I spent a fair amount of lapping in the regular speed 3 sessions at supercharged of late. I took Nick twice and then went once by myself. In this heat I manage to put down a decent lap despite the crowd. Thats the challenge!
It’s sort of an odd thing to do in that it is slow at speed 3. A competent racer will know the line and inputs and be able to run the track flat out, no lift.
So, why bother?
Well, it can be fun. There’s a lot of enjoyment to be had out of trying to navigate the traffic, especially since so many of the karts are completely new to this. There’s a whole lot of “hmmm, how should I go around? Outside? Inside? Push?”. It’s not obvious as the new drivers will do wildly unpredictable things. Tj’s teachings about traffic have come in handy here and these public sessions reward wise decisions.
It’s a bit like when I go out and drive my regular car with intent. I know I can’t drive the 911 at the speeds I’d like so instead I focus on feeling the drive, imagining the complex play out, driving it out as you would, but doing this slowly, inferring the act as opposed to completing it. It’s useful and develops sensitivity and understanding.
The speed 3 rentals are similar. The karts are slow but the track is good. There is much to be learned even at speed 3. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than nothing. You learn things trying things you can’t experiment with during time trial heats. It’s still worth doing, these weird pub sessions, from time to time.
Here’s some onboard from the NCMP club race (KRA) on Saturday. Clutch cable failure meant that I had to start behind the field do a rolling start…still had fun out there.
Hey Evan, I just saw this video for the first time. My name is Paul, I’m the driver in the 507 kart, blue suit, I owe you an apology. It looks like I kept you out of a very winnable battle for second. I didn’t know you were behind me until you gave me a bit of a love tap. Has there ever been any talk of breaking the shifter class into A and B classes and running them separately. I think this would help grow the shifter class among drivers that will never be as fast as pro level drivers. I’m looking forward to hearing what other people think about this situation.
Hey Paul! It’s all good here. I don’t see a need to split it up with this just being a club race. We’re lucky to have some really fast drivers, but ultimately everyone is running their own race, and my race isn’t any more/less important than yours is. At a club race with limited corner workers it can be tough for the officials to adequately signal when faster traffic may be approaching. In that scenario the driver behind (me in this case) is responsible for responsibly overtaking the driver in front…pretty simple. Even if this instance was a slight net negative to me, I’m not sure I would have been able to catch and overtake P2 in the event we had zero lap traffic. Sometimes lap traffic can work in one’s favor, other times it can be the other way around…it’s just the way it goes. This track layout also created some funky areas where it was more difficult to pass. I was trying to do so without forcing the issue TOO much
Anyways, seriously no harm. If anything good on you for running your line. I’ve seen times when a driver tries to move to another line and the faster driver isn’t expecting it, which creates an issue. Happy we all stayed on track, and hope you had fun out there. See you this weekend?
Thanks for weighing in. I have always felt very welcomed on the track by all of the shifter drivers anywhere I have raced. This was also my son’s second kart race ever and he is a bit nervous about getting lapped by the leaders. I’m grateful to be on the track with my son and thanks for the high level of respect we received. He is gaining pace fast and with just a little more seat time he will have no problem staying on the lead lap and competing with the leaders.
This was on a Hero Session. It’s the only GoPro I have that doesn’t shut off randomly or fail to record. Mounted on a $30 Ram Mount from Amazon, similar to the Odenthal mount but at an eighth of the price… has been rock solid so far.
The racing was pretty hectic with this level of competition, this many karts, and this tight of a track. And with the grip level this high, I felt like I was in fast forward.
Aha. So the sessions seem to be a good form factor for odenthal/rad mounting. I wonder if the newer sessions have similar banding issues. Note the front tire ghosting. Is this a session 4 or newer?
Yeah about right, I maybe was good a bit earlier but I was getting shoved and people kept peeking noses in so I had to fight a few people off before we could get settled and start going forward.
One of the hard parts of this level of racing is you almost never get into a rhythm when you’re in the pack like this. There is zero patience and no cooperation
