Hi all, first post here. I currently race in VLR Senior. My local track offered a sort of “sponsorship” in which we got a 2023 Intrepid Chassis with the engine for a pretty good deal. Now the main issue is I am the only one who is running the Intrepid chassis and majority of the grid is Expirit or some other OTK brand. I’m about 0.5s off the pace and have tweaked around a lot with the kart. Most of the OTK guys have never even changed half their stuff and are on pace. So, should I change the chassis (go to OTK) or stick with Intrepid?
Nothing wrong with Intrepid. The 3 main brands at our club are Birel group, OTK group, and Intrepid, and they all win pretty consistently. None have stood out as the obvious fastest.
First off, Welcome to the show!
Silly questions. How much seat time are you putting in compared to them? Have any of the changes you have made to the chassis shown in you lap times?
For reference my race at NTK yesterday was on their short track version. I had never run it before and it changes a three corner sequence just before the main straight. I had no practice and went out for qualifying. I spent the whole time trying to figure the new section out. Came in, talked with my fellow racers and picked up a few ideas. Next session I dropped a full second and a half. Went back to pits, made one adjustment on rear track width to reduce some slight hopping and on to the final. Didn’t really gain anything in the final due to a brake issue I found when making my rear track adjustment.
Side note: My brake hub or axle had shifted and my rotor was touching the caliper. I scrambled to fix it and got everything realigned and back together in time, but I didn’t bleed the system. Thought never crossed my mind, that is until I had to brake hard for the first time on the out-lap and the brakes had zero stopping power. I had to stand on them with all my effort to even slow the kart. It was in that moment it dawned on me that I may have boiled the fluid in the half of the caliper the rotor was rubbing against. As a result I was having to start braking earlier than normal, but with the strides I was making in my lines and the new corner complex my times were about the same. Its racing, stuff happens!
My point is, that you can almost always find more time in your driving than you can in adjustments to setup. Maybe the time has more to do with your entry/exit and how you setup for multi turn complexes than the tweaks you made on the kart. You can always ask one of the other drivers to try your kart and see if the lap times are similar to yours or to theirs.
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The top guy has been racing in 2 stroke for around 3 years (1st year in VLR). So most likely yeah he has much more seat time than I do. However, I do try and practice atleast once a week and my pace is basically on par with the rest of the grid (I am 2nd most of the time, here and there 3rd or 4th). I really don’t know where else to find time, any tips on how to do that would be greatly appreciated.
You want coaching? Post some video! Mechanical advise comes cheap, driving advise has a price. 
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