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

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.