Unfortunately, no sector times, only one lap timing.
Yes, I plan on renting a GoPro as soon as I can. Theoretically, I could possibly improve on every part of the track, but I feel that 180° starts the time loss and ending is just not constant enough with variations of entry speeds at fast right, as 180° can take/gain fair amount of speed.
Yes, but sometimes I feel that I “should already know this” so all of the support on such low level racing (compared to other topics like technical stuff, I still have no clue about those) is just mind blowing to me as well! So much to learn from more experienced people
Yes, extremely important as tyre screaming only reduces your speed at the parts you should not be loosing it, taking your momentum. Basically, only brake should be used for slowing down, but small drift could do the job in some sharp, fast corners. At least that is how I feel in these karts.
I guess I see that but maybe it’s me. Why would you know this stuff?
It’s pretty much learn by doing. You acquire the skills and knowledge.
I have “some” talent at this so it makes some intuitive sense to me but for the most part it’s hard won. Speed is largely ground out for me.
In my case I have to think, read, watch absorb and practice. A ton. Pretty sure racing is one of those sports where you can work your way to the front.
Thinking about this further: I learned what I know by asking, mainly. I also absorbed everything. Finally, when I had a breakthrough, I got help. I found a guy that thinks like me to coach me.
I have been watching motorsport since I was little. Something that should be simple. Just be fast, it seemed. When I started I thought I will eventually get it, figure it out by myself.
In genereral, I have good reactions, good way of thinking.
So when I hear something like, maybe not good example, when you guys here mentioned simply to look at google maps for a layer of rubber or “COG shifting takes energy”. I am like, “yes, I know. But why did I never do that, I know tyres lay rubber everywhere. Like every single time after F1 race, camera shows amount of rubber by the racing line and I can’t remember to think about it!” Same for COG, I learned that in school, I know that things can’t do themselves, but still I don’t remember to use the knowledge. So it is kinda funny that I heard half of the terms and ideas but never used them. They seem so simple yet complicated. So yeah, I guess expecting too much from myself at early stages.
Seems like it will take quite some time but I am ready to learn and be patient.
Going to the track today, to test out a few things, will let you know if I managed to figure something out
Intuiting something and developing the language and skill to understand it are two different things. I wonder what Vettel or Hamilton would tell you. Actually someone like the Williams fellow who got hurt (Kubica?) would be even more interesting.
Phew, just came home. The laptimes were promising as after 3 weeks of no driving, I managed to put it down to 50,760. The track felt different, colder, brakes were locking and I made some mistakes. Picked the pace up around lap 7/8, I think you mention that in the “breakthrough or delusion” post, makes me happy that something matches at least!
About the hairpin, my dad said I was imitating scandinavian flick at it, but just few times when I was late on brakes and panicked a bit I guess, trying to transfer weight. Feels like I needed to compensate on the exit few times, too much mid-corner speed, which once resulted in hitting those tyres at the exit
I was happy with the turn ins, but what I think hindered my times was that (it is just how I drive after longer break) I was reacting too much, not driving by recognition. I felt that. I think I need a kart that has “worse” brakes as I feel I was loosing momentum or locking up too much.
I also felt I was too agressive on the wheel, I drove with the gloves for the first time and it seems the amount of grip they offer is pretty good, so I need to be more gentle it looks like.
This is one mistake I kept on making, not really sure how to correct it. Too agressive on the wheel which initiated instability and sliding. I would go wide over the curb in case of more gentle inputs.
If you could give an advice, that would be fantastic, seems the problem is repeating.
I understand that English is 2nd language. Does this mean that when you attempted to not “screech” in this turn, you’d be wide of apex?
If you hit the tire barrier on exit I am guessing you are now tryin to find the entry speed a bit higher than before?
But, if you go in too fast, you are unstable and I am guessing it’s your fronts making the noise? Are you understeering due to not being able to hold the turn in? Thus blammo into tires?
Dumb question but do you apply any brakes before turn in on the upper turn that you say is slightly slippery?
I find myself playing with the brake in a very light touch kind of way on those higher speed turns. It looks like that section flows frustratingly, but flows. I can imagine a fast swooping line up and around but I might need to brush the brake ever so slightly just prior to going over the top there. It may settle the nose enough to give enough grip to turn in and gas it out.
It seems to me that in the pursuit of understanding how to hustle around a particular track, you gotta stretch the limits to figure out what to do. But, the speed comes from figuring out what to subtract rather than add.
Yeah, sorry for bad word choice. I am on the phone so not as focused as I would be on PC. I can do two things.
First I can go full throttle as I am used to do and be agressive on the turn in, sliding just a bit and exit line is fine but I guess the speed is a bit lower.
Second option is to be less agressive and then I could not make the turn properly, I would hit the apex at the exit (left side) and lose traction and speed, because I am wide.
In both cases I would not apply brake and the line until the apex is the same, it is just the difference between the steering that affects the exit line.
I thought I would lose too much speed braking even slightly, but I do lift a little just the turn before and tend to go flat on the slippery one, slightly understeering. I have seen some people using the brakes just a slightly so you are most likely right.
Clarify a bit please. You hit apex and yet were wide. You can’t get a little bit pregnant… (American expression for a contradiction).
It’s entirely possible I am incorrect and that it would slow you down. But if you are sliding through this corner its likely an understeer thing. I’m not suggesting a big or even moderate brake. I am literally talking a super light brush to settle nose. It’s worth a try.
See the tip of your puprple arrow? Right there. In the final moment before turn in. Coincidental with the moment when the karts mass sloshing around makes sense to do it (straighter is better) but it’s so light that it’s unlikely to upset Kart. Figure out where you can try to settle the nose and then accelerate through. Does it hold?
Let’s go with option 2 for now. Clarification needed.
A thought: while it’s great to nail every corner 100% I see another couple turns immediately after this one. You are setting up a sector here. That might indicate that you don’t necessarily want all of this one if it makes a mess of the next.
Stacker, you say that your best time is 2 seconds off the track record, but do you often share a heat with these fast drivers? The track record is always driven in ideal circumstances with the best kart and really not representative for what is possible at any given day. Maybe you are closer than you think. Don’t focus too much on lap times in gereral but focus more on the time you lose against the top tier drivers when you drive together.
What’s the general range in these rentals? How far apart do the karts come in, assuming same driver? My experience Saturday: 1st Kart no brakes. 2nd kart new brakes.
If you think about it this isn’t all that different than your final sector. You have to flow sorta the same way. Very round lines where you can see how the weight of the kart is in play.
edit @Stacker If you watch your buddies footage, after his tires warm up and he gets down to business, at 4:19 - 4:40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xw8_r4o9i0 he goes through the final complex well and nails each apex. He’s definitely being too forceful imho, but if you smooth that out, it would be interesting.
It makes me wonder whether trying to maximize that entry is such a huge deal, though. Watching the video, the rhythm of that complex is interesting but also really weird. There’s several direction changes and sorta speed up/slow down things going on before it spits you out onto the big straight with nipple thing that then flows into start finish straight. That’s a lot of ground I’d like to cover at the highest possible RPM!
As you watch that video, you can sorta sense the place where you can see where you could potentially start building speed to the end of straight. That’s what matters here most, I’d think.
Therefore, I’d be less concerned about how fast I can take the entry into the complex and more concerned with figuring out how to find a rhythm that allows you to tie that entry to the earliest spot you can build speed out onto the final straight.
We just came off of a worn fleet. Every kart had it’s special need. Not as mush a fleet as a bunch of individual karts. Matter of fact last race I missed because of possibility it would conflict with a family function, It was HOT and kart condition. I raced in the new rentals on Sunday. While not as equal as I was hoping for, they are way better.
Precious little you can do setup wise, except drive around it. Move the seat all the way forward is about it as far as a setup change.
My theory on hairpin:
I would attack that hairpin by late apexing it. Sacrifice the short straight before it and concentrate on exit. Turn before hairpin I would take without regard to exit speed. I max out out entry speed into that one.
I am guessing you aren’t having that problem, yes? You sound like you are beyond lift off oversteer but I could totally see a recreational person hauling ass and losing their cojones after turn in (or just not knowing any better). And, in case you are feeling frustrated, take pleasure in this. You get 'it" enough that you understand intuitively that you cant just do that there. And by “it” I mean all that weight transfer COG stuff we been going on about.
That’s a passive skill. You can’t control that. Its acquired from all the laps you run (repetition). It’s a mental film that is running in parallel to the actual lap you are running, in a sense. As you drive you are effectively real time comparing your actual place in time versus your expected position. It’s how you confirm or deny constantly whether all systems are “Go.”.
If you already knew that I apologize. It’s a nuanced term of Warren’s so I assume you picked it up from the other thread. I would say “I drove reactively”, instead.
I found a better track shot. This a composite made from a whole bunch of satellite images dating back to 2002. Or that’s how I understand it. You can see the track being built in the app basically. Google Earth is so damn cool. You have a neat facility there. Enjoy it.
I do not touch the curb on the left as it takes away traction and unsettles the kart. Just touching the white line (100% throttle, no brake)
Would you recommend sacrificing a corner or two for better exit to the straight? I was thinking about this, but it looks to me that exit speed is already very high and I barely make the last corner without going wide on the grass.
@Matthijs_Hofman I must say no, I was rarely in the same heats with them. Although I do remember driving on empty track, with only one guy. Turned out he drove amateur cup last year and that he is much more experienced than me. That day, I had lower average time than him and my best lap was slower by a .016, so matching his pace completely. I hope you are right about being closer than you think.
There are like 3 types, new brakes - quick locking up, used brakes - gentle braking (feels like it is not hard enough but seems to do well on laptimes), no brakes/extremely hot used brakes - they just do not slow you down at all, you need to slow down by hard steering inputs, increasing your laptime
All in all, workers say there could be over 1s per lap difference between karts…
I have a feeling that whoever drives here, just wants to go through the last part as quickly as possible, only thinking about speed and then it forces them into a mistake, corrected by sliding instead of braking, if that makes sense. I will try to concentrate more on being constant through the section rather being too fast.
Yeah, never spun at any part of the track so far. I can feel the back end very nicely but it happens sometimes that after too much braking, I get oversteer or some back end instability, but only with those locking type of brakes.
About Google Earth. I am amazed haha. Did not enter the app in a very long time, but I was not expecting to see images from 2002, very interesting!
It’s kind of hard to tell from pics but it looks like your approach is good. I didn’t have a problem with the video guy either. It just seems that there’s a better less hurried pace through that couple turns.
Apex seems ok and I can see how getting the outside left on the bumpy paint could unsettle the kart. Seems fine.
I don’t know that its a sacrifice. I think you can pretty much are building speed from the X to the finish. Maybe I’m wrong and its after this apex, but close enough. It looks to me like you can build speed all the way out from this point.
While I want to carry as much as possible through the initial turn in, subsequent left, left back up are in service to that lunge to the finish. Try messing about with entry speed so that you don’t go wide. Then mess about with throttle modulation to see if you can get the kart to turn smoothly where you need in the first three turns here.
I dunno about the rental but Id probably be in throttle the whole way here but I’d be modulating it the whole way to assist with rotation through the two next turns, trying to find a good position to blast over the top.
In my opinion, if you get a better exit onto the straight, you haven’t sacrificed a turn, you’ve made the turn the way it should be made. My opinion comes from 50 years experience, in and around karting. Actual 16 years of driving experience in 2 cycles.
I agree with Dom. I think it’s a pretty straightforward full throttle blast to the SF line from the yellow X, probably even from the corner before. I don’t see the difficulty with this corner. But I have never driven there and you have, so there must be more to it than we can see or feel.
What I notice from the original footage is that every time the driver is sliding, it happens mid-corner when that COG (there it is again) is shifting. To be frank, he is not very subtle (and he is not happy about it either based on his head shaking). If I were him, I’d be focussing on a subtle weight transfer and more subtle steering inputs. Don’t try to do everything at once, but try 1 thing and feel the difference.
Good video, thank you. I hear the tires squealing, I’m not sure that squealing is caused by sliding, excessively, necessarily. Would have been nice if we could have seen the steering input. If the sliding is causing reverse lock steering, it would have told me more. All tires experience some amount of slide as they struggle to keep their grip to the surface. When you’re doing it right, if you hear that sound, it doesn’t mean anything, just a tire fighting to keep its grip to the track.
