Ahh ok Miggins... thanks for the input guys I will make the win count for you. Brilliant how when we put F1 aside, we become more human.
Outside wheels ! This may be counter-intuitive, particularly to a motorcyclist. The idea is to get more weight over the wheels which already have more grip. Outside wheels make the biggest contribution to cornering, so give them even more weight than centrifugal force and you'll get even better traction! Having said this, it only really becomes important at a relatively advanced level. If it is your first time EMSC, stay out of other people's way and don't be too ambitious. Watch out for the loonies as well. And best of luck. How about giving us a little report after the event? First hand, authentic experiences are always great to read, regardless of successes and failures. I hope you have a great day and a hell of a lot of fun. ©
That sounds so bizarre! (Although I trust it to be true). One would have thought that although the natural weight is swung onto the outside wheels, placing your weight on the inside wheels would mean that the grip would be more evenly distributed, 4 contact patches being better than 2. Would you mind elaborating Cosi?
Indoor track or outdoor track? I've only ever been to indoor tracks because my uncle runs his own facility. Was constantly told not to have accelerator and brake on at the same time even though when I was going my foot was just resting on the brakes and they knew straight away lol.
Well after qualifying 4th after 66 laps I finished 2nd by a 2.0 second margin from the leader. My forearms kill after the twitching kart gave me hell, people spinning out everywhere that couldn't correct the twitches out of the corner. Yellow flags... people being sin binned. But it was absolutely fantastic. Thanks for the help guys, it paid off.
Cool, congrats! People do tend to struggle going from normal cars that are essentially designed to understeer to go karts which are very positive and are quite happy to let their back go. Whens the rematch
Well done EMSC. That's an impressive performance for your first time. Very well done indeed. By all means Westy. What is required is to recognise how grip is achieved, and that trying to keep it evenly distributed between the wheels in the manner you describe is fighting against nature, which prevents the important tyres reaching their maximum performance. I'll now say the same thing in two ways: A tyre offers more grip when there is more downward pressure upon it. When a tyre has less weight acting down upon it, it is far more likely to lose traction. Now ask yourself which of your front wheels you'd least want to lock when cornering. I sincerely hope you'll say 'inside' because it is not doing much work anyway: in fact, in comparison to the outer wheel, it is contributing very little to overcome the inertia of the vehicle (centrifugal force). When any four wheeled vehicle corners, centrifugal force has the effect of altering the weight distribution by increasing the downward pressure (weight) on the outside wheels (thus 'loading' them) and decreasing the weight on the inside wheels (unloading them by exactly the same amount). This means that the outer wheels are making the biggest contribution to cornering by resisting centrifugal force - which would otherwise follow the straight line demanded by its own inertia. Recognising which of the four wheels is doing most of the work, a driver can 'help' it do even more work by altering the position of his/her body, such that it goes even further over that wheel! - - - The following explanation will also shed light on why there is such demand upon one's forearms. Let us imagine the 'perfect' karting technique on a flat surface, for a left turn⦠Braking Ideally, a kart driver will lean forward when braking towards the turn, thus increasing the weight acting upon the front wheels - which are already more loaded than the rear - in order to increase their grip. He should allow his body to move forwards toward the steering wheel, and not resist being thrown forwards during braking. Steering As steering begins, centrifugal force throws the driver 'outwards' (relative to the vehicle which is turning beneath him). If the driver is still braking (incidentally, this is the 'trail braking' I spoke of recently), body-weight will tend to go towards the front right wheel. A driver should not try to resist being thrown 'outwards', except by hanging on to the steering wheel! Powering out The rear tyres become more important during acceleration (of a rear-wheel drive vehicle). Power is progressively increased from the point where maximum weight transfer occurs (usually just before the apex of the corner). It should be apparent that at this point, both of the outside wheels are under an identical load, (occurring at the transition from braking to acceleration). When accelerating, a driver's weight is thrown backwards - toward the rear wheels - and if he/she is still cornering, it will also still be 'outwards'. Once again, a kart driver should allow body-weight to be thrown backwards over the important wheel - the one now doing most of the work at the rear. So, a driver should not resist this tendency to be thrown about! (But hanging onto the wheel whilst this happens makes considerable demand upon one's forearms!) ©
Thanks...they struggled quite a lot, nearly a yellow flag every lap... I don't think they knew what oversteer was.. Hopefully in a few months btw Pontefract raceway.... Thanks mate... hard work though.. twitchy as hell.
Are there many karters on here? Some stories would be great I have only done it once and it was only a play thing but hey. I went Ice karting on a frozen lake in finland at nightime at about -40 degrees, Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalenen had been karting on there only 3 weeks before hand which was kinda cool. There were only 7 of us and the karts were sorta play things with a top speed of 35 mph but technique was more important considering it was ice lol I was about 17 at the time and easily the youngest, I had never driven a car at that point the other 6 guys were in their 30's so I guess they were all qualified drivers. I qualified in 3rd place, was still 3rd after turn 1, I overtook the 2nd place guy at about halfway through, and was closing on the leader but then someone else lost control slid across the track and crashed into me head on. I eventually caught back upto the leader and followed him about a metre behind for the last few laps but couldn't get past as he was just too good, he was also the pole sitter and got the fastest lap. I was sooooooo cold but I had such a great time doing it.
Haha, I did warn you about the forearms, it's always like that until you get used to it, I'm off to Buckmore on Monday for their 30/30 endurance race (which I figured was the best value for money,) went there a few months back for one of the sprint competitions, drove ok, but suffered from people with a touch of the 'Hamiltons', and my own very specualtive bit of underbraking for the lead in the wet on slicks in the first heat, which saw me hit the tyres at about 60mph, spin around and have pretty much a head-on with the rest of the heat as they tried to do the same thing.
Fantastic, but I still need to visualise it. Watch and say which clip comes closest to showing what happened you. BTW the last clip in this film is priceless [video=youtube;9qHeSmvBv0U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qHeSmvBv0U[/video]
LOL! The one at 0:26 was the closest, but imagine going up and over with air in to the other lane while spewing a tyre wall with you. The Spa style shunt a 3:54 was brill though.
If you are still looking for tips no better place to pick them up than by watching drivers like Bourdais, Di Resta, Montagny, Sutil, Grosjean, Sarrazin, Loeb etc racing them and that is exactly what is on MotorsTV on sky with the Electric Masters Karting until 9pm. Nick Hamilton is racing as well and certainly seems to be able to hold his own finishing 5th in the last race. Bourdais was certainly giving him no quarter taking 4th place off him, bit of a tank slapper
