The BestKart guys seemed happy with the setup work we did, so there was talk of further collaboration here in the States.
While the result was bad, it was encouraging to have Tommaso of BestKart defer to me for setup opinions and suggestions most of the weekend. I felt like my input was valued and he trusted my knowledge. After my primary chassis died, I knew I was basically done so I tried to help Adakonis with a couple driving things and tried to offer my setup help each session.
Quick question TJ is your go to tuning adjustment ackermann when you need better turn in vs toe-ing out the front?
My normal tuning adjustment would be increasing caster or widening the front, but those were too fine of adjustments for the amount of understeer we had.
I think the kart’s baseline should be with the tie rods in one of the lower positions on the steering shaft. The front end was pretty numb and light before we did that.
Good to hear that your feedback was valued, nice if you get a chance to do some more development and hopefully get some results for your effort
Here’s my on-board from heat 3.
Oooo. The bit where you run that guy down the long bit and then send it around 2:27 was niiice. Really nice footage and driving.
Good racing! Talk about a slow tentative start so tough to be aggressive in those starts and not end up a fatality. Speaking in general not that you were slow. 
Watching the footage as it rolls in the track layout seems pretty lame. You only had two sharp 180* lefts and very similar right/left to left/right combo. Tad uninspired. Looking back at onboards from ROK this year there was at least some diversity in the turns.
Was it 993 that took you out? Because if so, that’s literally the same guy that punted me at SummerNats XD
Nice driving by you.
It was a great video but like you, I thought the track layout was lame. Would be nice to see this event at a kart specific track with kerbs and runoff areas instead of the plastic barriers!
No, the 993 was under my tent actually, nice dude haha.
It was one of the RPG karts that got me, not sure who.
Definitely don’t want it at a permanent track, sort of takes some of the magic away and offers up home-track advantage to a lot of people. The temp track makes it interesting and fair for all. Just wish the layout was more technical and flowing like previous SuperNats tracks. I really enjoyed the layouts at the Rio. This one was pretty boring and poorly thought out in my mind.
This comes up a lot. One of the reasons it’s not hosted at existing tracks is that there are very few that have a paddock large enough to hold 500+ drivers with their teams. The second challenge is finding accommodation for those people and their families. Vegas offers this.
The supernats is meant to be special. The temporary nature of the track and being in Vegas makes it unique. The barriers and temp layout are a great leveler too.
On the layout it’s hard to do much with a rectangular shaped lot. You always end up with long straights and/or wiggly sections with little room for passing.
The ROK layout definitely looked better to drive but there were a lot of pileups on the start and wrecks/flips. In general I thought supernats was a lot cleaner especially on the starts and last couple laps.
Very understandable 
Didn’t realize the entry list was that big! I guess being from the UK originally I’m more use to permanent tracks for big events. I will have to go out to Vegas one year to spectate, I only live 3hrs away. I should have gone this year to meet and cheer on TJ!
Just out of curiousity. Why is it that NJMP is never used for huge races?
It’s got mega space for all the teams in the huge open area between the kart track and the two adjoining car tracks.
The track itself is “pro” length in its full configuration and is CIK/FIA spec I believe,
From my experience with NJMP, I know a lot of people who would never go back there after the Stars event last year, me included. Management was terrible and the entire event was a headache which was no fault of the Stars team.
In regards to the layout, SKUSA was probably thrown a curveball with the location change from the Rio. I’m not sure what the whole space available looked like, but I’m not sure what else was really feasible in the area they had for the track. Maybe something different, probably not something better.
I like the temporary track aspect. No home track advantage, adds some variety. It also means you have to be perfect every lap, so the best drivers really do show in Vegas
Karting started in parking lots, so it’s fitting the biggest kart race in the world should be in one. I have zero issue with it. It would just be a boring standard race no one watches if it was at a permanent facility.
For as much grumbling as there was about this years layout, it sure provided good races in pretty much all of the finals. There were only a couple classes where the leader had a gap and the rest all came down to the wire.
@tjkoyen how did your engine perform with the long straight? Did you have cooling issues and/or did you do anything extra for the this?
No issues, I just threw more gear at it and and it felt fine. We were hitting 18,500 RPM on the straight. Definitely going in for a rebuild though now…
There were a couple KA seizures but overall they coped fine at those RPMs for that length of time.
A bit worrisome to hear that 18k scream the first few times. In the first practice I was choking the airbox into the braking zone like Pantano because I was scared… but once I realized it was fine it was pretty awesome.
