In almost every hard braking scenario you should be getting to max brake pressure immediately when you initially hit the pedal. Quick, firm press to get nearly to lock-up, then releasing just enough pressure to prevent an out-of-control lock-up and hold that pressure to the turn-in. As you initiate turn-in you will want to start releasing brake pressure and begin initiating throttle, always keeping one of the pedals engaged like Dom notes with his rudder metaphor.
Takes practice to develop the feel for where that limit is on the brakes. I like to do several lock-ups on my out lap to build muscle memory for where that traction limit is.
Since you are gonna try hard fast braking… bear in mind that lockup is the signal to release pressure immediately. Not necessarily all pressure, but to let wheels roll again. You are trying to dump some speed, as quickly as possible, but then right back into some throttle.
How much speed you need to dump defines your moment to brake. A fast corner apex might be holding throttle in later and then Bam, release/throttle, turn, at the last second. Or it might be the same thing a few feet further back where you dump the speed sooner to be back and driving through in throttle earlier.
If you hold the hard brake too long the back comes around and you spin. So, learning how to let off the brake quickly and back into gripped up throttle takes a bit of practice.
I am still very much learning and am still guilty of being too soft on the brakes sometimes. But, I don’t spin. Once you release the brake the back comes back in line, stops wanting to wander off to side, and you have control of grip.
Also, I am not an instructor. I believe TJ is, and he’s probably the quickest most accomplished driver of anyone replying.
I would listen to him first and focus on what he says. He has experience in knowing what to tell you to make you improve, where I am just kinda identifying what I see wrong for the most part, and I might not even be correct in my observations.
I am just an old salty karter who replied because I know this track well, and figured another perspective could potentially be helpful.
Thanks Rob but don’t sell yourself short! Local track knowledge is invaluable when discussing how to approach specific corners, and you have waaay more experience at this track.
My coaching is always with the background that I try and teach driving technique that’ll be useful on any track, rather than giving specific apex points or braking points for a given track. I don’t want my drivers just memorizing the math problem of one track; I want them to understand the math and how it works and why it works so they can apply it to any track.
But every track and corner has its own little idiosyncrasies, so for example if there’s a particularly nasty curb to avoid or a bump on the track or a sealant patch to use as a reference point, or a particular line that just works well in a section, that’s all really important for each specific track too, so a local expert can really help with that stuff.
Everyone replying here has valuable knowledge from different perspectives so combine it all and go run a 49.2.
As with all Dom posts, assume more enthusiasm than actual knowledge. But, I just can’t help myself and feel compelled to share what I “think” I have learned. So, take my advice with a grain of salt.
That being said, I am trying to convey what helped me to move forwards and hope that whatever I convey helps you.
You guys rule, and I appreciate TJ’s technical expertise, Rob’s local knowledge, and Dom’s enthusiasm and ability to simplify very complicated things equally.
Bumping again. Since my last posted data in January, I’ve been practicing at 103rd Street (Jacksonville), just working on braking later and harder. I set up a cone for a braking point and move it closer and closer to the corner each time I go there. I can brake about 4-5 feet later into one particular corner in Jax.
I went back to OKC and tried to apply what I’ve learned. In this new screenshot, yellow is coach Daniel (50.575 on used tires), blue is my all-time best lap from September 2024 (51.067 on new tires, same kart and day as Daniel’s lap and videos are posted earlier in this thread), and red is my best from this past weekend (52.190 on new tires in my newer model of the same chassis + engine).
My turn 1 braking trace (red) is now closer to Daniel’s (yellow) than the old blue line. Also more similar to Daniel in turn 3 kink (segment 2 in RS3 graph). Also more similar to Daniel’s speed trace in the turn 9.5 braking zone (segment 10).
Despite this, I am now a full 1.1 seconds slower than before. My minimum apex speed in turn 1-2 is really low compared to the blue line, and I also lost a lot of time in turns 8-9 (segment 8-9 in RS3). Some corner exits have been redone with bumps so you can’t track out as much and another driver in the pits said track conditions were poor because it had rained the night before (you can see a puddle in the video), but I don’t think that accounts for an entire second lost.
Where should I go from here? Ignore the stopwatch, keep practicing late/hard braking, and trust that this will pay off in the long run? Go back to driving more like the blue line? Something else?
Rain the day before can absolutely account for over a second. In our area, we have less rain but a fair amount of wind and sand that makes the track incredibly slow on practice days until enough karts clean it off.
I can offer insight from my experience as a driver, for what it’s worth…
It doesn’t surprise me that braking harder and later makes you overslow initially. It’s a change and takes you out of your comfort zone. Keep plugging.
I felt like what changed for me was the duration of harder braking and its release. Try braking harder but getting off sooner. Try to make that happen such that it feels balanced. Once harder braking becomes a less novel sensation, you will link it to the flow and it will feel smooth.
Not sure if that’s helpful. But anyways, consider the pedal release and play with coming off the brake faster and sooner. You’ll start trailing from hard hits once you play with it enough and get a feel for how the balance changes etc. you are playing catch with momentum and mass shifting.
@Bimodal_Rocket coming off brakes earlier is the blue line, no? That’s what I was doing back in September and it made my corner entry speed too high and lost time by sacrificing exits like TJ said, right?
Theoretically, if I brake harder, then this might not be such a problem since my inital hard braking will get me down to a speed that’s slower than the blue line so I can pick up the throttle sooner?
Orlando radically changes with temperature/weather, more than any track I’ve raced. I have personally experienced it swing 1.5 seconds on the same day, no rain.
One thing I’m going to tell you is that to even become remotely comfortable or competent in a race car – any race car – takes a LOT of seat time. Like thousands of laps. At the same track. In a bunch of different conditions. Old tires. New tires. Rain. Dry. 70 degrees. 90 degrees. 50 degrees. Track rubbered up. Track fresh. Track repaved. etc etc etc.
My early days in cars started on famous mountain roads that I would drive about 1-2 hours every night for the better part of 3 years. I never missed a day and spent about 10 years collectively going as fast as I could.
By the time I got to karting I had been driving mountain roads about 5 years if you don’t count the 3 years from 12-15 where my dad took me on the roads as a passenger so I was familiar before. It is not unrealistic to say I have tens of thousands of miles if not hundreds of thousands of miles on the same 3 or 4 roads in many different platforms and conditions (fwd, rwd, awd, light weight, heavy, trucks, SUVs, Miatas, the list goes on).
Seat time is king. Seat time is king. Seat time is king.
@ApexGRT wow ok. What do you think of the new bumps on the exit of turn 5 and the new slippery grey concrete on the exit of turn 9? Do these actually cost laptime compared to what existed before, or should a driver on the ideal line not be hitting these anyway?
Also, is Orlando faster on colder days or warmer days? I would imagine colder is faster? Why does it evolve so much compared to other tracks?
It seems to me like it actually gets slower throughout the course of a club racing day (Orlando Cup). I can’t tell if the track is greasy by finals or if it’s just everyone’s tires starting to fall off.
You cannot compare lap times between Sept 2024 and May 2025. The track conditions aren’t even remotely the same. For example, I was just at Dousman this past week and my best laps were 1.5 sec off my best laps at the USPKS race the previous year. And I literally have probably a million laps there so it’s not like I’m still learning. Track conditions can change day to day, let alone month to month.
I haven’t actually raced OKC but I have watched so many races there I basically understand how to drive the track. One thing I noticed is you aren’t even close to using the whole track out of the hairpin. Obviously that’s not a huge time loss but it’s worth something and is an indicator of other issues elsewhere possibly.
Please help me with this! I started not using the whole track there because I was copying Daniel. It’s hard to get back over to the right before the chicane if you track all the way out at the exit of the hairpin, so my line would often be compromised through the chicane.
I was watching videos of Daniel and I noticed that he didn’t use the whole track there (you can see this in my video of him from September), so I started doing the same. My speed trace in red looks similar to Daniel’s in yellow at this corner. There are other drivers who do use the whole track there.
Which do you think is faster? Does getting a better line through the chicane make up for the time lost by not tracking all the way out after the hairpin? Is there a way to do both?
Yeah so I guess that’s what I’m trying to convey. Rather than dwelling on the brakes, a shorter hit and back to throttle sooner. I found that I was often underestimating corner entry speeds. I was surprised to discover that in a panic braking scenario, where you hit the brake hard, then immediately lift to get around the obstacle, that the kart holds up better than I would have thought.
Just a thought to mess around with.
I guess also that what I’m saying is that maybe the midcorner speed can be higher if you have the kart slowed a bit quicker and earlier and are in throttle sooner albeit lighter, and perhaps progressively building. Again just spitballing.
