Is Indoor go Karting Dangerous?

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Is Indoor go Karting Dangerous?

As a regular at indoor karting tracks with more then 6000 races under my belt, I would love to say that Indoor Karting is not dangerous at all, but I can’t really in good conscience. Let me back up a bit though, it’s about as dangerous as crossing a busy street, with a helmet on your head.

By this I mean, ‘if you decide to walk in traffic without paying attention you’re going to get run over and killed’. Likewise, if you’re driving on a busy road you’d better look where you are going or you’ll either crash into someone or have someone crash into you. This is a real possibility, but are you going to blindly wander around a race track? Probably not, and I think this is why for most the risk is minimal.

However, it really depends on who you are on the track with. Over thousands of races I have totally seen people who are not paying any attention to where they are, or where they are going. I’ve seen all types.

While 9 out of 10 people are conscious of the fact that they could hurt someone, there’s always that 1 in 10 who has no clue at all. Facility workers can get pretty nasty with these types and can come on pretty strong. Now when someone honestly has no clue at all that they’re a menace, an angry track worker in your face can be a very confusing thing. Just look at the reviews of indoor tracks anywhere and you will see a common theme about the track worker who was mean to someone. Confrontations can even get physical as drivers react (especially drunk drivers). But try not to worry about the workers too much, in almost every case there is something dangerous going on and people who are not aware of it. Its the track workers job to make sure people don’t hurt each other.

There are idiots who show up every now and then (and who are not regulars themselves) who get a bit carried away by the fun and excitement of being able to race as fast as the pedal will allow them to. It is not uncommon for these types to use the kart as a ramming device. The facility will try to manage the situation but its not always possible until someone shows their colors. Unfortunately, not everyone realizes that they have a 1000lb weapon under their seat, or what a 1000lb weapon can do. And what they do is bruise and dislocate ribs and give you neck injuries.

Another common situation that can happen at peak hours is the pros and semi-pros will show up. When you get a situation where average drivers are on track with pros, its as if someone came along and grid locked a freeway and there’s a police chase going on in the middle of it all. As a faster driver, I must say, this is a blast.

Now a true pro is a graceful picture of elegance. They can weave through chaos like you would not believe. Flying through dozens of average drivers as if they are sitting still, without touching anyone. It’s really something quite amazing. But it takes a long time to get to that level.

The trouble usually comes with developing drivers who have developed their skill to be fast, but they have not yet the experience to deal with newer drivers in traffic. A lesser experienced driver can be very unpredictable, whereas a veteran will be totally predictable. For example a common problem is for a lesser experienced driver to spin out and lose control, coming to a dead stop in the middle of a turn. A pro who is at top speed can find themselves with less than 0.200 of a second to deal with a sudden stop right in front of them. Collisions happen right there. Now a top pro is going to predict the accident, and compensate, you’ll see it coming from a mile away if you’re paying attention to the other drivers on track with you. But it takes some time to develop that sensitivity.

So you’re at some risk when you’re on track with pros, but only if you can’t drive yourself and you have a habit of losing control, spinning out and parking yourself in front of others who are much faster than you.

So here’s how you can keep things safe for yourself.

#1 Teach your kids (and yourself) how to LET BY safely. That means how to let faster drivers pass you without being a danger to yourself and others.
The trick is fairly easy, you use corners, and just go as wide as possible through a turn, and just point your finger to the inside to let the driver know you are letting them pass.
DO NOT try to let the driver pass you on the OUTSIDE! I should repeat that.
DO TRY to let the driver pass you on the INSIDE of the corner. YOU take the outside.
If you do this properly you will lose very little speed, and you’ll have very little chance of having an accident.
By properly you should leave a gap of about a kart width between you and the apex. You just basically travel a kart length further before you turn into the turn and take the whole turn later.

#2. If you are new, as a general rule, get off the gas as you come into a turn, coast to the middle and WAIT until you get to the middle of the turn to get back on the gas.
I REPEAT.. coast and WAIT to get on the gas until you are clearly PAST the middle point of the turn. This will stop you from sliding and losing control in front of other drivers. It is VERY IMPORTANT that you get this right. It is a very common problem with newer drivers who want to race and who rush to speed out of turns and get on the gas too much too early. They slide out of control.

Believe it or not, this one trick is usually the only thing you need to be the fastest person on the track. Wait until you are PAST the middle of a turn before you get back on the gas.

#3 If you are not going to let someone pass you, be prepared to get nailed in the next turn. There is really no way to stop someone who is determined to smash into you, from catching you in the next turn. And when they do, they can give you quite the neck injury. You should keep that in mind and err on the side of courtesy. Let faster drivers by, politely.

On the other hand, if you MUST block, then you should probably also know that a pro is going to take advantage of you, no matter what you do. That’s because any deviation from the best line will cause a cascading side effect that will make you a slow target down the track. But even the optimal line has holes in it, and a pro will target this. Let me say, there IS a way to block skillfully, but trying to explain all the 100’s of different situations is a bit beyond this article. Let me tell you, it’s really funny when you have a driver in front of you who is more interested in looking behind himself (to block you) than where he is going and you still pass them like they’re sitting still. I’ve even seen pros who wait for the really aggressive drivers to catch up, and then deliberately pinched them off into the wall. Stuck.

Conclusion: Is indoor karting dangerous?
For experienced drivers or newer drivers with a little humility (and don’t mind letting faster drivers pass them) there’s very little risk. But what is dangerous are people and their intentions. The chance of being killed is pretty much zero, but if you have others on the track who are going to be maniacs, yeah you can get hurt. Really bad drivers (and there are LOTS of those) go out and hurt themselves because they basically race themselves into accidents. These are not your weekend warriors and pros but drivers who are intent to push the limits, but have not yet earned the skill to do so. Those guys are scary.

10 advanced go karting tips to go faster in an indoor go kart

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10 Advanced Go Karting Tips To Go Faster In An Indoor Go Kart

Tip #1 Don’t Slide.

Just get it in your head now, SLIDING IS SLOW. Sorry to break it to you, because it’s a lot of fun, but sliding and stomping full throttle through a turn like a Dukes of Hazard rerun, is going to get you into an accident and passed by any above average driver. Every slide is going to cost you between 0.100 to 0.500 of a second per corner. Sliding through turns is the number one thing that makes newer drivers slower.

How do you not slide?

So as a general set of rules.

If you are sliding on the entry. You came in too hot and fast. Slow down.

If you are sliding on the exit. You probably got on the gas too soon, wait wait wait and coast to the apex.

Wide Slow Entry, Tight to Apex, Wide Fast Out.

We go wider, so we can carry more momentum from one straight to another, it’s a basic way to lower the G forces on the tires so they can have more grip.

But why tight to Apex?

Tip #2 As close as possible to the apex, every time.

The apex is the very middle of the corner and you want to travel as close as possible on every corner. Now this is a bit of an advanced idea because ultimately this is what sets the fastest drivers apart from the faster drivers. That being said, it’s also what sets the slowest drivers apart from the slow drivers. That’s because slow drivers drive down the middle of the track. Lets say for argument sake that you are on a 180 degree turn, and you are 2 feet off the apex when you are in the middle of that turn. Now there are only 2 ways you could have got to that point, you either made the oncoming straight 2 feet longer OR you turned in early and drove a straight line towards that point.

Let’s take the first possibility into account. Now you’ve made your incoming straight 2 feet longer, now the only way you can get back online is to make the exit straight 2 feet longer as well. By adding 2 feet to your apex, you just added 4 feet to the total track length. Even if you maintain the same speed and curve as the fastest driver, you’re still going to arrive at the finish line 4 feet behind, and all from a single corner. Do this on another 5 turns and you’re now 24 feet behind the fastest driver in a single lap, while travelling at the same speed.

Now the second possibility, that you turned in early. Remember that the whole purpose of a corner is take a kart that is travelling in one direction, and completely turn it around and send it the other direction. You have to do this while maintaining as much of the energy and momentum that you entered the corner with. Now the tighter the corner, the more energy is going to be scrubbed away, so steady wide corners allow you to carry the most momentum, in and out. As you get more advanced the width of corners becomes a fine tuned trade off, but as a general rule, wide turns win races. So basically when you turn in early, you’re forcing the kart to rotate within a tighter circle because you will kind of drive straight at the apex and then do all your rotation on the exit. This will be slow, so not only would you have made the track longer, but you are also going to be slower through the turn, which means you’re losing a lot more than 4ft in this turn. It’s much better to spread your rotation out over a wider area and that means turning in, not too early and not too late, but just right. Which means, you need to perfect your timing.

So it’s not about reflexes! How do you perfect your timing?

Tip #3 Find marks so you can time your actions perfectly.

So this is how we perfect our timing. We use some kind of mark on the track to determine our brake point, our turn in point, our let off point. We even look for marks on the exit that we can judge our last turn for accuracy. Using cameras on your session is a great way to handle this, because you can examine in slow motion marks on the entry and exit of corners during your fastest laps. This will give you targets that you can aim for every time. Basically in an indoor kart you have view of your front tires at all times, so you can use this to point your wheels at targets, and line them up with targets. And the primary target for speed is the apex, which brings us to the next tip.

Tip #4. Eyes on Apex, early and always.

The most critical point on any corner is the apex. You need to be as close as possible every time. Now the expert drivers are going to be within a centimeter of the apex every time, and quite often you’ll see their tires hitting the walls of the apex. If you’re even off by 2 inches, you’ll lose feet of track every lap.

So how do you do it? You look at the apex early from way back up on the straight. Now you still have to use marks to time your turn in and your brake points, that’s fine, you just do it with your eyes on the apex and watch for marks out of the corner of your eye.

Many pros turn their head towards the turn in advance, which allows them to see down the inside of the corner, in case people come diving in. But the head turn in allows you to get oriented for the apex well in advance and as he corner approaches there will be a point at which you are not looking out the corner of your eyes, but directly straight ahead. This is your turn in timing mark. It’s a little different then lining up your tires with a wheel, crack or mark on the road, but it’s a very effective and consistent method for timing your turn ins.

Another reason you want to look at the apex early from back up on the straight is that no matter how fast your reflexes, you still have about a 1/5th of a second reaction time. If you find yourself looking at a brake point, applying the brakes and THEN turning your head to locate the apex, then it’s too late you can’t possibly be smooth and steady and direct and on. Once you find the apex, then you have to start controlling the steering and.. sorry you’re going to miss it by miles. This is probably the #1 cause for newer drivers to miss the apex even when they’re trying to, they did not have their eye on it early enough. That’s usually because they were looking at the kart in front of them instead. And that’s a mistake that will cause you to be only as fast as the guy in front of you. When you catch up with someone, don’t look directly at them, look at the apex instead.

Tip #5 Don’t lean in, Do lean out of turns.

This is a bit of an advanced tip and it has to do with the mechanics of the standard rental go kart. The reason is because karts are made to go faster when they are rolling with their weight biased towards the outside of a corner. When you lean in towards the center of the turn, you actually create a braking effect on the kart. This is all a very technical thing and you can go and research about solid rear axles and how leaning in causes a braking and sliding effect. It actually reduces your traction and acceleration when you lean in, and improves your traction and acceleration when you lean out. Now the thing is, again you have to lean early, you don’t want to wait to the last minute because you’re going to mess up your balance and timing. And the thing to remember is that balance is everything. Perfect balance means you can increase your roll speed through a turn, which means you can push the limits and go faster without losing control.

So how else do we achieve balance?

Tip #6 Steady hands, don’t wobble the steering wheel when in a turn.

Now in the very middle of the turn you are likely to have the highest G forces and the only thing keeping you from sliding is the down-force on those tires. The problems come when people try to adjust their steering in the middle when under maximum load. The other thing intermediate and newer drivers will do is change their acceleration and braking in the middle of a turn instead of keeping it steady. The more steady you can keep things then the more traction you will have because as the weight rocks around left to right and forward to back, you will only have as much traction as your weakest moment. Once you lose it, you’re in damage control. So how do we do this?

When you have a perfect turn in point and get your timing perfect, there is a kind of set and forget process. You set your turn in, the weight shifts a bit, you steady it, maybe with a little counter action to balance out. Then you get ready to hold steady through the turn and ride it out.

If you turn in too early you wont be able to do this, you’re going to have to add more steering input as you go through the turn, particularly on the exit. If you are doing this, then you are definitely slow.

If you turn too late you might have to miss the apex completely or keep adding more steering input on the entry than you need.

Ultimately once you reach the apex you want to be either holding steady or releasing the steering pressure (preferably). Because if you are releasing steering pressure then you are accelerating.

This is the typical process of slow in, fast out.

Tip #7 Head up, lean back for hard braking zones.

This tip really makes a difference for shortening braking distances, and is especially helpful when passing. It is common for newer drivers that are racing to lean forward more and more. The problem is when you do this you take downforce away from your back tires and you become loose. John Kimbrell the multiple US indoor national champion, always pushes his seat all the way back and leans back, no matter the kart. As you become more experienced you will be able to tell a difference when you lean forward and backwards with your braking and your cornering.

That being said, sometimes a kart is really bound up, and it wont accelerate out of turns. In this special case you want to try and lean forward to get the weight off the rear so the kart will not drag out of turns. Usually though a kart that drags out of turns is because you got on the gas too early and did not allow the weight to stay biased towards the front enough to roll through the turn. Remember when you get on the gas the weight will shift to the rear and if you have not completed the turn fully the rear axle, being a single solid bar will push both rear wheels to the ground at the same time. In this case the kart will start wanting to go in a straight line, because the axle is solid and both wheels must travel at the same speed. Now you are in a situation where the front wheels want to turn and the larger rear wheels want to go straight. They will fight, and often the rear wheels being larger will win. If the rear don’t win, then either the inside rear wheel will drag and spin, or the outside will drag and brake. Either way, this is a situation where you are slow because the rear wheels are dragging the kart down.

Tip #8 Sharp and Snappy inputs when entering turns under hard acceleration.

For slower corners with hard acceleration on entry.

This is the kind of corner where you haven’t had time to get up to full speed and you’re still accelerating, it’s usually one of a complex of turns. In this case it’s a very different situation because your weight is going to be rear biased, and the front wheels are going to struggle to steer. You wont need to brake for this kind of corner. Instead of being slow and steady and soft, you actually want to be snappy and jerky with your inputs. You will want to jarre the kart into and through the turn but you do NOT have to worry about getting on the gas too early because the back will not be light. The back only get’s light when you are entering a corner under high brake pressure. So be mindful of the difference.

Tip #9 Slow and steady inputs when entering turns under heavy deceleration.

For fast corners with hard braking on the entry.

Don’t rush in too fast, try to brake a little bit earlier, softer and steady without jamming on the brakes hard. Just give yourself a couple more feet than you think you need. If it’s a heavy braking corner, then brake in a straight line and don’t try to brake AND turn at the same time. As a general rule try to coast into the turn once you have completed braking, and give the kart time to re-balance and settle the weight back down into the rear. This settling is important because if you jam back on the gas too soon and too hard, you’ll go into a slide. As a general rule, wait until you have reached the apex before you get back on the gas. You can stomp as hard as you like then.

The main idea here is that you want your weight transitions to be slow and steady, you want the inertial pressures to build up slowly and steady. Ultimately you want to attain a point of balance where you can hold steady through the turn and make the most of your rolling speed.

Tip #10 Be mindful of how the weight shifts from front to rear and side to side, maintain balance, and you maintain traction.

Now we get to the really advanced stuff that you can work on for years. The ultimate driver is very mindful of all the things that can shift the weight of the kart. Subtle effects can cause slides when you are under maximum loads. Take a sweeper for example, these are usually very easy turns to get into, you just blast into them at full throttle, usually from a straight. The sweeper is a large corner with slowing down needed, or is there? Often at the very peak of the sweeper it just gets too much and you pass the limit of traction. Knowing this most drivers will let go of the gas and give in. The problem is as soon as you let go of the gas under maximal load, your weight will shift forward just slightly. But that’s all that’s needed under maximal load to create a slide every time. A lot of drivers think this is normal. But often it is not, the expert drivers do not slide here. How do they manage it? They know that modulation is probably needed in the turn, so they modulate their throttle on the straight before the sweeper, even though there is no chance whatsoever of losing traction on the straight. You see the weight shifts before the turn, lifting the inside rear wheel up lightly. The front wheels bite down and the rotation into the sweeper starts in earnest. Then they the expert stomps on the gas and accelerates into the sweeper with an enhanced outward weight bias that raises his outside down force on the tires. They then drive full throttle through the section that everyone else slides in. This is how the expert is mindful of the weight transfer and subtle ways the weight shifts around under maximal load. You see any input will shift the weight, be that brakes, gas, steering, and the movement of your body.

So the tip here is that when you are analyzing your sessions and thinking about where you are sliding a little, think about what you are doing to move the weight around in the kart. Come up with a strategy to create the weight distribution that you need for optimal traction and control. It’s not always easy to implement these strategies because they often seem counter intuitive, you will find yourself accelerating when you are usually letting off the gas. This is what sets the expert record crushers apart from the above average drivers.

How to use Weight Transfer to Increase your Speed in an Indoor Go Kart

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How to use Weight Transfer to Increase your Speed in an Indoor Go Kart

Weight Transfer is probably the last thing you will develop a sensitivity to when learning how to be competitive in a go kart. It’s one thing to be aware that there is an advantage to managing the shifting of the weight, quite another to make use of it consciously. It took me years, but I’m going to save you years of head scratching and give you the secrets.

The problem is that our reflexes are not really fast enough to deal with changes in inertia. I mean the average person has a visual response time of about 0.250 seconds. We see something happen, it enters our brain, gets converted into some kind of neural pattern, we concoct a plan to deal with it, signals shoot down our nervous system and we execute the plan. Then we gather input from our actions, visual, audible and tactile, another plan is concocted and we shoot more signals down the nervous system to the controls. By this time another 0.250 seconds have passed. So 0.500 seconds have passed between situational awareness and the beginnings of adaptation.

So how far do we travel in half a second?

Just 22 mph is about 30 feet per second. You’re going to travel about 15 feet in half a second.
Even at just 2.2mph you’re going to travel about 1.5 feet in half a second.
That’s pretty slow, and 1.5 feet is an eternally long distance to be off line in a go kart.

If you are 1.5 feet off a line, or late to a turn in, off from an apex, you are WAAAAY off pace.

IF you turning in 1.5 feet late, and maintain the exact same arc (because you’re travelling at the exact same speed), then you would add 1.5×2=3 feet to the length of your track. Whatever the case, you’re going to add length and time to your lap time.

So reflexes can’t possibly be what the top drivers use to maintain consistent laps that are within 0.250 of a second of each other on EVERY lap.
And it also can’t be what you use to manage weight transfer.

So what’s weight transfer about? How do we manage weight transfer?

First of all, let me give you a little secret here, the primary tool in the expert drivers toolbox, is timing.

The more perfect your timing, the more perfect you are going to hit your marks. And really that is the secret to being online and it’s also the secret to managing weight transfer because weight transfer is part of having a consistent plan for how you are going to navigate the track.

How is that? Well weight transfer is NOT something you manage by the seat of your pants when you are in the moment. I’m not sure if that is a surprise to you, but for the longest time, I thought that’s what it was all about. But it’s not.

Managing weight transfer really happens off the track, when you’re analyzing what is happening after the fact.

Managing weight transfer is all about having a technical awareness of the geometry of the kart, and being able to model in your mind how the inertial mass is being shifted and displaced as you go through different sections of the track. Then, knowing how the weight is being shifted in your model, you work out how that is affecting the traction levels and grip through those sections. Invariably that’s where time is gained and lost, from loss and gain of traction.

So managing weight transfer is all about modeling the effects of inertia and this usually happens in analysis, while off track.

Now it is possible to do this somewhat while you are on the track, and it makes a huge difference to your ability to be adaptable to new conditions and different karts. But usually the answer to a problem section of the track doesn’t come until you’ve got off track and thought to yourself, ‘what the hell is going on here?’. Some of my biggest ‘ah ha!’ moments have come when I examine slow motion helmet video, frame by frame, of my fast laps. Often I will examine a corner where I was exceptionally quick for some mysterious reason, and ask myself, ‘why was this fast?’. At this point I start to model in my mind how the inertial displacement is unfolding and what I am doing that is causing this, and how I might repeat it. Quite often I realize the answer and driving inputs change for that section.

By driving inputs I mean this. There are many ways you can shift the inertial mass of your kart around, here is the arsenal of your weight transfer toolbox.
Acceleration (blips and pulses on the gas)
Deceleration (throttle let off, coasting, slight frontal down force)
Coasting (gentle and gradual re-centering of weight displacement)
Steering input (left and right displacement – but also when under load of a turn, forward and rearwards weight displacement when you increase and decrease steering input)
Brake input (jarring frontal down force)
Body position, (leaning forwards and backwards, head up, head down, leaning left and right, hopping in seat)

Sometimes giving an input that does not seem necessary at the time can give you an advantage in RPM, or traction, and both.

Lets consider parts of the track where you might often lose traction, or where it is easy to lose traction.

A brake zone where you come in hot and often lose traction.
If you find the back gets loose under brakes. Well there’s always the suggestion that you’re just braking too hard and too late, and so lighten up a bit and brake earlier. Often the problem is related to trail braking, where you are turning and braking instead of straight line braking. Our suggestion to newbies is to straight line brake and don’t brake and turn the kart at the same time, this means you brake earlier and straight, then let up and coast into a turn, and wait to get back on the gas at the apex. But for an expert driver, trail braking is definitely where you want to be. The thing that makes braking more effective in a kart is to lean far back in your seat and lift your head up high and back in the seat, because it adds downforce to your rear brakes (and you don’t usually have front brakes in an indoor kart). Doing so can give you a surprising boost in traction. This is managing weight transfer to a degree. You’re shifting weight to give you an edge.

But in the above scenario your modeling of the shift of inertial weight, shouldn’t end there. As you enter a trail brake scenario, the bulk of your inertial mass starts to move from the front center to the outside front wheel, while your rear wheels get light. If you are ever to get out of this turn with any kind of advantage in acceleration, you need to think about how you’re going to transition the inertial mass back to the rear wheels and how you will return down force to the rear of your kart. This is invariably why you tend to slide in these corners, because there is no down force in the rear.

Consider a turn where you came in under brakes and need to accelerate to get out of it, and you tend to slip a little as you go through the turn.
The easy and natural fix for this kind of problem is to wait wait wait after braking as you go through the turn, coast, coast, coast, and get on the gas later, typically at the apex. This works, full traction, and no slide. And this is what we tell newbies to do, because we know it’s just timing, and it will absolutely work. But this is not what the expert drivers do.

Note that the weight is loaded up to the outside front of the kart. Now note all the tools in our arsenal. There are several tools that can shift the weight from front to rear. Releasing brakes, releasing steering input, coasting, acceleration, and blips and pulses on the throttle. They will all displace the weight to varying degrees, some more aggressive than others. Note that the most aggressive would be to just accelerate, say by pushing your foot to the floor. But this wont work, because the back is light, so the back will just slide out from under you. So the next thing you can do, is blip and pulse the throttle. It turns out, if you do this on the entry of a turn, for a split second, you wont slide out of control. In fact you’ll push the weight back to the center and rear of the kart, and you’ll gain rear traction. From this point you can squeeze on the gas and be accelerating out of the turn, a full kart length earlier. The blip technique I just described we came to call ‘the double blip’ because you apply the throttle in a 1 and 2 motion.

There are other tricks you can use to finesse the weight transfer to the rear wheels, like in some instances it helps to release the steering pressure slightly as you apply the gas. If you find yourself in a loose kart, say during the cold of winter, you can try to add this as well. Some drivers don’t pulse the throttle at all, they just use a release of steering input to assist the rear loading, then they reapply steering input as they come on the gas and pass the apex.

Consider the sweeper. I have a whole article dedicated to the sweeper here

A sweeper is corner where you can enter under full throttle and can usually power all the way through.
The standard trap of a sweeper is where you chicken out under load and release the throttle in the middle of the turn, this shifts the weight forward and makes the back wheels light, and you invariably go into a slide. This is known in racing circles as ‘snap oversteer’ and is a rather fundamental lesson in weight transfer.

As I outline in that article, the trick to the sweeper is to manage your weight transfer by causing your weight to initially lurch forward on the entry by letting off the gas just before you turn in. This allows the front wheels to bite. Then you stomp back on the gas and hold everything steady all through the turn. Without this set up, the kart will often slide out and break loose in the middle of the turn.

So all throughout these examples you should be picking up a pattern here. If you have a problem you need to be asking, ‘okay, what is my weight transfer doing? what am I doing to cause this?” And whether you have a problem or not, you should be asking, “what is my optimum weight distribution going to be in this situation, and what can I do to help achieve this?”. Where you answer these questions correctly, is where you gain an edge over the other drivers on the track. And that’s going to take mental visualization and modeling in your mind.

Lets look at some other scenarios.

Consider a very slow turn where you need to accelerate all the way through it, from start to finish. This is where you run into problems with the solid rear axle, and binding. The problem is that the solid rear axle wants to turn both wheels at the same velocity and when the kart goes through a turn the inside circumference is always shorter than the outside. If your weight is rear biased, because you are under acceleration, and you have come in flat to the ground, the rear wheels are going to go into a battle. Basically your inside rear wheel will act like a brake, and it will fight your engine.

So what can we do about this? Well go karts with solid rear axles are designed to tip over onto 3 wheels when you turn the steering wheel. This works better when the kart is slowing down, than when the kart is accelerating, because the inside front wheel is designed to push down, while the outside front wheel lifts up. When you are decelerating and turning the forward weight bias causes the kart to tip over onto 3 wheels and the inside rear wheel pretty much lifts into the air. I call this ‘The Tripod Effect’. But when you accelerate into a turn, from a very slow start, all your weight goes to the back of the kart onto the solid rear axle, you can lose steering control, but usually it just puts the brakes on and you don’t really realize it, because it seems like the kart engine is powering away and accelerating. You’re often slow, and you don’t know it.

So there are several things in the weight transfer toolbox to assist the tripod effect. In a particularly bad kart, that tends to ‘push’ that is, you turn the wheel and it just wants to go straight, you can jab on the brake slightly to throw the weight forward and to force frontal down force. If you have to do this, you’re going to be slow anyway, you have a junk kart, but it’s often going to be faster than just trying to drive through it.

The first technique that we offer to new drivers is to just release the gas a split second before you turn the wheel in. This causes the front wheels to bite down and tips the kart over. Then you reapply the gas and drive through the turn. This is usually quicker, but doesn’t always get a good lift.

My favorite technique for managing this situation is the ‘snap in’ steering technique. This is where you aggressively and quickly snap the wheel into your turn, with the goal of throwing the kart up quickly onto it’s outside wheels, you can often do this, without lifting the gas at all. To execute it, you kind of over steer your input way beyond where you would want your natural steering input, then you release the steering input back to your ideal. It plays out like a quick 1, 2, 3. You then rely on the lateral inertia to hold your kart up in the tripod position. I used this technique to give me an edge back during the Oregon State Championship, it freed my kart up all through the infield giving me a huge edge. I used a regimen of weight lifting off track to build the strength needed to sustain the ‘snap in’ during the 30 minute race.

Sometimes it is advantageous to lean forward in a kart. I discovered this once while watching a video of driver who pulled off a freaky fast lap. He gained his magical moment in a chicane. A chicane is a complex of turns that create like an S in the track as it leads onto a straight, it’s usually used to slow the track down a bit. Now normally he leaned back through the chicane and leaned out relative to the entry of it, but he was chasing a very fast kart that had twice his horsepower, and for some reason he sat up on this particular lap and threw his head forward as he exited the chicane, not only that, instead of leaning out when he entered the chicane, he leaned in. That’s very odd, it seems the very opposite of what we would expect and it was the very opposite of what he did usually. When we examined the delta for his time through the chicane, he had picked up 0.100 of a second in that section. Well well? why did this happen? We wondered. When we modeled in our minds what could possibly be going on it started to come together.
First it became evident that leaning out on the first turn, was not helping him at all, it was better than he tried to set his weight up for the exit of the chicane, because the displacement of his weight from left to right while navigating the middle of the chicane was too unsettling. He might not be in the optimal position for entry, but being in the optimal position for exit gave him an advantage as he pulled onto the straight. So we learned there that leaning into a chicane in prep for the exit is the key to a fast chicane. Next his head thrown forward put his weight more towards the front of the kart and off the rear of the kart. This would give him bite as he turned into the final turn and onto the straight that followed and would free up any potential binding that might happen because of the weight transfer from the left rear to the right rear. The exit wasn’t enough to induce any kind of slide, instead he had rear binding problems that were retarding his ability to accelerate out of the final turn. So leaning forward gave him bite, and freed up the bind. After this examination we both started doing this in this section, and it was a consistent 0.100 seconds for us every time. We were in different weight classes at the time, but we both won our racing seasons easily. Little secrets like this in every turn gave us the edge.

So hopefully by now you have an idea of what it means to manage weight transfer to your advantage. It’s all about modeling in your mind how the shift of the inertial mass of the kart is affecting the handling of the kart. You can model to fix problems, and you can model to imagine the theoretical optimal weight distribution. With this in mind, you can concoct unique and optimal tactics for each turn.

With that I will leave you with a problem to ponder. Let’s say you have drawn a random rental kart and upon driving it, you realize that it wants to veer off to the right. What could possibly be causing this? And so what would the optimal place for your weight be? You can be sure that one of those wheels is dragging against the others when you try to drive in a straight line. Taking away down force for that wheel is not going to solve the problem, but it will give you a better time than if you just left things be.

The trick to winning an indoor racing season is that you just need to be able to drive the junk karts better than everyone else can drive them. Weight transfer will give you that edge.

How to Stop your Indoor Go Kart from Sliding in a Sweeper turn.

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How to Stop your Indoor Go Kart from Sliding in a Sweeper turn.

If you find your kart sliding in a sweeping turn, (a long steady turn of maximum throttle from entry to exit) even if you are breaking loose slightly, then you’re losing time to the guy who makes it stick.

So you need to start thinking about WHY the kart might be slipping at that spot. In racing parlance we’re about to enter the realm of ‘weight transfer’. The first thing to ask is, “what is your inertial mass doing?”

More precisely, ‘is your inertial mass shifting about? (of course it is) and what are you doing to cause it to change?”

What is inertial mass? Think of it as the direction of force on your kart. Under deceleration the inertial mass is biased towards the front, and under acceleration your inertial mass moves towards the rear. But there is also down force which exerts itself on your tires and is a combination of the total mass and your center of gravity.

The first rule for increasing traction in a go kart, is LEAN OUT of a turn, DONT LEAN IN
If you lean into a corner then you move your center of gravity towards the inside wheels, this lowers the downward pressure on your outside wheels and raises the downward pressure upon your inside wheels, this in turn creates an increased lateral (sideways) g force on your outside wheels. This effectively creates a lower center of gravity, and with less down force on the outside wheels and an increased lateral pressure the kart is more inclined to slide, than it is to tip over.

Direction of force relative to rear wheels due to center of gravity.

The counter to this is that as you lean outwards you shift your center of gravity over your outside wheels which lowers the lateral g force on your outside wheels and creates more down force, because it effectively raises the center of gravity relative to the outside wheels. This effectively increases the grip. So we might only be talking the difference of a few pounds, but when you are at the limits, this makes all the difference between being able to ‘stick it’, and ‘busting loose’ such that you have to deal with a slide.
With respect to leaning, you want to lean out BEFORE you begin the turn, because you want the lateral shift to happen while the inertial stress of the kart is neutral, which means lean while on the straight. If you lean after the turn in, it causes a shift in the inertial mass AFTER the tires are loaded, and that is a good way to bust yourself loose too. Some drivers place cushions in the side of their seats to stop their inertial mass from sliding around in the seat for this reason.

So while leaning out before all kinds of turns will help, it is not so much the ‘positioning’ of your inertial mass that causes or fixes sliding in a sweeper, the real enemy is the ‘changing’ of inertial mass while you are in the middle of navigating the turn.

A very common cause (but not the only cause) for sliding in a sweeper is Snap Oversteer. This is a condition where the back wheels break loose (usually slightly) in the middle of a turn. Particularly a turn that *should* be able to be taken at full throttle. Lets call this sliding area the drift zone. The primary cause for snap oversteer is a shift in the inertial mass that causes the tires to lose traction. And the number one culprit for this shift in the mass, especially in a sweeper, is releasing from full throttle while in the middle of a turn.

The key here is not THAT you lifted the throttle, its WHEN you lifted the throttle.

Here’s several ways that karters of various skill levels try to handle this situation.
Novice karters just keep their foot planted and ride out the drift zone, losing all kinds of control. They’re terribly slow even though they feel fast and create congestion out of the sweeper.

Intermediate drivers feel the drift coming on and THEN release the throttle to regain control. They experiment with timing for reapplication of power because if they try to get back on too soon, they drift more. Eventually they find their sweet spot and they can get through without sliding. So they basically use a coasting technique.

Advanced drivers pre-empt the drift and back off the gas slightly early BEFORE the drift zone, maybe going through the drift zone at 3/4 throttle to maintain control. They’re not coasting, they’re throttle modulating. It’s a bit quicker, and it’s really hard to execute.

Expert drivers blast through the drift zone at full throttle with no slide or slip whatsoever.

So how do expert drivers do it?

Well first of all, lets examine why the drift happens in the first place.
Snap oversteer is basically the consequence of the mass or weight of the kart being redistributed in the middle of a turn when the wheels of the kart are under maximum load. The redistribution causes a loss of down force and / or an overloading of the tires ability to hold traction.

While mass redistribution can happen in many ways, such as having unstable and shaky hands, the most common way that mass redistribution happens is when you let off the gas while your tires are under maximum inertial load.

That’s a bit counter intuitive to most drivers, surely letting off the gas slows you down and gives you more control?

But consider what happens to your weight distribution in the following scenario.
1. You come down a straight at maximum speed and hold your throttle at full power as you turn into your sweeper. No problem at this point, no slide, almost no lateral (sideways) pressure. Your center of mass is basically centralized but starts to slowly move to the outside center as you enter the turn.
2. As you enter the mass stays centered and your load starts to build up on the outside wheels. No problem holding traction at all at this point.
3. Now you start to approach the zone that the kart starts to get loose, usually somewhere near the apex. You’ve ran this corner many times, you just KNOW it’s going to get loose right up ahead. You’re almost halfway into the sweeper. So what do you do?
Most drivers will get off the gas.
But consider what happens next.
As you release the gas, the kart slightly decelerates and your centralized inertial mass starts to move forward. This causes the down force on the rear wheels to lessen and the forces on the front wheels to increase. Now in some vehicles (with suspension) under such conditions the front wheels might break loose if under maximum load, but in a kart what typically happens is the rear wheels lose their grip and back begins to step out. You just CREATED the very thing you KNEW was going to happen, by letting off the gas.
What you actually did wrong, was that you let off the gas, TOO LATE!

“Okay, no problem!”, you say. “so I’ll let off a bit earlier and maybe control my throttle through that zone”. Now you’re thinking like an Advanced Driver. So you change your strategy and at about a quarter of the way through the turn you back off the gas, and sure enough you are able to get through with no slide by modulating at 3/4 power through the trouble spot. This is REALLY hard to do consistently, especially in inconsistent rental karts, so I really have to commend the drivers that can pull this off. But guess what? You’re still going to be creamed by the Expert Driver.

All right, so here’s the secret. Let off BEFORE or AS you turn into the sweeper. “WTH??! thats waaay too early”, you say. Well I know this probably seems counter intuitive because you have absolutely no threat of losing control way back at the start of a sweeper, but let me explain what this does.

First of all, immediately after letting off and turning in, like within a split second, you want to stomp hard on that gas and hold it down hard with no intention of letting up all the way through the sweeper.

So here’s what happens to the kart in an ideal world.

As you let off the throttle, the mass that was centralized before now moves forward slightly and causes extra down force on your front tires right at the moment of turn in. This causes the front tires to BITE on the tarmac and the rear inside wheel becomes slightly lighter and causes the kart to tripod onto 3 wheels. This has several advantages, first it raises your center of gravity and distributes it BEFORE the tires are under any load, so there is NO chance of a sudden overloaded mass redistribution and displacement in the middle of the turn.
Next, because this strategy assists torque in the chassis, which assists the tripod affect, the solid rear axle lifts the inside rear wheel, allowing the kart to roll speed without bind.

But that’s not all, provided that you are leaning out and not leaning in, BEFORE you turned in, the chassis torque creates extra down force on your outside tires, which means you not only have extra roll speed, you also have extra traction. That’s because a kart that is in a tripod configuration has a different center of gravity than a kart that has slipped out. Consider this, if a kart has slipped out, then it has no outside traction, and in that case the rear axle plants BOTH wheels flat to the ground, and a planted inside rear wheel in a turn can only act like a brake. That’s because the circumference traveled by the inside wheel in a turn, is ALWAYS less than the circumference traveled by the outside wheel. Remember that the solid rear axle means that BOTH wheels must rotate at the EXACT same velocity.

The tripod affect is extremely important in a kart, because it frees up the inside rear wheel that is on a fixed solid axle. The steering geometry of a go kart is specially designed to create this effect, so that under optimal conditions only the outside rear wheel is touching the ground. You want this, and you want to lean out to help it.

The next thing you need is a pair of steady hands that hold your steering at a single angle and input. No shaking of the hands in the middle of the turn. or at least through the zone of highest g force. Shaky hands will redistribute your weight and upset any kart at maximal load. There are several things you can do to assist this. First have a consistent turn in point, use a mark or some reference on the track. You want a single hand movement through the turn, so if you find yourself adjusting the angle of the wheels through the turn, adjust your turn in point forward and backwards until you find the sweet spot.

Next, keep your eye focused on the apex, no matter what is in front of you, train yourself to observe everything you need to observe through your peripheral vision, while your eye is focused on the apex. The general theory goes that the kart will go, where your eye is looking, so look at the apex. This is important because when you look at the kart in front of you, you invariably end up driving like the kart in front of you. When that happens, you might have been quick enough to catch them, but now you’ll stop doing what made you faster, and start doing what makes them slower. This is a common trap.

Next use your peripheral vision to your advantage by focusing on your apex while you peripherally watch where your inside tire is actually pointing while you are in the turn. Point your inside wheel directly at the apex. This allows you to make adjustments for various changes in track conditions.

When you get it right, there will be almost no hand movement once you have initiated turn in. There will no sensing and correcting of inertial sway from left to right. You’ll just be balanced, steady and loaded with no slip. That’s how you get steady hands.

Finally DONT LIFT OFF THE GAS until you complete the sweeper. This is because any lifting of the throttle when you are under maximal load will shift your weight and upset your traction. And that lifting of the gas IS the essence of what creates the drift of snap oversteer.

Okay so one more bonus tip here. Many indoor karts have a foot stirrup that you can push your heel into, just below the brake and throttle. This stirrup allows you to create cross tension through the chassis. Cross tension allows you to change the down force slightly through the kart. I have tested this on scales in a flexible outdoor kart, and just by pushing your heel into the left front stirrup you can create a extra 10lb to 20lb weight on the left front AND right rear wheel, at the same time. Push on the right front stirrup and you create the extra weight on the front right and rear left wheels. It’s interesting how it creates down force across the diagonal of the kart.
The idea is to push your heel in the direction you are turning. So a left sweeper needs your left heel to push into the stirrup. Remember to keep it steady throughout the turn, don’t release, because you don’t want to upset the balance.
So what does this do for you? This assists the tripod effect on the kart, and releases weight, pressure, bind and drag from the inside rear wheel. Cross tension also gives you extra traction on your outside wheels.

The short version of this is. If you want to go full throttle through a sweeper then create a throttle lift off point before you stomp on the gas full throttle, and keep moving your lift off point earlier and earlier until you find the sweet spot that allows you to push full throttle all the way through that sweeper without sliding. The sweet spot is almost always way back on the straight before you even turn your steering wheel, and never when you are already loaded up and into the turn.