Indeed. Is it likely that you became momentarily diverted by thinking of what were going to do in the pits? There tends to be a 'crescendo' in thinking as the time approaches, because it is 'automatically' perceived as becoming ever more important. This is exactly the time to beware of the frailty of one's own thinking and redouble one's attention to the task in hand, deliberately postponing the invading thoughts. Easier said than done, eh?
Actually I wasn't that concerned about what I was going to do in the pits, but really I was just getting a bit cocky around the track and pushing a little bit harder and a little bit harder each lap. Not really the sort of thing I should be doing when the kart's not feeling right!
This is an interesting and very candid account, Gandalf. You ask a number of things which are worth delving into – and at last I seem to have half an hour to twiddle my thumbs… I have inserted reference numbers at the end of various points you've raised, which correspond to the following bullet points below. Your explanation suggests some reasonable knowledge which my responses take account of. Nonetheless, since others may read, I will also establish some principles which you are probably aware of: [1]: Dependant upon the particular corner and what follows it, "swinging wide" will usually only provide for more acceleration if it is done on approach to, rather after the apex. The idea is to have the vehicle pointing down the straight as early as possible in an effort to extend it at its beginning rather than its end, To achieve this, widen the arc (increase the radius) of the curve on approach to the apex, rather than afterwards. Also, try to take a deliberately 'late' apex, rather than that which you may see as natural. This can be counter-intuitive, especially in a competitive environment, since it is natural to 'fight' others into corners with late braking and tight lines, which tend to compromise one's exit from them. Your explanation hints at some awareness that the shortest distance around a circuit is rarely the quickest – and you're right! [This becomes ever truer with lower power to weight ratios where momentum is at a premium, as is the case with low powered karts!] [2]: You may have allowed your prowess in the corners to take priority; but please read all of these bullets in the context of each another. [3]: Almost certainly! [4]: This is entirely consistent with, and reinforces [3], which may have been affected by [2], which in turn, could be due to something in [1]! [5]: 11 stone is probably similar to those you were competing with, and as you suggest, should therefore not be a significant factor. [6]: A dud kart is a possibility. However, in my experience with events such as these – and especially with 'restricted' vehicles – significant differences are rare. I repeat: it is indeed a possibility; but it is in your own interests to banish it from of your thinking. Go back and have another go. When you do, you could also present this hypothesis to a supervising instructor but I'll hazard that the response will be predictable! [7]: Possibly. BrightLampShade has mentioned something I want to postpone until the end of this post. [8]: In lieu of your comments, I feel this is unlikely. Actually, it's probably about as likely as a dud kart. That said, all people and machines are unique and, at both ends of the scale, there will always be exceptions! [9]: Possibly. Only you will know your own mental balance of caution versus recklessness Depending on one's perspective, elements of both are required. You certainly seem very courteous both on track and here in the forum! Of course, courtesy and caution should never be confused. [10]: Indoor or outdoor makes no difference, in principle, where [1] is equally applicable. [11]: Your kart will not have been limited relative to the others in use at the time. To put it another way, none of them will have been deliberately set up differently. BLS and others have mentioned weight distribution. I'd like to explain the idea here by first talking of acceleration to illustrate the principle. Then I will apply the same philosophy to cornering [edit: due to limited space, this is in the next post]. On short straights, top speeds are heavily influenced by preceding acceleration. This may be obvious but it bears saying that the longer the straight is, the less a vehicle's terminal velocity (theoretical top speed) will have been influenced by its acceleration, since given an infinite amount of time, all vehicles will reach a 'top speed' no matter how long it takes them to get there. It should be seen then, that the shorter the straight, the greater the importance of acceleration in whatever speed is actually achieved. (Lower gear ratios which are also closer to each other utilise this principle). Acceleration requires propulsion. And when a vehicle sits on a frictional surface this traction is provided by the tyres. Therefore, anything which can be done to improve traction over the propelling tyre(s) will help acceleration. Traction depends upon friction to provide the thrust. This should be obvious when one considers the bizarre: for instance, stand an F1 car on ice and give it all 750 beans and you'll sit there until the ice melts or you run out of fuel (or the engine blows) because there is no traction. Traction is of course, the product of weight over friction. Again, let's take an extreme to illustrate the point: imagine a front wheel-drive car with an elephant sitting on its bonnet; you can be sure you'll get no wheel-spin! Therefore it should be seen that the greater the downward pressure (however caused) upon a tyre, the greater frictional contact it has with the track surface. So, we have established that friction is vital for acceleration… Please read the following post for how to apply these ideas to cornering…
Cornering Using previous logic, is there anything a driver can do to increase the weight where it is needed for cornering, especially for a vehicle without suspension, and especially where he or she makes up roughly 50% of the total weight? Bearing in mind that since momentum tries to continue in a straight line and is only overcome by the action of tyres, it is the tyres on the outside of the bend which will be doing more work (providing more friction). So we can exploit this by getting more weight over the tyres that already have the best grip. In doing so, one kills several birds at once! Lean over the tyres which have most grip! Lean sideways to the outside of all turns. Lean forward to increase the action of the front wheels which do most of the work during braking. And lean backwards when accelerating (not that there's much room for this and therefore, in reality, very little to be gained). Thus, we reduce the chance of a loss of friction (skidding). We can also maintain a higher cornering speed due to the increased grip. And the higher cornering speed gives us a head start for the straight, sling-shotting us past others who have not got the idea! On a short circuit, applying these principles should be plenty to take a second off your lap times…
lean backwards? really? I always throw myself forwards and up as hard as I can when I start accelerating to take a bit of the 14st off and give a little extra impetus to the initial acceleration, especially at the start of a race.
Many thanks for that CC - as detailed and informative as ever - Clear as Mud! In relation to shifting the body weight - this may go someway to explaining the speed/agression differences between my son and daughter. My son being stronger and bigger does shift his body around in the kart and would explain how he gets greater turn in and traction, in affect he is almost shifting the rear of the kart on entry creating a straighter corner with less steering unput. My daughter (who is small for her age [9]) finds the karts more of a maul and after 40/50 laps you can see her visably tiring - almost taking a breather for a few laps. Due to her positioning in the kart and the height of the steering wheel she appears to operate a pull motion on the wheel into tight corners and instictivly leans into the corner (which is opposite to her brother who is leaning on the kart and pushing the steering input) meaning that she is waiting longer for traction and a straighter line of exit - hence she does run out of track on exit - quicker than him! Whilst size (weight/power ratio) is a factor I actually think its her lack of strength and it really shows on tight agressive sctions of track. On faster sections of track with smoother steering unputs (i.e. open air [8 meter wide tracks] the differences (% wise) are drastically reduced - eg: on a tight twisty narrow short track [indoor type] she will get within 7 tenths of the lap record [28:6] - on an outdoor track she will keep within a 1 second of the lap record [55 ish dependant on class/condition]. Your point would also indicate why larger adults, or adults in non specific karts may struggle. If you are braced in (as I often feel) your ability to shift weight feels reduced. A smaller adult/child seem to shift their rear in the seat creating a type of ballast effect.
Alot of the kids bounce in the seat on a start grid and thinking about it, they do tend to lean back on acceleartion and forward on braking.
Hi Miggins! Yes, I was really referring to acceleration whilst already on the move, particularly with cornering where rear tyres benefit from the increased grip (slightly). However, you are quite right about 'throwing' your weight forward from a standstill, since this provides the whole package (you and the kart) with a near instant, additional momentum, regardless of the transmission of power to rear wheels. Sorry I did not clarify that in my post but it took too long already!
Good points there, Smithers. You know your stuff. 'Bouncing' at the start also imposes an artificial weight on the tyres, and is not too dissimilar to traction control! Right. Still speaking of cornering, I really must turn in…
Cosicave, I have to admit, that reply is beyond my wildest expectations. Thank you very much indeed! I'm humbled by your effort sir, and in my quest to make this board care about REP, I have dealt out a substantial portion to you I've actually already looked through your notes twice I think you have given me enough to try there to improve my potential substantially, especially regarding body weight and momentum because I pretty much leaned forward throughout the entirety, and shifted my weight towards the corner as I always imagined F1 racers doing! After looking into things a bit, and from discussing it with you chaps on here, it seems the karts I was in aren't even close to being fast, so obviously that will make anything I can do beyond simply driving the thing essential to better performance over such a short lap! I wonder how aggressive I should be, or would have been had I thought I was able to keep up in a straight line. I don't know if I mentioned it previously, but we were given strict "no bumping" rules, and when I was being overtaken at one stage from nowhere (I was just left of centre on the straight, which has room for 2 karts and a tiny bit to spare, and the guy was trying to overtake me on the left hand side ) the guy bumped me and alerted me to his presence, so I gave him some space to moronically charge down the outside (he crashed on the corner all by himself ), which for some reason made one of the stewards hold out a "no bumping" sign at me as I passed even though I had made no motion towards the other driver (Spa 08 stewards much? )... Anyway I bring this up as in F1 there is constant reference to the best drivers in the world giving each other space. This is what I did when somebody powered down and attempted to throw it down the inside in some suicide attempt to pass. Is it worth my time to move over and block these drivers if I'm going slower instead of being respectful? Normally, of course, I'd be inclined to race them, but thinking I was obviously slower I thought of myself as Caterham-esque. As the whole point was lap-time, I also had that in the back of my mind. Slowing another car will no doubt slow me quite a bit! And it proved thus as my fastest time was set when I had 4/5 laps to myself. It is a bit boring to let people pass though, so it's a difficult choice. What do you guys think?
Driver Etic ate or lack of is a pet hate of mine, the lack of spacial awareness and track saftey is frightening sometimes. There is a tendancy in karts (especially in red blooded males or inexperienced kids) to not understand when a place is lost or gained and to over fight the position, which is often why you see a kart drop 3 or 4 places in the space of a corner or two. One of the best races I have ever seen (In karts) was when the top 3 drivers overtook each other several times a lap but still remained over a second quicker than the rest of the grid - simply down to the fact that they didnt fight each other and understood that the last lap was where it was all going to happen. In fact if I remember correctly in a 20 minute/20 lap race there was only 2 incidents of contact and that was on the final corner of the final lap!
Thanks, Gandalf. I'm pleased if only a little of it made sense to you, since the cross-referencing of points does not make for easy reading. Unfortunately this was necessary due to limitations on how many characters can be used in a post. You are clearly a decent chap and know that it would be wrong to deliberately baulk a quicker driver. The only exception to this is if it's a properly organised race and you are not being Blue flagged (almost exclusively because you are about to be lapped). However, now that you'll be quicker, you'll probably find less need to be quite so courteous… On this subject of 'rep', I must admit to finding the system frustrating because when I try to 'rep' others, I get some bizarre message that I need to give it to someone else first, so I kind of gave up some time ago and fully admit to not having the slightest clue as to its value. In fact, I cannot even find what I've 'received'! (Don't know how to find it but it's nowhere obvious). Anyway, thanks. [edit: blimey! I see that you obviously do understand it!!].
Thanks, BLS. 'Still don't know how to find that page myself as it seems not to show in either Profile or Notifications; at least, not when I click them. However, don't worry about it â because I don't have a clue as to its purpose or 'value' to a User in any case! I'm just happy when I feel some of my efforts might have been appreciated, which is usually pretty clear in the threads themselves. Cheers
Cosi, in the top right corner of the page is a link to your "Control Panel", that brings up the page BLS linked. Ideally I think the point of rep is to give new users an idea of who's worth listening to, and who posts just to be controversial for the sake of it. I guess it's just a badge that you're appreciated. The whole system is a bit flawed though because a lot of boards have a 'rep brothel' where users just exchange rep for no reason, giving them vastly inflated values compared to equal or 'better' posters on another board. When they clash, and 'negative rep' is used, a 'brothel user' can quickly wipe out the reputation of another user. One (i think, anyway) of the reasons that most mods have such inflated reps is so that we can try and balance things up should that ever happen. With the whole "spreading it around" thing, it's an inbuilt feature of the system I don't think it's possible to disable. I think it's to stop one user bullying another through it, or to stop mutual back-slapping to get a really high rep. If you only use the F1 boards, and only use rep when you really feel someone deserves it, then chances are you'll run into this problem a lot.
Without getting off topic, I personally think negative rep should only be applied by super mods under specific rules. Anyway - does anyone else have more Karting tips or info on tracks etc.....?
You want more? (!!). OK, here's one: before a big race and especially the first of a season, always get a good night's sleep! Goodnight…
