A quote from Nik that I now understand:
I have been playing a lot with the idea of being aware of the stresses being put on the tires and chassis and am driving differently now. I am deliberately paying attention to rubber, particularly the loaded tire.
Gentle is always king. There is a lot of subtlety to a turn and the grip matters in how you put down power. Gentle also makes the race easy. In the absence of self-induced tension, karting is much less physical.
I know it sounds wierd but sim is the perfect place to play with this. You can drive into walls while trying to hold the angle “just so”. No harm done. Reset to track.
The challenge is beating the desire to chase laptimes out of you. I have yet to figure out how to let the laptimes come, however.
@Alan_Dove In some sports, yes. In running the last mile was about the vomit comet. Push yourself till you feel like your heart will explode and then vomit from effort once crossed the finish line. It was mental, mostly, given a baseline of being able to run a mile in X minutes.But in karting it’s not physical pain that we have to overcome. At least, once kart fit, which takes folks a bit.
The “pain” is mental. It’s insecurity about our abilities and the like. It’s about trying to believe that you got this, over and over again. Failing that, it’s about pounding repetition into your brain/body to compensate for an inability to “let go” and drive naturally/effortlessly. I am capable of much more than I allow myself to be. I suspect that is the case with most of us.