Thanks Bob. I tend to be a pretty low key person in general, but yeah I would say I am pretty much that level of calm when racing too.
I try to emphasize to my drivers and to myself to “drive with your brain, not your heart”,
90% of the time. There’s a time and place you need to drive your heart out, but for me at least, I tend to drive very thoughtfully rather than emotionally, and to do that you sort of need to keep a pretty calm and even mindset.
It comes with experience too. I used to get pretty amped up when I was younger but over the years it sort of becomes routine and it’s easier to stay calm.
Wow… It seems you are just a solid second a lap faster than most of these guys. I always have problems with thinking ahead for passes, which can keep me behind slower people. Good to hear that im not the only one who sucks at qualifying! (it does make for some fun racing) only advice for the video is maybe make your head box smaller and move it to the bottom where nothing is happening. Subscribed!
In my brief 6 years of karting, I have noticed this as well. The whole experience has gotten calmer and generally more thoughtful. I’m much less inclined to drive with emotion on track in real life races. This is within the past year or so. So I’d say my first year of racing was totally dominated by emotion and it just got progressively more chill.
The biggest change was dropping back down to rentals. At the lower speeds, I have caught myself daydreaming mid race and driving into the grass.
Now if we could just figure that out in sim, we’d be all set.
I was one of the faster karts in that race, but only a few tenths on most guys. It just shows how quickly you can close or open gaps when there is a pack fighting, or if you get some draft to help you.
Being a bad qualifier definitely teaches you a lot of lessons. You learn how to stay out of crashes and how to negotiate traffic. But it doesn’t net you many trophies and it can make for an absolutely brutal weekend at some of these higher end races. I wouldn’t recommend it
I would agree Dom, the more I have raced the less emotional I have become, I remember my first year (4 years ago) not really battling guys, thinking to some degree I didn’t belong where I was. As, I have gotten better and more competitive that has gone away and as my video from a few weeks ago shows, I’m over that. As for the daydreaming part, not sure about that, even rental karts get my attention.
Off season I spend time riding my bike indoors and will watch videos to pass the time. I recently came across these 2 videos on YouTube that kind of make TJ’s point that your either moving forward (video 1) or falling back (video 2). Whats interesting to me is, even though they are both running KA, how much “zingier” the motor sounds in video 1, I am guessing a combination of tune and gearing, but also how much more corner speed this driver has. The second video is painful to watch, the guy makes a good start, negotiates the wreck but just slowly falls backwards.
I think the difference in engine sound is down to the cameras being different. Geringer’s camera (video 1) appears to be an older model, hence the lower visual quality.
I make a cameo in both videos, I get passed at 1:32 in video 1 and I pass at 17:02 in video 2.
I don’t even remember what happened at last year’s SuperNats… But in video 2 I had just passed for P4 in that final and then got mounted by one of the Aussie drivers, so I fell back to last and had to come back through. Had 2nd quickest lap.
Prefinal from another double header weekend at GoPro. Most races were some early fun in traffic proceeded by some elbows out driving keeping the pack behind me. Kart and driving felt much better this weekend. Still struggling to get onto the front straight. Feel like I need to back up the final corner perhaps, reviewing footage I seem to be breaking later than others. Also noticed my tendency to start an early turn in, hold it then, finish turning in. Quite obvious in the early laps with the pack getting into the left hand Turn 6 after the chicane. Thoughts? Thanks y’all!
The pass at 1:27 in first video makes me happy. And a double pass same spot at 3:40 ish.
5:30-5:50 nice defense. He regains both spots simply by letting them do their thing and positioning well. Better exits.
Oh boy… Well I went harder axle, moved the engine back for more rear weight, more caster, more negative camber, and the worked on the loose nut behind the wheel!
Consistently a bit faster. Hard to judge against faster reference laps as it was a coold morning, warm afternoon, and back to cooler night. So making tweaks through the day and made some that took me the wrong direction. Think I have the handling to a close enough place where now it’s about driving and fine tune from there. #1 in the video is Tim Shutt who is the dealer for Compkart and quite the wheelman, so I plan on doing some training days in the following weeks with him before weather gets too cold here.
Thanks! Relative to the group of guys a was running with I was quickest through the Turn 4 which I really struggled with before and the rest of the infield, but lost time on the straights. All while running pretty tall gearing so get the last and first turn sorted then I should be with the next pack.
Now if I could ever learn how to qualify and start up front that would help too. I’ll just stick with that I like the challenge of making a bunch of passes. Running up front alone like Lewis Hamilton is boring.
I’ll let you know If I ever figure out quali. There’s some black magic there that I have yet to be shown. Glad to hear you aren’t losing half a sec in turn 4 anymore! That was insurmountable. This is why I don’t tune (also I am lazy). With proper gearing, sounds like you are back in business.
Oh hey, I was just watching a vid of a new guy doing TAG heavy at gopro. He was showing signs of the same malady in that one turn, but not quite as severe (since he’s slower). Might be a turn that requires a very low peak speed or an early brake/early to throttle thing.
To me it looks like you’re holding too much brake pressure too long. Maybe also too much initial turn in front grip. It looks like as soon as you try to turn in the rear just wants to carry. I would narrow the front and work on backing your braking up so you don’t have to carry as much brake pressure at the turn in point. If you haven’t watched Norberg’s video on braking yet it will help visualize what I’m trying to describe.
Now let’s go catch Tim.
Running up front alone like Lewis Hamilton is boring.