This is a very, very neat bit of driving by Mr. N.
I find this race to be really amazing on 2 levels. First off, these guys are good. Real good. An extremely high level of skill is to be expected but his throttle sensitivity is off the charts.
Notice how he has the kart, as TJ describes it, constantly loaded. It is very difficult to determine where braking ends and throttle begins. He manages to keep the engine humming almost constantly and is “on top” of his kart at all times. Perfect balance pretty much all through the race and most importantly, under pressure. As I am discovering, that ain’t easy.
The other thing is how mature he is as a driver. The elbows are very, very sharp and at times, it seemed that everyone was gunning for him. Despite this he holds it together and rebounds quickly from (sometimes a bit unfair) setbacks.
This is remarkable driving.
4:30 takes first?
7:40 the mugging begins-drops to 3rd?
9:30 patience rewarded (back to 2nd?)
12:15 begins to pressure 1
12:45 great example of throttle mastery. Look at how early and long he is on gas here in this fast round corner.
13:12 Ryan now is in total command of this fight.
17:00 WTF. Drops to 4. Would love to see a birds eye view here. Maybe they are running out of laps. Norberg tried to force the issue to get by but gets blocked repeatedly, opens up the door.
17:15 beautiful positioning here sets up pass for 3 at 17:25
17:40 can’t tell if the last second lunge by the other guy was in time.
Oof. That was intense. To get an impression of how hard he had to work over the weekend:
Final note. Mr Rolinson seems “pleased”. I think this might have been first race with new team?
Good analysis Dom! Ryan’s just a great all-around driver. He knows when to be smooth, when to be aggressive, and how to control a race. He can overtake, he can defend, and most importantly, he’s very fast. Hard to find a weak point in his game. Like almost all the best drivers, he was a little erratic and made some questionable mistakes when he first moved up to Senior, but he’s matured a lot in the last few years without losing his speed or aggression. He’s a really formidable threat on-track.
Part of my reasoning for moving back to X30 this year was so I could compete against guys like this.
edit- This is also a great example of “driving under the rubber”. Compare his line to Galli’s (CRG) in the opening laps and see how he is able to be 1/2 a kart lower in every corner and because he’s so deliberate and smooth on his inputs, he can keep the kart loaded and rolling freely while digging into that grippy line.
You can see that stiff CRG struggling to keep the inside rear up in the tight stuff, but really going well in the final sector where the corners are faster. Galli’s biggest weakness was the hairpin in the middle of the track.
Galli’s defense around the 17:00 mark is what I like to call “cultivating chaos”. Based on how quickly Norberg caught him, Galli knows that he isn’t going to hold onto this one outright. Now, the goal is to defend hard and slow Norberg down enough that he falls into the clutches of the guys behind and they start battling. He needs to feed Norberg to the sharks. If I were Galli, I would note that Brooks is probably back there and that he’s going to be aggressive on the overtake, because he needs to get past Norberg quickly in order to have a shot at this thing. Back Norberg up into Brooks and it could get dicey and give me a shot to scoot away for a couple laps. Unfortunately for Galli, Brooks gets by Norberg without much drama and Galli doesn’t get away, giving Brooks the opportunity.
Interesting. I noticed similar gamesmanship across the prefinal as well as final. So there’s a method to what appears to be madness.
One of the things I found interesting is how the competitors at this level engage in fake moves at high speed, really yanking the kart violently to create the impression that they are turning in, when in fact they are trying to spook the guy inside.
I was wondering if this made any sense to do as absolutely none of these guys back off of anything they have committed to, even if headed towards a barrier (see prefinal).
In any case, I’m tempted to try this in masters but I don’t want to cause any heart attacks.
Thought about it overnight. Not for me, the whole gamesmanship thing. I get it though with these guys. If you think about it, they have folks ponying up serious $ to have then run with their team. The importance of winning is probably quite a bit higher for them than me. End of the day I just report back to you guys, who will likely forgive me for not winning.
There’s more pronounced deceleration bits on Bas’s lap but like Norberg, the defining characteristic is being on boil as much as possible. I am guessing the speed and front brakes make it different, as compared to an x30. The pace is very quick but he’s also shifting so there’s a different rhythm to his driving.
I get the impression that Bas is very balanced but he’s closer to the edge of getting behind in some turns as compared to Norbergs x30. He never misses a beat and he’s not late in anything but he seems to get on it later than Norberg. That being said, it’s very flowing in a shifter kind of way.
Whats particularly impressive to me is how he manages throttle through the chaotically quick chicane but yet has the presence of mind to feed in constant and super early throttle on round last bit the immediaitely follows, dumping him powerfully onto straight. 2:22-2:31.
I get the impression that he’s more “in” the rubber rather than “under” it.
EDIT: I just watched some more shifter videos and I think I’m mistaken about the timing seeming a bit later for Bas than Ryan. I don’t think the rythym and throttle stuff are comparable. It took me a bit to remember that the act of shifting involves a lift, amongst other things, and you use that as part of your speed control. So, where Ryan kinda has to be early to be fast, Bas has different concerns. (Front brakes, shifting) which is expressed in a different and kinda blunter, more powerful way. Sorta like how the heavyweight boxers differ from the smaller, quicker guys.
Probably a good call. Making aggressive moves like that can result in some serious melees if you aren’t confident with it and don’t know your opponents. All the top guys up there are expecting it to some degree and know how to react to not have an accident.
Half of proper defending is conditioning your opponent to think twice about the move. You don’t have to make a big defense move necessarily or be super aggressive. Even if you move over 6", it can be enough to make the overtaking driver hesitate and duck back in line.
Thanks. Interestingly, Ryan, who basically controlled the race for most of it, never once resorted to BS. It was some of his increasingly desperate opponents making those moves.
The way he pulled the field apart cleanly reminded me of that ka100 race you (TJ) posted last year where you make your way through the field. Each pass was “natural” and a non-event.
The opposite of this would be Trenton Estep’s remarkable run from behind at supernats when he was a (super fast) kid. Amazing passing but warp speed frantic. Impressive but I like the effortless style pass better.
if you watch some of Ryan’s other videos on his youtube channel he talks a lot about patience and making smart passes that down cost him time to the drivers further ahead. which makes total sense the amount of dive bombs i see in the early laps that allow the leaders to get a big gap that is just to hard to run down later in the race is just crazy.
" the amount of dive bombs i see in the early laps that allow the leaders to get a big gap that is just to hard to run down later in the race is just crazy."
Specific to this race or in general? Can you give an example video?
Ah so you are saying there’s a lot of really aggressive stuff in the early parts of the race. I guess the better the competition the sharper the elbows.
