That’d be ‘willingness’ to share I guess.
I really enjoyed reading this thread as it progressed and even practiced some of the hand position suggestions in last weekend’s race. I was somewhere close to 8 and 4, but moved them up to 9 and 3 to find a little more control of the kart. Needed a little extra input, I felt, but it was neat trying out the different positions for myself to see what all the talk was about them on this post.
One thing I’m curious about, since I’m taller than most, is my knees. The kart isn’t long enough for me to get my legs all the way down, so my knees stick up and out a bit through corners. Should I be consciously trying to keep my knees tight against the fuel tank or can I let them flair out as I corner (as I have been doing)? There’s not much more room for me as the kart already has an extended porch and the pedals are practically touching the frame.
Pic for reference:
The biggest problem with long legs is often drivers ride the brake without knowing it at all…I’ve also had a driver who was causing carb problems where his legs obstructed the air inlet!
It is probably worth trying to keep your legs in check consciously, until it becomes habit.
I find the same issue, and I’ve never noticed an issue with allowing my legs to flair a little. I rotated the airbox a tiny bit to make sure I’m not covering it, but nothing else.
Like Terence said, just make sure you aren’t riding the brake at all.
In my last weekend of race ( etown) I tried to use my body for the entire weekend and I ended up physically destroyed but very fast in KZ , 5th on 28 kz. See the picture
Well, that seems like a success to me!
Outside lean mostly? Driving with shoulders? Pushing yourself into the seat?
outside lean… at the end of the final I was very very tired…
I put an open top wheel on my Sons kart and he’s gravitated to driving with his right hand like this. Bad form but he seems to do well with it. No matter how many times I say it’s not correct he says I know. I’m about ready to put a round wheel back on it…
I feel like he’d lack more control going right than left with his hand like that…
When in a straight line and in lefts, he drops his right hand to a normal 2ish position but for some reason in rights he’s up there milking cows LOL. Left hand is at 10 and is fairly steady.
We had some damp conditions last night. I tried using quite a bit of body English for the first time (until I got my seat where it is nothing I did ever helped) and was surprised to find that when I found a rhythm and how to work with the kart how effective it was in getting grip out of the kart.
Fixed the issue. Put on a flat top wheel. Now he has to drive it correctly.
Have you got so much lock that with the ackerman the inside wheel starts turning back in again (negative tow baby)?
Extremely helpful and will implement routinely.
Was thinking about this today, found this old school picture. At least in my small bubble in SoCal at the time, Garrison Masters was (and IMO continues to be) one of the most talented karting drivers I’ve ever seen.
The photo doesn’t do it as much justice as when you would watch him on track, but he tended to lounge in the kart and almost appear to look upward towards the sky rather than forward. He later began to sit upright as he got really tall, but for years he drove like this and was always ridiculously fast. Just goes to show it can be done a bunch of different ways.
In the UK at the turn of the century (man that makes it sound a long time ago) that was a very popular driving style. The “Sunday Drive” style works really well, i think it holds you back from over driving it.
There’s a cadet driver, Brent Crews, that always looks strange to be in the kart. He always has this appearance of being thrown around in the kart but he’s a very good driver, he’ll be running the IAME International Final this weekend actually.
The picture doesn’t show it well, but the kid always looks like he’s getting tired in the kart.
His head almost fell off at Autobahn. To be fair, so did mine… But yeah pretty common to see little kids get a bit bobbleheaded on hot days or tough tracks.