as well? I was not expecting his move, maybe that made it look a bit more aggressive but I understood why he did it as he was slowly catching me up.
Dom, you mentioned wide at 2-3 right? I think when I caught up with him, I was probably not paying enough attention to the actual braking points and turn in points, rather just following him. As I went wide, I realized that and I tried to focus more on my line rather his. But it was a bit too late so I just overtook him I guess. Generally I wanted to much for that single corner or two. That is something new for me, as I said, this was like first real 2-4 laps of racing someone actually on my level and in the balanced karts. It was a great fun, canĀ“t imagine the feeling doing this every few weeks in actual racing leagues 
So thereās a thing where you go where your eyes are looking 
But seriously, I try to look through the guy ahead of me. Of course I am aware of where his bumper is relative to me, but I donāt want to start inadvertently doing what he does. So, I try to look past him.
That was an aggressive pass but totally fine in a race, which is basically what this is, since he was a fellow competitor and that was a fast lap. You gave space in 8-9, he had to back off 11 area because you got the position and closed (slammed) the door.
I will try to adapt and switch to race mode when the time comes. Thanks for the advice about looking through the guy. I think I was doing something similar but I was not confident in my driving as I never really raced anyone so it happened that I overdrived the corner and went wide.
Happy to hear that was not too aggressive, as he hit me in 10. I guess he was not expecting me to go through. I tried to give him more space but as karts act like karts when it comes to understeer, nothing to be done other than understeering wider and pushing him wide as well I guess. Do you have any racing tips in general, when it comes to pure racing? Some tricks I could use? I know few of them that could come in handy when we are talking about overtakingā¦but I never really had a chance to try defending or managing the pace and position in those heated moments.
Thereās a lot of stuff specific to racing. We can cover basics of passing etc. As you discovered, itās a bit of a judgement call making a pass, and things change as the pass unfolds.
The basic idea is finding a way to get by the other guy without losing momentum or while gaining momentum. Itās subtle because you canāt just barge. That doesnāt work, usually. Sometimes you have to bide your time.
In this case it was pretty classic. If I recall you got a better launch into back straight. Took inside position in 8. He did not fold so you had to leave room to left. If I recall, he then has the inside position going through 9-10. However, your deeper line allows you to come back up and get to apex first, closing door on his over/under attempt.
I find that passes often get done just like that. Itās usually into a corner that things get interesting. On occasion, youāll get passes done in straights but rarely.
So, basically, going into a corner, you try to use positioning to make it such that the other guy has to go offline.
Alright, that helps as it seemed like I could pass him in many different places but I really thought I will lose a lot of time. I guess that is why I backed out of it at the hairpin, while I could send it from there, theoretically at least.
I have seen a lot of moving while behind other driver (from many videos). Looks like they force the driver in front to position himself too defensive while a guy behind switches to a better line in last moment. Then they try with switchback I guess. This seems like a solid option on the back/front straight. Just making someone in front moving too much to right and compromising following, rather complex, sections where perfect line is the key. Then trying the switchback in the upcoming corners. Would you agree? DonĀ“t get me wrong, this is just my thought, I am trying to have at least one option in my head for some main overtaking spots, just an idea. I would not like to find myself in a situation where I get the chance but have zero idea what to do, that would be a shame. I am completely aware that you canĀ“t predict a race in any way, but a concept for some tricky situations is what I am trying to have in my head.
I also had one very interesting situation in my second session. Although not such hard impact, it was the biggest I had so far in these kind of time attack sessions I drive. Nothing really ThAt spectacular, but I would like to ask you guys what do you think, who is in fault. It was a backmarker at the end, maybe too optimisticā¦
The more I see this clip, the more it looks like I could have backed out of it or simply go to the inside instead of outside (for the 8)ā¦
Ok Iāll look at the track map and try to guess where passing might happen. Iāll also look at the incident.
Incident: neither of you. But basically you, if you had to assign blame.
He had no clue you were coming up on him and he suddenly decided that maybe taking 8 from the right edge wasnāt such a bright idea.
You saw him happily chugging along in the middle of the track, had plenty of speed, and did what anyone would do and take the opening on the outside and go by.
What happened next is what happens in karting when you have recreational folk on track with racers. Difference of expectations.
Thereās not much you can do here. Itās on you to get by the noob cleanly. You would have done so just fine but this was unexpected.
If this was a normal competitor he wouldnāt have been so off line. You would have expected him to navigate the corner normally and planned for that. I think you did what you could here and you both were unlucky.
2 lessons here. For you, assume the rental crowd will do random, unpredictable things that a normal racer wouldnāt do (ie cut across track to make turn). For the noobs, the lesson would be, stay in something that resembles a predictable line so you donāt get run over.
Traditional passing zone is into 1 and into 8. You have more speed and take the inside line into corner.
All the complexes have potential 2-5, 8-10, 11-out. The 9-12 area seems especially likely. You could try into 5 as well. I could see you catching the guy between 2-5 and trying the inside line and forcing him wide. This could be too dangerous to your revs though.
Donāt think so. Your closing speed was pretty significant. He was way offline. Your pass attempt made perfect sense. It would have been silly to go inside since he was already on the inside line. There was no way you could have known that he would rejoin the line at exactly the same moment you pass.
Just gotta get out there and do it. It makes more sense once you start trying at speed.
Thanks for the review, helped me to understand it better. I guess it was very sudden and I wanted to throw myself in the gap that was there but then closed. My inexperience + high expectations about casuals, often could lead to unwanted effect.
Wish they could put a sign with this text around the track lol. This sums everything up. Will think about this when I come up to backmarkers like this one, it will help me 100%.
I wouldnāt dwell on it for too long. These things happen and nobody got hurt. There are things to learn from it though. If I am in a heat where the speed differences between the drivers are this big, I just have to accept that this is probably not the best heat to improve my time. If I come across someone that is clearly as inexperienced and also young as the driver mentioned, I take extra care. My lap time is probably ruined anyway, but more importantly: I want the other driver to have a good time as well. I feel partly responsible for the well-being of others when I am in a random heat. We have all been young and inexperienced and we all remembered how intimidating the first laps were, especially when we made contact with other drivers.
Of course my attitude in races is different, but in practice heats I take a careful approach when it comes to other drivers.
Yah Matthjis makes a good point. Itās better to be considerate and conservative on track when dealing with inexperienced folk. You are the better driver so itās on you to make the experience not scary for them.
That being said, that pass was good.
Thanks for the review @Matthijs_Hofman. All I can say is that I understand everything about being careful with inexperienced drivers. I am completely aware of that. What I think made me misjudge the situation is that it was my last session I did that night, and that day was last day for qualifying. Something like Q2 in F1 and that is me starting a lap at 0:01 on the clock, praying I will get a lap good enough for Q3. Got caught in the heat of the moment. Something like: Yeah, I am faster, she is at the middle of the track, she wonĀ“t moveā¦oh crap she just did, what now!!!..hitā¦
As you said, most importantly, no one got hurt. No damage as well. I need to work on getting calmer in the course of any 10mins I get and to use my brain and not my instinct at some situations. Thank you for review again, I learned something useful that can be used every time I go on track!