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A Quick Idea to Improve Kart Stability in corners

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A Quick Idea to Improve Kart Stability in Corners

Introduction

Correct hand position can make the difference between being stable and consistent and all over the place. But what IS the correct hand position?

Correct Hand Position

Over the years I have noticed many drivers use different techniques to manage their steering and body position. Some pull at the steering some push, some lean in and others lean out.

Now as for hand position some people say your hands should be at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel, but I find in a rental kart you’re not always able to reach this far because the seat is set so far back. For this reason I set my hands at 9 and 3.

I think the important thing is that you’re consistent because I have seen some drivers who are very fast who set their hands at 8 and 4, take Adam Kellerman for example, who is arguably one of the fastest indoor kart drivers in USA.

Now when you consider the actual geometry and mechanics of the kart, I think there is a clear optimal method to position yourself for corners and braking. When steering, Pushing with the outside hand, should be more favorable than pulling with the inside hand. So hands above 9 and 3 should win.

The reason it’s important is that we want to help the kart chassis flex (although indoor karts tend not to flex much at all). The idea is to bring the inside front wheel down and to create cross tension between the front and rear wheels. This causes the kart to have better traction.

Is it a huge advantage? Probably not, but a lower inside front wheel and lower outside rear wheel gives you a small advantage that will add up over a session. And everything adds up.

So what are your thoughts on this, where do you hold your hands?


What can I work on to be faster in a kart?

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What can I work on to be faster in a kart?

Drunk Vs Sober

Over the years I have considered at depth, what makes the difference between the fastest kart racers and the rest of the drivers? One afternoon a thought came to mind…

Here’s a question for you.. “What is the difference between a drunk driver and a sober driver?”

How about …

  1. Balance
  2. Timing
  3. Reflexes
  4. Judgement
Why are drunk drivers less capable?

These give us 4 strategic dimensions to work on your kart racing.

  1. Improve Stability and Balance through posture and mechanics.
  2. Improve Timing, through track awareness and timing techniques
  3. Improve effect of bad reflexes through track awareness, timing and racing lines.
  4. Develop race craft through tricks and techniques to passing. (better judgement)

Now that we have some targets we can think about exercises that we can develop to work on each area. Note that not every dimension requires us to be on the track. We could work on timing and balance in a numerous ways. If you get creative you can really open your possibilities.

Accumulation theory

There are many subtle little tricks we can learn to develop small advantages within each strategic dimension, these little advantages accumulate to become an overwhelming edge that bring consistent speed and position in race situations.

I wont go into detail on each dimension but if you are looking for areas that you can develop to improve your ability then these are 4 areas to begin.

I will say, how you sit, how you turn, how you use the steering and brakes. How you try to use timing instead of reflexes, how you use your eyes and how much you try to prepare in advance and pre-empt the track ahead. All of these things accumulate into an accumulation of advantage.

This makes the difference between driving something like a drunk driver vs driving like a well balanced driver who knows in advance what is coming.

See you on the track.

How to avoid the mistake of sliding in a Go Kart

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How to Avoid the Mistake of Sliding in a Go Kart

Fixing up Sliding & Drifting

Sliding: It looks cool, feels fast, but the truth is, it is slower than molasses and is a sure fire sign of an inexperienced racer.

Fix the slide, and it’s the surest way to beat all your buddies, qualify for advanced status, and challenge the veterans for fast lap honors.

Added Bonus! This applies to real cars as well.

Why is slding slow?

Indoor karting is all about managing a very small amount of energy, because you have very little horsepower in your engine you can only build your energy up slowly. Once you have momentum you have to bring that energy into a turn, carry it through the turn as you rotate the kart and then make use of whatever you have left on the exit of the turn. Every little bit makes a difference because if you can save energy in a turn then you need less energy to get back up to top speed.

Sliding throws your energy and momentum away in the turn.

After a slide, on the exit of the turn, you have to kind of start all over again building up your momentum energy.

If you slide, fast drivers will just drive around you like you are parked still, and in many cases a slider WILL be parked still.

There are 3 types of slide.
1. The Entry slide
2. The Middle slide
3. The Exit slide.

Just about all drivers are guilty of losing speed at some time to these three types of slide, even the pros. But here’s what you need to know to fix them.

By Entry, Middle and Exit, we are talking about corner phases.

In the image above we are approaching from the left and exiting on the right. 

It is important to start thinking about how each phase also has an optimal assigned purpose, and although they seem obvious they have profound consequences on your ability to be fast.

Goals for the Entry.

Our assigned purpose is to SLOW DOWN! We do NOT want to also be doing anything in the middle and exit that causes us to slow down, we want ALL decreases in speed adjustment to happen in the entry phase.


Goals for the Middle turn.

 Our purpose is to Balance, or to get control of the kart and spread the forces evenly between the front and rear tires. This will let us maximize the momentum and lock the kart to the ground without sliding. This sets us up for the next phase. It is not so much about acceleration here, as it is about balance, many pros only coast through this phase and wait wait wait for balance before trying to accelerate out. Remember if you are doing it right, you are already at the limit of traction here. 

Goals for the Exit.

We want to be doing things to Accelerate us. As a base line, until you get the hang of it, you should wait until you have passed the very middle “apex” of the turn, which is about when you pass the middle of the inside bumper, before you start to apply the gas. Do this and you will always be balanced before you accelerate. And Don’t rush it! Squeeze on easy and steady.

Fixing The Entry Slide. This is a slide that begins on the entry, it might carry on through the middle and into the exit, but it begins on entry.

On Entry we need to SLOW DOWN. Seems obvious right? But it is NOT just braking, there are actually several things things you can do to slow down, whether you know it or not, many drivers ALSO do these slow down things in the other phases of the turn, and this is where the mistakes begin that lose you speed.  These are ALL the slowing actions…

  1. Braking 
  2. Letting off on the gas 
  3. Turning the wheel MORE into the turn, (includes wiggling your hands when IN the turn)
  4. Sliding the rear

Note that each idea has different degrees of slowing potential, so the transition times can be gentle or violent. And in general we want our transitions to be precise, but smooth and gradual, and where possible as gentle as handling a vial of anthrax.

So in an ideal situation, ALL your slowing actions happen in the ENTRY phase of the turn.

For example “Turning the wheel MORE into the turn”, you only want to be adding steering when you are in the entry phase, if you are adding more steering in the middle and exit phase then you are making a mistake that is slowing these phases. If you think carefully about what you are doing in turn where you seem to be slow, you can find these mistakes on your own.

The second goal of the entry is to get your kart SET for the turn, in an optimal way. In almost every situation, with very very rare exceptions (which won’t matter until you are seasoned pro), you should be LEANING OUT OF A TURN – NOT INTO A TURN! And you do this on the straight before the entry – NEVER after you have turned the wheel in, always before. Take my word for it, it’s critical to speed in an indoor kart. There are very real reasons for this that any pro can explain to you.

If you slide beginning on entry, it almost always just means you are coming in too hot, or braking too late. Generally here we mean your rear wheels are sliding. It is possible that your front wheels are sliding too, but generally this does not happen until mid turn.  It’s the same cause though, coming in too hot. So start slowing down earlier!

The fastest deceleration will happen in straight lines, so in general if you want to brake late and more effectively, you should look for ways to brake in straight lines BEFORE you turn the wheel. You have rear brakes so lean backwards when you brake to put your weight on the rear – YES it makes a difference – the easy way is to lift and keep your head up high when you apply the brakes.

Fixing The Exit Slide. This is a rear slide that begins on the exit, after a stable entry and a stable mid turn entry.

Before we discuss the middle slide, we will look at the most common error, the exit slide.


Exit slide almost always means you are getting on the gas too early, but it can also mean you are offline and turning in too early. In general though, with even a little practice we can make any line stable with the right foot and hand work, so the exit slide can be a little deceiving when you are chasing the last .100 seconds. Even being slightly off line you can still qualify if you fix this one, you just won’t beat the fast guys until you fix the line.

So if sliding on exit, the first thing to try is to just get on the gas later. And the next thing to ask is, “Should I turn in later?”. You will know if you need a later turn in, because the other drivers will seem slow on the entry but pull away from you on the exit while you are still stuck trying to turn.

If you find you can not get full throttle until you are way past the middle of the turn, then you DEFINITELY have a bad line. You need to turn into the turn later, so delay your entry a bit and wait a bit more before you turn in. Start by deciding EXACTLY where you will turn in, and make sure you can hit that spot consistently. Then make adjustments, if you think you need to get on the gas earlier, move your turn in point forward by about 3 inches at a time, until it feels right.

Remember now you might need to slow down on the entry a little bit more to make it work. Don’t let that bother you, as any pro will tell you, the secret trick is to be SLOW IN and FAST OUT. As you will soon learn, fast in and fast out, generally doesn’t work, because it places you too close to the limits and messes up the balance and transition phases. Fast in-fast out strategies are very inconsistent and unstable, and the regular mistakes result in catastrophic loss of speed. Also the only way to make fast in fast out work, is to drive a big wide sweeping line, which makes the track so much longer, that you never make up for the time lost. That’s when you experience the feel of drivers pulling away from you in turns while you are still stuck rotating in the turn.

Fixing the Middle Phase Slide. This is a slide that begins after you have slowed, are approaching the apex and getting ready for the exit.

Take note of the shape of the driving line in our diagram, note that it arcs more in the Entry, then it opens out in the Exit phase and is almost straight in the exit. This is the classic slow in fast out line, with a slightly late apex.

Remember TURNING INTO a turn slows you down a little, so TURNING OUT should speed you up a little. Note the shape of the arc through the middle, it almost holds steady through the middle, without increasing, while it starts to open at the apex.

If your entry was stable and you start to slide in the middle, it could be several reasons, but generally it means you did not get set up for the turn early enough, and you are still trying to make radical inputs. 

In general you should be all set by the middle, and not need to be slowing down or speeding up, or changing lines. You should be holding steady and either coasting or making very very very subtle movements to maintain control and balance.

The reason coasting the middle works so well, is that during your entry phase a lot of the weight is thrown to the front of the kart, which makes the rear of the kart light. You have almost no traction at all in the rear, if you are doing things right. By coasting, the weight gently returns to the rear wheels and evenly distributes between front and rear wheels, giving you maximum rubber to carry the turn. As you begin to release the steering input more weight shifts to the rear and front pressure drops and the rear tires are given downforce to accelerate you out.

Hit the gas too early, before that weight has balanced, and you lose the back end (slide). OR another type of problem can happen, called the push, because the back plants and the front gets TOO light, you lose front steering. OR another problem called the BIND, where the back wheels plant – the weight shifts rearward and all four wheels fight causing a braking effect as you try to accelerate out. SOLUTION: Be patient – wait for the balance.

As you become a pro, you will learn to develop ‘the feel’ to be able to push the limits, and there definitely *tricks* that can be taught to cheat the balance, but it all begins with mastering the balance in the middle through coasting first.

Review of kart sliding problems and solutions

1. ENTRY SLIDE   – COMING IN TOO HOT  – SLOW DOWN MORE!!
                              – BRAKING TOO LATE    – SLOW DOWN EARLIER

2. MIDDLE SLIDE – OFF BALANCE – COAST MORE
                            – ADJUST YOUR SPEED EARLIER**

3. EXIT SLIDE – GETTING ON THE GAS TOO EARLY  – PATIENCE
                        – OFFLINE – APEX LATER

Remember the purpose of each phase
Entry = slow down
Middle = Balance
Exit = GO GO GO

Advanced TIP: Middle slide often happens because we are able to get into a corner with stability, but then in the middle suddenly realize we need to make an adjustment. Already being at the limit, even with a slight throttle blip or fractional twitch of our steering, we lose traction slightly.  If you find consistent mid turn instability, begin by asking yourself what the adjustment is that is causing it, and then resolve to do that adjustment earlier, even if you don’t think you need it yet. You almost always find after this modification to your line that you get more acceleration through a turn. This will really help you in a sweeper turn.

If you find Indoor Karting fun, and want to learn from the best drivers, come and jump into the racing leagues, they’re open to all skill levels and you are guaranteed to get faster.

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.

late and off apex
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.

bind

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.