Driving Success

This is where you will find advice on how to improve your driving and your lap times.

Developing a Driving Line

Jan 2006

Pulling down a hot lap involves optimising the time you need to get around the whole of the circuit. To do this one must consider how to advantage oneself in specific corners, transitions between corners and planning ahead.

If you set yourself the goal of perfecting one corner this is a great start. You will feel a gradual improvement (if you can remain focussed) and eventually you will feel like you weren't really trying and you flew through faster than when you were working hard.

Next you should try to string two fast corners together. You will see that the fastest line through one corner is not necessarily the best for overall speed.

For example, turn 9 here at Auscarts is a gentle turn and it's not hard to get through here fast. However if you push through turn 9 flat out without thinking ahead you will end up on the left side of the track, completely out of position for a good entry to turn 10.

To create a driving line that will give you the fastest lap time (and race wins) you must balance the advantage of a quick-ish corner like turn 9 with a healthy approach into turn 10. In some ways turn 10 is the most important corner on the track as it sets you up for the high speed turns 11 and 12. This means that for a faster lap, you should sacrifice some speed coming out of turn 9 in order to set yourself up in a good position to enter turn 10.

If you use this example to consider the transitions between all corners on the track you will begin to develop a true 'racing line' for the whole of the circuit. This is the only way to get race winning speed around a race track.

... More next month !

Exit Speed

December 2005:

Entering a corner is important to racecraft and your competitive position however for pure speed it's the exit of the corner you should worry about. If you exit a corner at 5 km/h faster than your opponent, by the end of the next section you will be proportionally faster than him. So that 5 km/h advantage leaving the corner turns into 20km/h advantage by the next corner.

Try entering a corner more slowly and smoothly, concentrate on looking around the corner and down the road rather than just at the curb in front of you.

Don't confuse this with power-sliding (oversteering) which is also a common technique in a go kart. While it is exiting to watch (in and out of the kart) this technique of sliding (drifting) the rear end it is only efficient if used by an experienced driver. Such a driver will already have appreciated the value of promoting and protecting your exit speed out of corners.

Slow in, Fast out.

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