I don’t usually sponsor things, but this could be something I could get behind.
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But my question is… What advantage is being touted. Reduced drag, or downforce.
There’s a reason Sodi and IPK used OTK M6 noses recently.
I’ve heard people claim .2 a lap between certain nosecones at a track like New Castle. I think several years ago when the bodywork was largely unsophisticated, we all dismissed aero performance as useless, but now that bodywork is becoming bigger and more shapely, it might start to play into setup.
Personally i’ve never dismissed the overall concept of aero as being useless, but rather judged each effort on it’s own merit. On that note, that’s where I’m stuck on this OTK beer bong thing.
I’m not helping, am I?
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Last thing karting needs is an aero war.
That is a black-holed money pit with no end.
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I think the best way to battle that is to be objective. But us racers can be a tad selective about where we place our objectivity 
Trolling is strong from TopKart today
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Purely speculative aero here but asssuming a large proportion of the drag is air hitting the driver flat in the face (as per pic)
Then it might not be the cut out that’s the important bit. The cut out may be there to facilitate the flick up at the top part of the panel (where the tonykart triangle is). By doing this you are creating an upward airstream pushing the oncoming air around the chest and helmet of the driver creating a boundary layer around the driver potentially decreasing this large piece of drag.
Basically along the lines of the USA “big noses” along the lines of “punch a hole in the air and drive through”
The only thing about that is it doesn’t seem like the flow off of that “dip thing” would be quite wide enough?
I’m no aerodynamissisisisist but looking at Nik’s picture, it seems you really only need to skirt around that ~3" wide red part on the driver’s helmet, so I would guess the tunnel on the nassau would be wide enough to flick air over, and the sides of the panel would distribute it around.
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On that note, there’s a couple of studies on aero for karts for people to geek out on here:
Any pictures of the rest of the kart? Anytime we’ve done something “obvious” like this, it’s generally to catch eyes away from something else we’re testing or trying…
Either way, fascinating, I’d love to test that and see how it works.
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A more interesting way would be to have a scoop at the bottom of the nassau panel and an internal channel that led to a horizontal slit across the top of the nassau panel. I think this would achieve the effect more efficiently.
You are trying to achieve a faux Coanda effect effectively. The way OTK have done it is probably cheaper to manufacturer but less efficient.
So, according to this model…short people have less resistance!
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I would think that the most drag on a kart would be the vacuum created behind the driver and seat?
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When you can do something to decrease the frontal area, drag or both it can help.
So generally shorter people will sit lower in the kart. It can depend on the seat being used, amount of tilt and so on. It can help, but then when you look at the build of someone like Simas Juodvirsis who put on a stellar performance at the supernats in 2012… it’s hard to know for sure.
The point of the new bodywork is to reduce frontal area, and streamline flow over the largest obstruction, the driver. In karting, reducing the drag coefficient will save lap time, no debate about that, but the question is how much.
After racing bicycles for years, where you are the engine, and aero is the single largest energy saver, YES, AERO MATTERS, at all speeds, and grows exponentially with speed.
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I mean, it could be worse.
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Ardigo smoked them and I didn’t realize how fast they are really going in KZ over there. No doubt the nose and nassau help in KZ, in Europe. 206 and TaG in the US, probably not so much.
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