Hello folks,

I've recently had the privledge of driving a race kart at an indoor track and a friend of mine gave me some quick instruction. But here's the question - he was telling me to absolutely crush the brakes REALLY close to turn-in and then to feather the throttle through the slide and power out after the apex. This is totally contrary to what I've experienced and been told at auto-x's - be as smooth as possible, balance the car through the turn, really try not to rotate the car, etc.

How should I be trying to drive these things? Are the kart and the evo really so different they need two different driving styles?


Adam

BTW, I ordered Memo Gidley's karting book so I'll update with some more opinions once I've got it

 

Even car to car requires a different driving style. You'd drive an Elise through a corner much different than say a Cobra. Some cars respond differently to different things. Evo's for instance are very sensative to weight transfer (atleast I've noticed). So yeah, cars and karts are probably much different.

 

Just to update, according to Memo Giddley and Jeff Grist, A kart's ability to turn through a corner relies, in a large part, to the kart's ability to lift the inside rear wheel. They go on to explain that this is due to the fact that karts lack a differential.

Also, the apparent slip angle that I was having to use is due to the fact that indoor tracks (one of which, I was at) are normally slippery. Unless you break the back-end out and use the throttle to steer through the corner, you will not get the inside rear to lift, and will plow through the corner.

 

Karts are rear wheel drive and rear brake only, totally different beasts. I have found personally that methods in karting differ greatly from front engined all wheel drive cars.

Sam

 

In a kart, the brakes are used very little. Most of the braking is done from your turn in.

 

Depends on the karts.... these ones made 50+ whp and had front and rear disks, but for most of the smaller stuff, I would say 20 whp and less I would agree with you.

Sam

 

^^^Also can depend on the track. My local track on a leopard will use the brakes almost zero.

 

Also keep in mind that Karts have an EXTREMELY low center of gravity, extremely tight moment of inertia, ridiculous HP to weight ratio and a rear tire track that is exponentially wider than the front.

ALL of which mean you can do things with a Kart that you CAN NOT do with a car.

For all the discussion, it's really that simple.

Scott

 

Yeah~~That~~