Racing @ OVRP on 7/1 for the first time, an7yinsight for track nuances? I’ll take a day off during the week to turn laps.
It’s an unusual track and lots of fun. I can’t help with specific gearing, alas, but I’m sure someone here can. The track features a very tight radius hairpin that makes it interesting, from a gearing perspective, as there is also a long back straight.
Luckily 6 speeds help cover some of the shortcomings of less-than-optimal countershaft and axle gearing. Looks like a fun course, I am guessing it is smoother than E-town.
It is. It’s an actual track! That being said it’s known for its funky t1 braking zone. It has some ripples which must be fun when banging down from 6th to 2nd.
It’s other unique feature is the corkscrew type turn onto s/f straight.
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I’ll let you know after 7/1 
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Here’s some still shots I took to get you stoked and maybe see some angles you won’t normally when driving:
Look at the rubber going into t1 for what I mean about ripply braking zone.
Enjoy the race and send it hardest.
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Now would be good.
@AndreLafond and @E13
It’s funny that you guys had the same conditions Nick and I got last year for the race. Since we are mainly rental guys these days, it’s special thing for us to get to ride in rain because they usually just cancel rental rain races.
Anyways, 3 hours of trying to wrestle a rental kart in the rain is unbelievably good learning. I am no Tanguy in the rain, but each time I get the opportunity to kart in the wet, I learn more!
I am bummed I was not able to come and slip around too!
Thank you for posting my videos! I have fun making them so I’m glad at least someone enjoys them.
I use adobe premier pro, which is paid software, but I could have made what I made in something as simple as the built in windows movie maker, or whatever they call it these days. I think its just video editor? Its free and should already be on your computer.
I had a blast with @E13 and @AndreLafond last weekend. I never raced in the rain before so I learned a lot from them. I’m glad they were willing to have me along. As you can see from the video, I definitely messed up a few times but that’s learning.
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Welcome and thanks for being a part of 3 Men and a Margay.Great video btw, very entertaining. You have talent!
For some reason the metal track made me think of this:
It was good fun, sad you couldn’t make it.
The rain was pretty wild, you’d just turn in all the way and wait for it to grip up, which it would pretty quickly once it got off the rubber. You could feel the steering get heavy and the kart start rotating. The weird thing with our last kart was it wouldn’t grip up, instead of the sudden understeer to grip on the previous karts, this one would continue to push forward unhappily.
Another part of the track was INCREDIBLY slippery, as in, 10% throttle would give you wheel spin slippery
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I realized after the fact that we probably should have just loaded all the weights into the kart and see if that helped or not
Interesting idea. Also, if you took all the weights everyone else would get penalized for running under weight. Genius.
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Had another great day at the track last weekend. Slightly different layout than I had driven before (turns 3,4 and 5) but felt like I took to it fairly quickly. The biggest thing is that I managed to finally figure out my kart’s balance. Without snipers (I have some on the way now), I had been setting the front end alignment and toe with toe plates. These work okay but they are not very precise. But, I finally managed to get it right and boy, did I have WAY more mid corner and exit grip! I had been dealing with snap oversteer issues where I would just constantly loose the rear end in the mid and exit of a corner. After playing around with just about every setup change, I narrowed the issue down to my steering not being aligned left to right. I re-did the alignment and measured everything 1,000 times and it paid off.
The main driving technique I was working on was my braking. Or rather, coming off the brake into the corners. I realized I was getting a bad habit of releasing the brake abruptly going into corners instead of easing off. That was upsetting the kart and probably contributing to my issues. After watching the Norberg video of his feet, I realized that he was trail braking into most corners. Ironically, the RPG team was here in the morning practicing for the Beaver Cup and Norberg was there driving which was neat! Turn 1 is a heavy braking zone with a tough, slightly less less than 90 degree corner with a tight exit. I felt way more in control on corner entry and could really feel the bite point of the tires. Because I was not just braking hard, coming off completely and hoping my corner speed was correct, I felt way more confident through the corners because I could modulate my speed via the trail braking. I ended up being able to carry way more speed into the corner, brake later and not upset the kart on corner exit as much. Felt like a breakthrough day!
On the flip side, after 6 sessions and way more grip, my left ribs were killing me. I wear a Bengio but being 6’2", a lot of my torso is out of the seat. My standard Greyhound seat isnt very deep and where it curved inward, it puts a ton of pressure on the front of my lower ribcage. I think the seat is just a bit too small but also, I am going to see if switching to a NEK style seat will help alleviate the pain. Thankfully, I couldnt race sunday anyway because there was no way I could have raced if I wanted to I was in so much pain the next day.
Let me know if you have any tips or comments on my driving!
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You could also look at those top of seat extender things. Raise the seat edge a bit higher.
Sounds like you found a major step up. Congrats!
I think those extenders would be good if the seat wasnt too small. Just sitting in the seat puts quite a bit of pressure on my lower ribcage through my Bengio. I am going to try a different seat whether that is a NEK or just a larger standard seat. I’m going to go into the shop next week and sit in a few different ones that they have there. What is nice is that I am roughly the same weight and height as the guy who owns the shop so he offered to have me sit in a few of his karts with different seats.
Yesterday we drove at a very small track Located in Gislaved where the famous Jocke Ward started his team Ward Racing in.
Very small track, 31.3s was my fastest of the day. The bumpiest track I have ever driven on, very technical and unforgiving. But it still was fun, quite bruised up today😂
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KA100 Sr onboard from OVKA Race #3 last weekend. Heat Race on G&J Kartway (config. C)
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No you were fine haha, I was referring to the backmarkers. What computer do you have? If you have windows, then the one that comes on it is solid and I use it. Mac probably has a decent one too.
Davinci Resolve is what I use. It is free and crazy powerful. For simple highlight reels, cutting and trimming, it is pretty easy to figure out. There are a lot of youtube videos out there to help too. It is very nice!
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