The karts were not as fast as these:
@speedcraft if I’m not mistaken, this is the race you told me about where people brains and eyes got messed up by the extreme forces.
5.5G for 2/3 of the lap
Swedish nationals will be held at this track Very fast and difficult to choose gearing to have a top speed of around 120kmh to 130kmh and not be boggy out of turns, Laptime is around 51 sec
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Yes, but they were not just having their perception getting messed up; they were experiencing full on ’ g-LOC’ (g-force induced loss of consciousness). Guys were crashing, and then not remembering the crash, or the moments leading up to the crash… they just found themselves sliding down the track or sitting in a destroyed car, and they were thinking, “this is not my beautiful car”, and they were wondering “how did I get here?”
Scary stuff at 200+ MPH
Yeah. So the testing all went fine. Everyone seemed ok at around 225mph. Then race day rolls around and they are doing 235.
One of the drivers mentioned to the doc, “oh by the way”… I couldn’t walk for 5 minutes after gettting out of the car. An impromptu survey of the drivers was done and it turns out the majority of them were severely compromised balanced/perception wise.
I imagine with TV involved, cancelling a race is a huge deal.
Yeah the tyres that club 100 run are pretty hard, definitely not on the level of Mojos.
Not too sure about the power… I think it probably is the junior unrestricted, the karts are pretty heavy though. They run at about the same pace as a Honda Cadet
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Yeah, Club 100 runs the junior configuration of the Rotax. It’s a shame that United Karting uses the Mini Max instead of the Junior Max, especially if they’re going to make you “qualify” to use the karts. It feels just a little too slow, it shouldn’t be slower than 206 in my opinion
Hehe. I think it’s also quite kart dependent. My first kart heat was in the slow one and it wasn’t much different than a rental. The 2nd heat I got the rocket.
It was a 18 lap final and I did feel the 2stroke/tire burn. It was much faster and felt like it was quite a bit more powerful than the Honda gx390 speedy carts at OKC. Maybe not in top speed but in terms of acceleration and traffic stuff. Much more responsive.
fun stuff. It’s like a freeway at rush hour if everyone was a sociopath.
I too had a similar far back start and had all sorts of fun banging bumpers. Unfortunately we only had 8 karts so I only had a couple laps of passing before it turned into pounding laps.
Oh hey these rotaxes are hilarious. If you bury the throttle (low speed corner) it farts. And then keeps on farting until you pulse the throttle. I was x30 guy so this is new to me. I have heard of this but it’s a new experience for me.
@GP_00ley26 whats the policy if your kart craps out? You aren’t getting the value and your points get screwed. Do you at least get a discount in next race? Since our race was unserious, the answer to me getting the disaster kart for heat 1 was for the race director to give me the zoom one and start me in back for final. It was appreciated and my ego was saved. I suppose that would cause a riot in England though as that’s a big series with lots of serious drivers wanting to win.
A vid where I get to watch myself for a change
A pal shared this with me. It’s really neat to see footage of yourself driving. We move surprisingly little. I think Brandon had more skill/kart than me by a hair and decided to work with me for a while. Eventually I open the door too wide and he takes his leave. I pass him back and we do it again. Good fun and we pounded out laps.
Xander shows us how it’s made:
Shifter is so difficult 
Looking pretty smooth.
The Battle of Baltimore
Had a racing double header at United Karting. We did the TKC rental race in the mini-rotax karts at noon and then had the regular rental league race at 6.
I had to qualify to drive the red karts, which involves proving your competence by landing a 54s lap on the regular blue rentals. Now this may not seem nerve-wracking but remember that last time I was here, I had some slow karts and I was worried I’d get one of those. As it turns out, I sort of did. My first lap was a 55, but my tires came in and I was able to wrest a 53.X by midway and once again on lap 9. Oof, relief!
We then went out for a practice session in the fast karts. I gingerly ventured out and got acclimated a bit with Red. The red karts have much better acceleration and the tires are softer, making for a different experience.
The first race heat was a bit of a disaster. I was put in a terrible kart and found myself on pole for heat 1 due to reverse grid quali. After screwing up the approach twice (I forgot about tram lines) I eventually get us sent into 1, whereupon, I immediately get punted and swamped since my kart can’t rev up at all. Oops. I then forlornly lap alone, and in the back, for the remainder of the race.
In heat two I get to display my hidden talents as I am given the rocket kart. I am gridded last again and content with this turn of even with a fast kart, starting from the back should be fun. The kart did not disappoint. So much fun and very quick!
One thing to note is that they were indeed a step-up, endurance wise. The effort involved was definitely reminiscent of racing a tag100 kart as opposed to lo206 or rentals. I phoned in the last 3 laps, slightly, as I was getting tired and feeling the burn.
The kart had mid range power and a nice top end. The one wierd thing is how the rotax hates it when you put your foot down in slow corners. The engine sort of gets stuck at low rpm and you have to blip the throttle to get it to rev out again.
The race involved me clearing the field and chasing after 1, who took off like a rocket, immediately. I battle my way through, with plenty of power on tap. Ben, however, was long gone! Awesome race and would definitely race these karts again.
We then went and for some burrito bowls and came back to race the league. Alec won and I got 4th. Once again, I start from back in race, but this time I have kart 11, which is a good kart.
We had a larger field in the league race so we had an entertaining battle clearing the back 8 karts. I had one particular chase down that was challenging with kart 47, most enjoyable.
In the end I was not able to close the gap to the leaders. The first 3 were persistently 2 turns ahead and I closed out the race peacefully in 4th.
All in all a really fun double-header day!
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Looking pretty good here! Your gearing is maybe a bit short though.
Yeah, I’m gonna go down (1.50 to 1.44) and hopefully that’ll get me right where I need to be.
Still almost 2 seconds off though, ugh.
Supercharged: welcome to the future of rental karting
I have to say, Suoercharged is impressively big, shiny, and new. The karts are very nice Rimo electrics that make zoom noises through speakers. They are peppy and handle well, a good fleet.
The track is a gorgeous modern thing; it swoops up and around a dark chamber (more on that later) which reminds me a bit of the old space mountain ride. It’s very technical and very fun and would be an absolute hoot to race on.
The facility is new and seems nice. There’s also a really nice driving range in the complex. It’s conveniently located in Edison, which is close to the city, kinda. It’s a busy place.
Now for the bad news. It’s got issues (in its present form as I experienced it). Why?
- It’s too successful. I went on Tuesday at 6pm, not when you’d think it would be super busy. In fact they were running 5 bays of 7 karts, constantly while I was there. It was an assembly line.
This means that their procedure is annoying as heck. You get called into a room and wait 10 minutes as they read you the rules and give you a helmet. Then, you are told to enter the pit area where you wait in line for another 10 minutes. Then after the prior group comes in, you get in your karts and wait another 10 minutes for the group that was just released to come in. Then, finally, you go.
So, it’s a long ass time waiting to get on the ride at Disney, basically.
The karting is the next disappointing bit. While the facilities and equipment are fantastic, they run the karts at speed 3.This kills it as a place to go karting for racers. It will make you frustrated. The track is hilariously twisty and has a boatload of elevation changes. With the torque of the electrics, it’s a hoot. But, it’s toned down so that just as you start to feel the power come in, it hits a limiter.
The corkscrews and the like make it rather technical and even at speed 3, you can have moments in the corners. But between the corners, the kart gives you nothing, nada, zilch. So it’s kind of flat out, with the ability to take corners flat out since you have more grip than power.
I get why they do it. The clientele is an amusement clientele. It’s tricky enough at speed 3 for most. But, Oh, the potential! Give us more power!
My final gripe is the lighting. They made a big box, painted it black, and then put a black track in it. Cmon guys. We need disco lights, color, fun. Give us Versailles crossed with Spa, not Panera at the mall.
Anyhoo, that is my report. Final note, one of the sessions had a large group of ladies in their 40’s and 50s (I think) that traveled as a pack and were out for blood. It was nice to see.
Canned engine noises on E-karts
- I approve
- I disapprove
- I am hard of hearing and don’t care
0 voters
Curious how folks feel about it. As an idea, I hate it. In practice, I kind of love it. The engine noises at supercharged on the Rimos is less revvy than Andretti but does a good job of communicating power delivery down low. The noises are accurate to kart bogging, etc.
Content is King (obviously)
In the last few weeks as I have started back up karting again and posting new vids, my views have grown pretty significantly.
8.5k views (up 6.7k versus prior month)
110 watch hours (up from 20.6 prior month)
Added 15 subs (up to 215)
It’s like a game, this YouTube stuff. The objective, I guess, is to get to 1k subs, which is where you can “monetize” your content.
If I wanted to do that, I would focus on “shorts” which are IG style short videos in vertical format. These get pushed dramatically by the algo, and get you out there better than long-form videos for eyeball purposes.
Ryan shows us his magic slippers
