Hi guys and girl’s. I recently went to rye house in the UK, had an awesome day. However there’s one place I’m getting a lot of oversteer. The flat out kink after turn 1, it gets bumpy there and this seems to set me off sideways. If I backed off through it it doesn’t happen but everyone else looks flat. What could I do with setup to try and remedy this? At 64kg do I just need ballast? I’m driving rotax max if that makes a difference. I’m very new to owning a kart so I’m starting the learning curve. Thanks
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Do you have extra wieghts on the kart? Im not really aweare of how mutch it should wieght but around 165 kilos. You might need wireght
On parts of a circuit where the kart is getting upset, where there is a bump in a corner or curb you need to hit, you need to be aware of how you’re bracing yourself in the kart and where you’re rotating the kart in the corner.
You want to make sure you’re bracing your body by pushing into the wheel and trying to keep your upper body steady as you go over a bump, so all your body weight is not flopping around. Your body and how it sits in the kart has a huge influence on the kart’s behavior, as it is the biggest piece of ballast. If you hit the bump and aren’t keeping your body stable, all that weight will move around and upset the kart’s balance.
The other thing to keep in mind is where you’re inducing rotation within the corner. I don’t know this corner specifically but if there is a bump in any corner, you generally don’t want to be putting input in on that bump. The bump will spike all forces going through the kart, so adding additional force through the chassis at that point will only overwhelm the tires faster and the kart will break traction. If possible, you want to get the kart rotated before or after the bump. So that might require you to drive into the corner and be more aggressive on your initial steering input to get the kart rotated earlier in the corner and get the wheel straighter sooner in the corner so the kart isn’t being given additional load when it hits the bump.
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As @tjkoyen said, managing rotation is an excellent way of dealing with this problem. However, there doesn’t look like your problem turn has much radius, so you may not have as much rotation adjustment to play with as you would with a tighter turn. If that is the case, another way of managing bump-induced oversteer is to ‘actively’ reduce the amount of lateral work your tires must do as you arrive at the bumps. That is, since you know where the bumps are, and they don’t move, simply reduce your steering input (to neutral, or even to a few degrees of ‘pre-correction’) just as you arrive at the bump, then resume your normal steering to complete the turn. The idea is to look at the big picture of the turn… that you need to average X amount of steering input (or outside tire loading, or slip angle, or however you want to think about it) to make it through the turn flat, so maybe you just need to turn a tiny bit more aggressively on the way in, back off the steering input at the bumps to manage tire loads, and then add a bit more than ‘usual’ steering to finish the turn, so the whole turn averages out to the X amount you need to make the turn.
I dont have weights no, thinking of buying some tbh. Ah ok, I think that’s probably a good shout, I do remember getting thrown around a lot. I know Its going to be flat so I definitely don’t want to back off haha I’ll try bracing myself next time and see how that goes. I’ll try some leaning as well and see how that goes. Out of interest is there something in the setup that can make a kart be like this?
Right guys, I went back to the track. My kart seemed a bit slower than the first time but regardless I think I may have figured something out. I think my vision is wrong, I’m getting too caught up in trying to get a good apex. I think because I’m experimenting all the time with my line in the first turn I’m not looking far enough meaning I turn too late for the point in the track where it’s bumping me. Too much steering too late in the corner? Unsettling me in the kart, making me bounce causing it to unsettle some more.
Not knowing too much about how to drive a rotax, or karting, does this sound like a likely cause?
Rye has a new surface and this is 12 years old but absolute speed through T1 isn’t always that beneficial, especially over race distances if your managing tyres. I was as quick through there as Mike, who is one of the best drivers I’ve ever seen in my life, but it doesn’t amount to overall the best strategy. Key really is good core strength. if you’re not strong enough everything goes out the window really. Throttle control, steering input etc…
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Humans are not particularly good at assessing their own visual fixation strategies, so I wouldn’t worry yourself too much about that at this stage. It’s a rabbit hole you can go down, I’ve done it more than most, but as a newcomer? If I were you I’d go buy a pull up bar, do a ton of l sit pull ups and push ups… and then go from there. Also, make sure you have a properly fitting seat that’s int he right position. I’ve driven karts with the seat in the wrong place and you can get flung about like a rag doll. Trusty me, you can know how to drive a kart and not be in shape and it’s just horrid.
Get the basics right and then go from there is my recommendation.
It can’t hurt to play with that thought a bit. If you suspect you are holding angle too long because you are fixated on making it to the apex, mix it up visually.
Yeah Alan has a point about vision, but try to sight through the apex to the run out, where you want to place kart on exit. Before you turn in, take a moment just prior to look beyond the apex briefly.
For example, once you’ve braked you aren’t looking at the end of the braking zone, you’ve already moved on to sighting the apex. Try some variation of that and see if it helps allow you to unwind from the corner.
without an eye tracker it’s almost impossible to get any reliable analysis or recommendations on eye strategies (studies have shown this). We know eye strategies differ between experts and novices, but it’s very complex and weird. Also it’s not a given that an expert’s eye strategy would be beneficial to a newcomer either. There also be multiple types of eye strategies that vary during the learning process. This is why I am very cautious on the subject.
Of course go down that rabbit hole if it’s your thing, but if you are going to do it, I’d recommend looking at the scientific data and researching it thoroughly.
Seriously, it’s a rabbit hole / burrow worth visiting.
I can relate more or less exactly to what he’s saying. He’s target fixated since he’s new to this and he recognizes it, can feel his self not unwinding and gets stuck at apex.
Turns aren’t a series of separate stages but we approach them like that initially because we have to. It’s human nature when learning to break down a multi-phase task.
We boil it down to:
Here comes the braking, fixate on that braking point.
Hey braking is done. Where’s the apex? Let’s lift off gas and turn in.
Oh I’m at apex, time to unwind and press the gas.
Anyways, each of these steps is momentous in their own right and when new we don’t have them “together” yet. They tend to be discreet actions in our minds at this point.
Vision Is what allows you to get context to your actions, both pre and post an event. Your visual job is to provide your brain with context and information. Your brain is really good at connecting the dots, so give it visual info. Use vision to not get stuck in a tunnel and gather info about what’s coming ahead, place yourself in space and time by observing where you are and where you want to be. Quite simply, keep eyes moving (in a logical way) and paint the picture of the turn ahead.
That turn reminds me of t1 at Genk, amongst others. It’s a pretty good example of a turn that is difficult visually in that it’s is a blind exit at entry. Your apex is invisible from your turn in, kind of. Let us know how you get on.
The fact that you are barking up this particular tree at this point is interesting to me. I struggled with getting behind the kart like this too. But, I didn’t recognize why, at the time. If you are feeling this, you are halfway there, I think.
Exaggerate this:
Approach the turn, sight your braking point, and then immediately shift to view apex. Then turn in. Once you’ve begun the turn in, shift visually to exit out.
Literally try to NOT look at the stage you are in but one ahead. Trust that your brain will have fixated the “mark” you internalized in the previous sighting. Trust it and see what happens when you try to apex not looking at the apex.
Obviously don’t try to do something you aren’t comfortable with in traffic. But try in a quiet few corners. Main point is, be visually active and find your own thing that works for you.
You do have to refer to the present continually. But you need to be doing so with your mind having a picture of how the future is gonna play out. Vision is “on top” of the kart with repeated forward glances.
You could look at this…
But this shows the way home…
Same corner, just one tells me a lot more about where I am and what’s next (and, in a race, whose a threat to my position).
You can’t say this. Not without eye tracking data. Humans aren’t reliable at relaying anecdotally what they did and didn’t fixate on. This is commonly accepted within the eye tracking science sphere. You’re describing your experience but it might not be what actually happened from a visual gaze perspective.
The way we perceive reality is very strange and not necessarily 1 to 1 with what the eye tracker might say. At a very simple level we are effectively blind during an eye saccade but we don’t perceive this ‘blindness’. If we make a big saccadic movement we often over shoot a target and make slight adjustments. Again, we don’t often perceive these things, our brain kinda smooths it all over. So we have these complex interactions within the brain and eye movements. So we should be cautious about using terms that describe eye movement when humans are incredibly unreliable at relaying this actual information .
It’s fun to talk about from a hypothetical standpoint (I co authored a book on it wth one of the world’s leading scientists in this area 
) but not much more without the proper equipment and data to hand.
He did, tho. He feels it. I trust his feelings. If he’s wrong he’s wrong but it’s worth exploring.
I agree that what I think I’m doing and what my eyes are actually doing are perhaps different. But, I have been here, a lot, and it sounds to me like he’s behind the kart which makes sense given his relative newness (2nd time out).
I don’t trust people’s feelings Human recall can be full of bias.
I am cautioning against the use scientific language without qualification. You feel you fixate when you recall the driving experience. Whether you actually did or not from a gaze perspective remains to be seen. Not saying it shouldn’t be discussed, but this subject should be treated with the appropriate level of skepticism.
I’ve driven round Rye pretty fast and I can’t tell you where I look or fixate.
I am curious why this area seems so fraught to you. What is the risk I am not considering? Not being fight-y just curious as to why you consistently push back on this. For me, understanding how vision and driving play together was a big step forwards.
Of course. How many laps? I mean I can drive any of the Kartkraft track without looking past the front bumper I know those tracks so darn well. Literally. I could drive a solid lap with only a top down birds eye view.
because it’s anecdotal. Anecdotes and science don’t mesh very well.
I don’t mind it being discussed, but when someone says “I fixate here and there” when I know humans are generally unreliable at relaying their own gaze strategies I am going to state it. It’s the equivalent of someone saying “I went quicker in the next session when I changed my braking” when they don’t have anything collecting lap times or data.
I push back on the use of scientific terminology based upon anecdotes, especially with regard to gaze. Eye strategies can only be analysed and discussed reliably if you have the actual data and equipment.
I am stating I don’t know where I look, not that I am experienced enough to drive blind or something similar. I don’t know what my eye strategy is. I just can’t relay to anyone what I fixate on, where my eye moves… anything like that. I am a human, and thus not reliable from that perspective. Those things I’d need a eye tracker for.
I did one test in 1995 when I started karting. the time I went out with Mike was my second time at the track and my first or second session when I did the lap I analysed. For whatever reason I gel quite well with that track when I am in the mood.
Well I think I understand. I would offer that while you have no idea of your “marks” you drive to where you are going, your exit. I guess that’s what ultimately matters is that he understands to not get overwhelmed by the present.
Iirc Warren you and TJ were discussions how, past a certain point of experience/comfort we no longer use specific markers. We are in a different place where we have years of experience and know how the kart will behave/what we can do. We “trust” the kart and ourselves because we know from countless laps what’s gonna play out (mostly) ahead of time, from the moment you take the set.
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