I like the idea of shadowing my mechanic. I’ve always tried to do that but never asked questions. He’s very experienced but not the most social butterfly. I think if I talked to him more I could learn about what he does on my kart and when and why. The end goal is to compete at higher level. I just want to get faster. I am extremely competitive and that’s what is fun for me. I’m not going to become a professional driver, but maybe I’ll win the lottery and become a gentleman driver, who knows. My actual goal is to work as a race engineer in f1, so learning and shadowing my mechanic would be very helpful with that as well
Hopefully you can figure out your path. I might also suggest if the shop is close enough to you that you spend time at the shop and express your interests to learn there too. Personally, working on the kart is part of the enjoyment of karting and my goal is to prep the kart so there is nothing to do but focus on racing or the unforeseen at the track.
Good Luck
I’ve been trying to do something like that and help around the shop for a while, maybe I can ask again
So my practice day was rough, as the track was dry and wet and dry, so it was hard to experiment with setups, but I did try some new driving techniques, how quickly I turn the wheel, where I turn, smooth vs cooking it, etc. I think I learned some about a karts limit, and what setups do, as I went out in the dry-ish on a rain setup and felt how easily the kart loads up, but how twitchy it was as well.
I’d like a track to myself someday where I can just slam the brakes and see what happens, I think I’m nowhere near peak braking a lot of the time. I was able to lock up the tires occasionally to find the pressure points but it was still hard to learn.
I think a track day with just a few others, and a coach, could be really helpful, but I’m not sure how to find that.
Also, my brake pedal has about an inch of play before actually slowing the kart, so how do I fix that?
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Sounds like a good day. 
That play in the brake pedal sounds normal. You can buy shims to space your brake pads closer to the disk to take up some play as your pads wear. But, for the most part I do believe you’ll want to have some decent play especially if you’re running 206 (not that you are) to eliminate any possible sources of drag.
The photo is of a Birel AM29 spacer for an example:
I guess that makes sense, especially on bumpy tracks. Frustrating day bu I learned stuff so im happy. My first attempt at data was kinda useless, as I was on 3 different tire compounds, a soaked track, wet track, and a dry track, and I never felt like I hit a wall in terms of pace.
Look on the bright side, you got experiment with 3 different track conditions on the same day. Threshold braking is a challenge in itself. The varied conditions should have shown you were you need to move your braking points and pressures for each scenario.
Many calipers these days self adjust, but if not then the shims will fix that. If they are self adjusting, you can always shorten the brake rod until it removes some of the travel. Personally I don’t worry about the travel of the pedal so much as I do the pressure needed to reach the threshold zone in braking. Take that with a grain of salt, I am an oddity with my long legs and so my foot generally rests on pedal a little anyway.
So I’m my most recent race you can see I really struggle in turn 2. It’s the right hander. I feel like I lose a ton of time no matter the conditions. Any advice on it would be great, it shows up in several of my videos.
For reference it appears first at 1:33
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Was this a standing start? I don’t see formation lap
You are correct. Standing start, which I messed up
So I’m top 6 in my division at my club generally, but this weekend I’ve at a loss for pace. Long track with 1-2 braking points, fastest time this week has been a 1:08.3. This is world formula by the way and we are hitting 74mph. For qualifying I tried getting in a draft pack but felt stuck. I qualified 16th out of 22, and finished 9th with a best time of 1:09.4. Today I tried running without the draft and qualified 19th out of 21, with a 1:11.6. I don’t feel like I’m doing anything terribly wrong. But somehow another driver without the draft as well got a 1:09.2. So, I’m confused
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Were you hitting the Rev Limiter? Gearing could change with or without the Draft.
Check out:
I think I made a change in the wrong direction. I went down a tooth in the rear. Thought it would work but it didn’t. I finished 17th. Lost the draft after lap 5 and never got it again. What confuses me is that there’s a guy on the same gear as me, started behind me, but charged to 2nd place. I know he’s a little faster than me but not that much.
Oh, and I forgot to mention, bump drafting isn’t allowed at the NHKA…
Well then it’s not the gear. How was the kart handling?
Was your pace dramatically off of everyone else? Or, were the other participants feeling slower, too? I had a weekend where I was off about a sec but so was everyone else, although i did not know it at the time. Track/atmisoheric conditions.
It felt good, a bit tight but it has to be for the road course. nothing seems fundamentally wrong in any way, other karts seem to be quicker everywhere. I lost about 1.2 seconds down the straight without the draft but that doesn’t account for the rest of the time. I was eventually able to not have to brake for the entire track, but maybe that might’ve been because I lost the draft. I felt smooth as well. The engine would make a low BURRRRR and bog down occasionally turn 1 and a lot turn 2. There was one instance where I gained .2 in turn 2 from my previous best, and it felt good, but I just don’t understand what I did differently. I’m inconsistent with that corner but I don’t know why. One cause is during the exit of the corner (full throttle at this point) and slightly turning, the engine does the BURRRR thing, and you can feel it stop accelerating for a moment.
Some gearing data:
67 rear: 73.5 top speed in draft
68 rear: 72.1 TS in draft, 67.5 without
69 rear: 71.2 TS in draft, 69.4 without
Also, I don’t know how to draft properly and how it works exactly. (I get the gist of it)
Even harder when your series doesn’t allow bump drafting or pushing. Since some people in my class did it anyway we aren’t allowed any contact for the rest of the season. Or so we were told.
Congrats to anyone who made it this far through my rant
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Dramatically off. Apparently one driver was doing 1:08.5 without the draft. Best I managed was a 1:10.7 without
Elias – You said that you’re essentially flat out around the entire track. If it’s not the driving, then I’d try to free the kart up. A small gain in freeing the kart up will yield a ton of lap time because the problem is present throughout the entire lap and not isolated to one turn. If your motor is weak, same thing as too much grip but I would work on freeing the kart up first. Just to let you know, that there have been times where I didn’t have enough side bite and the kart was drifting all of the time but that usually only happens when it’s cold.
What tuning setups would free up the kart? Everything I know about road racing suggests running a minimum rear axle width. The track is all flat out simply because of the track not because my kart setup.