Hey! I am quite new to driving 2-stroke and I want to improve my braking efficiency and feel comfortable braking deeper. Right now I struggle to lock up my brakes. Any recommendations on effective ways to practice? Are there any drills (besides braking hard at just 1-2 corners of the track) to practice braking harder and deeper?
What I’ve tried:
incrementally increasing brake pressure until I can feel the rear-end dancing → but I’ve been told that i’m not pushing it far enough - there should be a distinct sound from the engine and the tires screeching. i can’t hear anything right now.
braking too hard and spinning out: usually what happens is - i’ll stomp on the brakes, hold it, then i can feel my tires lockup and “slide” as if literally ice-skating. i’ve tried pushing the steering wheel as firm as i could, but any small input in that moment seems to upset the kart into a spin. On that note, how do you avoid spinning out when braking hard? and on that vein, should you lift off/ease off the brakes soon to avoid losing all traction?
I like to set a cone up with my drivers where they should be braking and then each lap I move it deeper and deeper into the corner to build up to that limit.
You should be braking hard enough to just barely get to lock up and then releasing just a very small amount of brake pressure as soon as you hear the tires chirp to prevent fully locking the wheels and spinning.
If you’re on the limit you should feel the rear dance a bit but it should be controllable with steering.
It takes practice to get a feel for it fully but once you master it you will instinctively correct steering in anticipation of the rear stepping out and be able to catch any dancing easier.
Releasing/reducing brake pressure quickly once you get lockup and kart starts to move sideways.
See above
But yeh basically if you hold the brake too long the back comes around totally. Faster you go and harder the braking the quicker the kart will want to snap. Hard braking will start a rotation that you stop by letting the wheels roll again, get traction, go.
Braking is part of the turning in process, it’s an input that allows you to orient the kart. You will spin out a bunch figuring it out. Just keep plugging and remember to release/reduce pressure quickly, feel the rear move and react by stopping the rotation and bring in throttle.
Another thought… the release gives you back directional control. Once it’s all gone pear shaped, release, get control, brake again, rinse and repeat as necessary.
Here I am overdoing some braking on a kart with grippier tires up front than in the back and lose it on the initial bite. I keep the kart under reasonable control by releasing, getting back to brake, releasing. I don’t go around this way (until the end and I want to reorient towards track) and can avoid the barrier and get going again.
Oooh, thanks! That makes a lot of sense. Optimally I’d like to find a couple of days where the track is relatively empty to work on it in solitude - it seems to require extensive trial and error. Would you recommend drilling this on new/old tires? Also, the track I go to is super tight and fast-paced with only one corner after a long straight that would necessitate a hard brake, aside from two hairpins preceded by notably shorter straights. I’m wondering how I can get the most repetitions of hard-braking out of each lap at this track.
Oh yes, totally! It must be that I am holding the brakes too long. Sometimes I’d brake and my hands would be perfectly still, yet I’d still spin out because supposedly I moved slightly in the seat while locked up and that upset the kart. How do you get this subtle feeling for knowing when to release the brakes though? It’d probably come with more repetitions and seat time but right now I have a hard time feeling it - do you have any rough standards to tell at what moment should you release the brakes to regain traction?
Not sure how to explain it but you’ll get there by doing it. Maybe a thing to try would be to play with locking up and releasing as quickly as you can to see how it feels, how the kart comes back in line. Then play with that, extending the time you let it rotate around before settling it.
Also, you can have straight hands and the kart will still spin. Turn angle under braking simply expedites the process,(which can be useful). The engine hangs over the side. The kart is made in such a way that braking causes the inside wheel to lift. It’s fundamentally gonna want to go around. Sometimes it gets weird, like my clip above, where the kart shoulda started rotating and yet… it didn’t! It plowed.
Here’s an example of releasing quickly to get the kart back under control. You can see that at my turn in, I ask too much and the kart quickly begins to snap. I release brake and countersteer to silence the rotation, then hammer back on the throttle, on the intended line/orientation,
One thing to remember is that braking puts the kart on its nose, transfers weight to the front, increasing the grip and allowing you to turn well. Braking isn’t so much about slowing down as it is about finding the load that the front can intitate the turn without pushing.
