Karting 09/06/14

As the previous day in Tsukuba was such a disaster brake-wise, I thought I'd blog happier news first and show you all some karting photos from Sunday.

We did the 8pm night race again at the New Tokyo Circuit. That place is great fun and the karts are all decent for the most part. Highly recommended!

I managed to grab pole again much to the dismay of my fellow racers. K was looking pretty fast though sitting up in 2nd place and at the start the 52kg lightening rod took off and left us for dust quickly opening up a 7 or 8 car gap by the 2nd corner where he got into a little over steer and happily enough for me I got the lead back. From there on, my goal was to break into the 48s mark so I tried various things.

The most important corners are 3 and the last first part of the chicane on the last corner. Those also happen to be hard bloody corners to take just right so its very challenging to get the best out of a full lap. I got a few 48s laps with the best being a 48.736. I wonder what the ultimate lap time would have been for my car with a 70kg driver in it. I reckon there is perhaps 0.7 there for some god to steal yet. I notice the best lap time so far is 46.9 and judging from the photo that guy weighs about 50kg or there abouts. Would be fun to weigh 50kg for a day to try and beat that!

Anyway, great fun. Can't wait for the next time.

Karting again in Chiba 09/04/26

I still haven't found my way to TC2000 since the last race. I haven't been avoiding it... just worked out that way. I was supposed to go on the 25th but it was a very wet day so I canceled and ended up going karting on the 26th instead.

Karting is such a blast particularly when you get a nice handling kart which just does what you want it do do. Even it wild oversteer moments if you are quick enough it comes right back although you do lose speed that way :-)

Anyway, thought this was a decent photo and it does show my new helmet paint job which I haven't blogged about yet. I'll take another photo of it when I put the darker visor on.

The good news is weather for the rest of the week and the beginning of next week is looking fine as I'm due to hit TC2000 on the 2nd, 4th and 5th :-)

Karting at F1-Miyazawa Lake

Went to this tiny kart circuit in Saitama called Miyazawa Lake with some guys from my work. We signed up for an endurance race which was 7000 yen for 5 mins qualification and a 40 laps race.

The kart was capable of 60kmph. It was the fastest kart I've ever tried as the few times I've gone before I have been only doing about 20 to 30kmph. So this was quite cool.

Qualification turned out to be wet as we had a small shower. That was fantastic fun as it was next to impossible to drive around a corner without opposite lock. In a kart this turned into pure fun and I forgot about getting a fast lap so I ended up 3rd on the grid. Not that I would have gone faster anyway but sliding was huge fun.

We did a reverse grid at the race start which was also good. I spun out on the last corner the first two laps and got stuck in the corner on my second lap. Damn. Already 1 lap behind. When will I learn?! After that I just drove faster every lap. I had a lot of problems with the last corner though as I'd either drift it and lose speed or I'd go too slowly and lose speed. Funnily enough going slower lost less speed than drifting though. Interesting.

I was going rather well when I was passing a friend on the outside when he bumped me off the track. That hurt. Still have the bruises! Took 85seconds to complete that lap as I had to get out of the kart to get it back onto the track. Those things are quite heavy when you are trying to push them!

Finally lost the race and finished in 3rd place, 2 laps behind our perfect leader and 1.8s behind 2nd place. Just shows if you are consistent, you don't have to be fast sometimes to do well. One of the guys put up this cool web site of the results

So - why do I bring up karts... Well it dawned on me when I was driving them just how much they have to offer in terms of learning about the basics of being smooth and using your tires properly. It's so easy to think you are going fast when you are drifting around the last corner but then someone goes and passes you on the inside... Huh?! Yes that just happened. Makes you think more about what you are doing wrong.

The other nice thing about karts is they are small, speed is less than a car and you feel everything so you are really aware of what is going on. The kart had no diff for example, so when taking a wider line around a corner vs taking a narrow line kept the engine running better, it dawned on me that my inside tire was slowing the engine down. I always knew what a diff did in general but experiencing this made them really make sense.

Another thing you learn is brake bias. Brakes are only on the back so its hard to brake when you are turning. Even more so in the wet. Back just comes right around unless you have a fine touch. Amazing. Its useful for adjusting mid corner though if required.

I was only really figuring out all this towards the end of 40 laps. It was really worth going though and I'm going to try go again and perhaps apply some of what I learn to my circuit driving.