Time to mod the nut behind the wheel

I've been wanting to try this for a few years but now finally getting around to actually doing it. I just pulled the trigger and entered an 8 week karting league starting in late January. The idea is I will be able to get lots of winter track time and be able to use it to focus specifically on improving myself as a driver. I will use this thread to document my methods and results. 

Goals:

1. Become a faster driver, specifically at autox where I compete most often

I'll chime in later with things like where I think I am right now, places I think I can improve, more details on the karts and the league, ideas, methods, tools, books, etc. Please feel free to chime in with recommendations or to throw tomatoes. 

I did the local kart track league for a couple years, and it was mostly awesome.  When people start keeping spreadsheets of the "good" karts and performing all manner of berkeleyery to get one for each race, call them out before that becomes the standard. 

It was always fun trying stuff- if it's only time based, lots of tracks have a way to throw away one laptime in order to carry more speed across the line into the next lap, then lay down a screamer crossing the line in an equal but opposite non-ideal way (think early apex that aims you right at a wall).  Good for qualifying sessions too.

What kind of karts?

It's an indoor facility with two separate tracks. The karts are electric, and advertised as up to 50mph.

I've only driven there once before (and it's been years) but if I remember correctly a lap time on the big course was around 30 seconds and the small course around 25. I remember the karts would actually take your power away if you slid them too much, and wouldn't give it back for a second or something. I wouldn't be surprised if they are programmed to a specific acceleration rate maximum.

And yes, in the 1.5 pages of rules, they make it clear that karts are drawn at random each race, no one has the same kart more than once in a night, and you are allowed to swap your kart for "personal reasons" but only during the first 4 laps of the race and only if you elect to let everyone pass you first. I'm sure it's not perfect but it seems to be addressed at least. We will see.

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

Well now I feel like an shiny happy person.  We went to the local fun kart tract about 5 years ago.  Just watching the karts I had a list of three that I wanted when we ran.  Ok so maybe I'm a little competitive.

OK here's my crash course of electric indoor karts that may or may not be relevant outside my normal track.  Notably, we don't have the weird no-slide G limit thing you're talking about.  But...

Brakes- the brake light switch on a lot of the electric karts cuts the throttle, completely, for a surprisingly long time.  Don't rest your foot on the pedal if this is the case with your karts, hover it like an inch away instead.

Handling- this is the big thing, and tends to be variable kart to kart.  If you have the chance in practice or whatever, try doing a whole lap without touching the brakes, a whole lap where you only brake after turning in, a whole lap where you only brake right at turn-in, etc.  Thanks to a locked diff and no front brakes, the kart might do things you don't expect in these scenarios.  On top of that, the act of turning scrubs a LOT of speed and trying a full lap without using the brakes will help you get a feel for that quickly.

Acceleration/speed/momentum- it's more noticeable on gas powered karts, but even the electric karts seem to have a "bog point" where they get WAY slower if you drop below a certain speed.  Getting a feel for this will help you make line choices in places where you have to choose to either maximize momentum or minimize distance.

The track- most of these places are made of a strip of bumper plastic with either tires or sliding barriers behind it.  That means you can touch it, don't be afraid to use that last inch where the side of the kart is touching the side of the track, listen for that nice little tapping sound as you clip the apex.

BullE36 M3- sometimes electric tracks tune the karts to try and even them out, usually by cranking up the top speed on ones that don't handle well.  You can use this to your advantage, make sure you're not easing off too early or braking too much just because the last kart was topped out in a certain spot.

Passing- karts are slow, and nearly equal in acceleration.  This means when you think you're ready to set up a pass, you're probably still too far away- stay on your ideal line until you're pretty much touching the kart in front of you unless you see an obvious way to make a pass because they brake early or something.

Not totally applicable, but kart related. Many years ago I bought a Birel 125cc shifter kart and LOTS of spares. I decided to run a complete series of both short course and road races(big tracks:Pocono, Mid Ohio, Summit Point, etc). It is difficult to type or verbally explain the sensation of one of those things. It does everything in ways I had never experienced. Blinding acceleration out of corners, high G-loads in the corners and brakes that suck the eyeballs out of your head. Speaking of eyeballs, I thought something was wrong with my eyes after the first event because while driving these, everything was "blurry". Turns out it was my head slinging side-to-side and back-and forth. Things happened so quickly unlike any other type of car or motorcycle I had ever rode/driven. Karts are a serious motorsports tool. I can honestly say that I learned more(car control, foot finesse, steering feel, etc) in a season of karting than 10 years of driving anything else. If, at the time, I could have convinced any of my racing buddies to get a kart and travel with me, I would have continued doing it. All of the traveling alone was no fun, so the kart had to go.

onboard at a super sketchy temp circuit

Get yourself a very good karting collar or horse collar donut and a set of knee pads. Put the knee pads pointing inward toward one another to cushion contact with the steering column area. During my first race, not knowing what the he!! I was doing, my legs from the knees to the ankle bone were black&blue the next day from slamming into the fuel tank and steering support rods. 
 

You will have an ABSOLUTE BLAST participating in this league and hone skills that will stay with you for years(left foot braking finesse). Have fun!!!!

In reply to lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) :

Really good call on the gear. I just added a couple things to my Christmas list!

Where am I starting?

Well, like most of you, I've done my fair share of performance driving. In college, I worked as a 'skills' driving instructor at a company in Denver called Masterdrive. It was a high-end driving school for teens, and the big differentiator was every student spent 2 full days doing car control skills before they went on to the regular driver's ed stuff. I was one of the car control coaches, teaching stuff like emergency braking, skid pad, slalom, the 'moose test' maneuver, etc. A couple of years of doing that every weekend and all through the summer was both really fun, and I think also gave me a pretty solid car control basis from which to work. Maybe picked up a few bad habits. The Street Survival program teaches almost exactly the same drills, and I've volunteer coached many of those events too. 

From there I learned that autocross was a thing, and I owned an e36 at the time so I did a few years of events with the bmwcca, both autox and on track driving schools. I was solidly an upper mid packer, but did enough driving schools that I instructed once or twice. I also did 3 lemons/chump weekends around this time, and I considered myself to be a pretty good driver (don't we all?)

Then I really fell out of it. Just had different priorities in life, and I truly believe that I enjoy building more than I enjoy driving. Plus you can build whenever you want, and driving events need to be scheduled. Now when I autox I feel "rusty". I can see some of the places that I leave big chunks of time, I feel like I can't get ahead of the car, etc. I have a really bad habit of snapping off the throttle when I get out of sorts, and predictably, this usually makes things worse. 

So, the first few sessions I'll be focusing on getting back up to my 'old' speed. Whatever that is or was. I'll be focusing on things like vision and identifying and driving the line. Then if I get comfortable I'll start in on steering with the feet. If I get comfortable there too, I'll be really happy. 

Took a few notes from this article (thanks!) https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/how-go-quicker-not-faster-track/

and added all the sessions to my calendar. On each calendar entry, I added the following questions. I plan to answer all of these questions after each session and before the next. 

1. Do you feel you came away from your last race more developed as a driver?
2. Did you learn anything new?
3. What would you do differently with just one more lap?
4. How well did you meet your goals for the session?
5. Where did you struggle?
6. What are your goals for next session?
7. What does the data say?

Well well well! First event was Tuesday night. And I got crushed. Not dead last but only one up from there, and there are at least 3 total newbies out of the 17 people in the league.

As promised, I'll answer the questions:

1. Do you feel you came away from your last race more developed as a driver? Yes, absolutely. First time out opened my eyes to a lot of things that I am very rusty with. Setup, inputs, finding the line, getting bumped, to name a few.
2. Did you learn anything new? Again yes, maybe too many things to mention. For example on my 4th race I noticed that the carts can be adjusted for how far the pedals are from the seat (doh). I saw a lot of places where I can improve: identifying and driving the line, driver inputs, not getting upset when bumped.
3. What would you do differently with just one more lap? I'd like to try not using the brake to enter turn one and instead bleeding speed by initiating a slide. It's a high speed to decreasing radius corner, and there really isn't a good spot to brake in a straight line. The fastest guys appeared to drift in.
4. How well did you meet your goals for the session? I did ok, my vision was pretty good looking ahead and I got a bit of a feel for how the events work.
5. Where did you struggle? Almost everywhere. Seriously.
6. What are your goals for next session? Next session goals will be to learn the line a bit better. Having the restraint to stay slow where I need to be tight. Look further ahead.
7. What does the data say? Data says I improved my fastest lap on each of my 5 races. From 24.0 down to 22.7. Fastest drivers overall were in the 21.3ish range on their fastest laps.

Overall impression was that they hold a pretty good event. The top guys are impressive but they were willing to chat with me and they weren't complaining about cart selections and stuff. The guy running the races was pretty good and the staff helpful. I found a couple of the guys drove like dicks (but they weren't even the fast ones) being really pushy from behind you. They'd bump me on corner entry or dive-bomb the corner and use my cart to corner. (I need to get better at just letting that go, I'd catch myself getting mad and not focusing on myself, which is my point of being there). There are rules against that garbage but I suspect the race officials are watching the front markers, and honestly I didn't see it between the fast guys.

We were split up into 2 run groups, which was really cool so I could watch the A group run from the sidelines.

Also I met a few guys who seem cool, so that's a bonus!

Week 2 is in the books. 

1. Do you feel you came away from your last race more developed as a driver? Yes. Specifically I feel like I was able to deal with a significant cart handling change and after a few laps I was back to similar pace with a clearly worse cart. One the second to last race of the night I had a cart that was handling well, and I was driving consistently (all 10 laps between 23.5 and 23.0, starting at 23.5 and slowly marching down with last two at 23.051 and 23.049). The next race, I had a cart that was REALLY slippery on the rear axle, it could even spin the rears under power coming out of a corner - which I have never experienced in a cart at this place. My first couple laps this really hindered me and I considered using one of my 3 season "get a new cart" cards but I decided not to. I was running 25.5s at the beginning but worked that down to 23.3 by the last lap. I was able to change my driving style slightly to work around the issue. 
2. Did you learn anything new? I learned that the carts can start bouncing a bit when turning, but this is bad for time. Better to quickly steer straight to get the cart flat, and then turn back in to stop the bouncing. This is interesting to me because my challenge car bounces similarly...
3. What would you do differently with just one more lap? I'd like to try going a little wider on entry to turn 4. 
4. How well did you meet your goals for the session? I'm not sure about the line since we used the opposite track, but I did better at staying slow where I should stay slow. And I think that helped a ton. I'm still improving the look ahead thing. 
5. Where did you struggle? I'm struggling on the brakes. I don't feel like I have consistent braking points since I'm not great at predicting what the cart will do, especially at the end of a straight.
6. What are your goals for next session? Goals for next session are to improve my vision and look ahead more. Continue building on patience in slow corners. Start picking specific braking points and hit them. 
7. What does the data say? Data says I closed the gap on the leaders this week, instead of being 1.4 seconds behind I was closer to .9 seconds behind. I was also steadily improving my times throughout the race rather than getting my fastest lap early on like last week. 

I felt pretty good this week. I moved up a couple positions and wasn't 2nd from dead last - so that's good. I felt like I was adjusting to the carts a bit better. But I also had my cart pulled off to the side after 2 races last week and they quit using that cart, and that didn't happen to me this week. So maybe I got some truly bad carts last week on top of my own issues driving them haha. 

I also left all my lap time printouts at the track and I'm sure they are in the garbage now, so I was forced to go look up my times online. They still have my lap times from the only other time I've been at this track, way back in 2017 (december). Interestingly, 4 years ago my fast time was 23.017 on the "Le Mans" track (best so far this year 23.049), and 21.952 on the "Monaco" track (best so far this year is 22.787). Now, the facility was brand new back then and the carts were too, so I bet they have deteriorated a bit overtime, but this also seems to confirm my feeling that I've lost my driving edge just a bit. Hopefully I can improve on those times soon!

And a couple pictures for fun!

These give you an idea of the tracks but they aren't totally accurate. Rotation for both is "down" in the middle.

And maybe as scale

This is from the bar/restaurant area above the pits. (Good for watching the fast drivers).

Wow can't believe it is already Saturday, and I drove last Tuesday. The track staff mixed it up for the league and ran the 'Monaco' track in reverse rotation. This was REALLY cool and interesting because it shook up the group. It was clear that some of the fast drivers were fast because they 'memorize' tracks and drive mechanically. They were not able to handle the track change very well. The guy that won is usually a mid pack guy - in the 3 weeks I've seen everyone - but he was able to really adjust to the new layout faster than the others. It was pretty fun. On to my questions. 

1. Do you feel you came away from your last race more developed as a driver? Yes again. I feel like I'm quickly getting back to my prior execution level as a driver. This week I had a breakthrough on my vision. It's funny how you think you are doing something ok and then you can have an 'aha' moment and learn you were doing it pretty poorly before. That absolutely happened to my vision this week. I was looking ahead pretty well from apex to next entry, but I realized that I was looking from entry to apex on most turns, where I should be looking from entry to exit (at least). Of course it made a huge difference almost immediately to my driving and times. 
2. Did you learn anything new? I learned a lot about driving in a pack. Turns out on one of my races I had one of 'the fast karts' and I had qualified to run in 3rd of the 5 drivers, all of whom I would have considered to be in the faster half. I learned that I was using my kart as a crutch for going fast, while they were using (mostly) better lines to make the slower karts as fast as I was. What they had to give up on corner entry speed and starting with a slightly wider line, they were able to achieve the same or better exit speeds. 
3. What would you do differently with just one more lap? I'd like to try staying a little more patient on the 2nd of the two slow corners immediately before the straight. I was trying to go slow on the first and then fast through the second into the straight, but I think the karts accelerate well enough that the faster guys didn't need to cover all that extra distance by going slow on the second corner as well. 
4. How well did you meet your goals for the session? Very well. I am continuing to improve my concentration, my vision, and my braking/turn entry control. 
5. Where did you struggle? I struggled in traffic. The distraction of 'racing' certainly led me to slower lap times, as I lost focus on my vision and my lines. I happened to have a fast kart in one of the races and I still lost a position because I wasn't able to stay focused on running fast laps in traffic. (that red mist strikes again! haha)
6. What are your goals for next session? Next session I want to continue to build upon my better (I won't naively say 'good') vision habits and I want to better maintain focus on lap times when in traffic. 
7. What does the data say? I have a good photo to ad which I will do in the following post and I will comment on this there. 

7. What does the data say? Here is my last race of the night. I drew one of the 'slower' karts compared to the karts I had been getting most of the night before. But you can really see the effect of both the ways in which I was using the fast karts as a crutch, and the effect of the loss of focus from trying to race instead of trying to drive. 

My fastest time of the night was 22.8 in a prior race, and as soon as we started going in this race I could feel that my kart didn't have the rear grip of the others. It also had a really sensitive brake pedal that would sense brake and kill engine power even when not touching the brake - I had to actually try to pull it back up with my foot when I wasn't intending to use it. You can see that the first 5 laps of the race I was really struggling with the kart. However, by lap 6 I was now so far behind the pack I had no choice but to stop focusing on racing (haha) and I had nothing to focus on but driving. Suddenly my vision improved, I adjusted my lines to be a bit wider, and voila, my lap times became consistent again and I was slowly bringing them down. So while the kart was clearly slower, I still learned a lot from it. 

And learning to drive fast is the reason I did this in the first place!

Also, I am moving up a bit in the rankings. I'm now 12th overall out of 19. 

Here's my 5 printouts from last Tuesday.

I can't believe we're already half way through the season! Wow. I'm really having fun with this. Onto the questions.

1. Do you feel you came away from your last race more developed as a driver? Yes, I believe I am still getting back in the groove, but one thing specifically I am better at is watching faster drivers. I really try to watch their positioning and then try their lines.
2. Did you learn anything new? I learned that you don't HAVE to brake. The track this time was "lemans" in reverse, and therefore the straight ended in a medium speed turn. I was dutifully braking for it each and every lap, until right before my last race one of the fellow racers mentioned that I don't need to brake there. The karts in fact scrub a lot of speed just by turning and he thought I was loosing a lot of time there. By golly I tried it and shaved almost half a second!!
3. What would you do differently with just one more lap? I'd love to start picking points on the track. I'm still inconsistent and still forcing myself to look ahead, pick a line, etc, so I am busy with other things while driving. But in some places, I feel I would benefit from from consistency, and picking some reference points is something I'd like to try for that.
4. How well did you meet your goals for the session? I kept my vision forward for the most part, and in traffic I didn't overpush. So those things were good.
5. Where did you struggle? Still struggling to find the ideal line. I'm also inconsistent, which means it is hard for me to correlate what line was fast and what wasn't. 
6. What are your goals for next session? Next session I'd like to pick some reference points and try that.
7. What does the data say? Data says I'm closing the gap to the fastest guys (in terms of fastest lap time). This time I was about .6 seconds behind, which is as close as I've been yet!

RULES CONTROVERSY!!!!

Well, 2 race nights have come and gone in-between posts from me. That is my fault for not getting on it. And as much as I'd like to say "its because a pending rules controversy preventing me from posting", it was not. 

But there was a controversy. Here's what happened:

In the final race of last week's race night, I started in 4th of 5 cars. After the start, the driver in 2nd chose to drive defensively almost immediately, and that slowed his lines. As a result, the first place driver started creating a big gap, but it also meant that positions 2, 3, 4, and 5 were racing really tight because we were all slowed up by 2nd place. I was trying to stay patient and wait for a mistake by the drivers in front of me, because being overly aggressive could mean I'd get passed by 5th. A bunch of laps went by this way. Then, near the end of the race, I got my opportunity. 2nd place made a large mistake and 3rd place "followed" him into the mistake (it is easy to follow the driver in front of you in these situations, instead focusing on your own car and line is important). I passed both on the same corner. Woohoo! Then however, 2 corners later, the guy who was in 2nd (and was now behind me in 3rd) got a little over aggressive and dive-bombed the inside of the corner, slamming into the side of my cart. Because of this I lost a lot of speed, and he got in front of me. However, race officials deemed it an illegal move and started giving him the scuba flag to let me pass again. Alas, instead of letting me pass, he instead started driving "defensively", basically doing everything possible to prevent a pass, and therefore he really held both of us up. Right before the end of the race, the guy behind me got an opportunity to pass both me and the blocking driver, so the race ended with everyone in starting position except 2 and 3 had swapped. 

The controversy is that I was supposed to have been given the 2nd place position back before the end of the race, but I was also passed before the end of the race. Video had to be uploaded (from the track's cameras), the national race director had to be contacted, oh man. Anyway, after a week of waiting, it turns out it came back in my favor. The ruling was that I should have been in 2nd and that I was passed at the end only because of the blocking done by the driver in front of me. So - woohoo. Since I am here to learn to drive better I wasn't too worried about either result, but still interesting that it happened, and I am glad they take such things so seriously! Pretty cool. 

Overall I think my driving was ok. I struggled to deal with karts that had different attributes (but hey, at least I noticed that they had different attributes), and I got faster on each race until the final with all the blocking. One thing I wanted to try is moving my apexes later on the 2nd of the linked slow turns. This means a bit more time in between them, but you're going slow anyway, and it may help get speed up for the areas after. In one race I had a kart that felt slow, and I decided to use one of my 3 season long 'kart swaps'. After the race, the event director (staff) wanted to confirm if the kart was off pace or not so he drove a few laps in the kart. He promptly posted times 1 full second faster than me - but he agreed that the kart was slow since that was ANOTHER full second off his normal pace on that track. WOW.

And what does the data say? This is the 5th night and only the first time we've done a track in the same configuration for a 2nd time. So comparing direct to direct, that first night I was able to get a fast lap of 22.7, but most laps were around 24.0. This time I achieved a fast lap of 22.5 with most others around 23.5. That is showing improvement for sure!

Last night I had a really 'good' night. I put good in quotes because I may have been lucky kart draws, but I was feeling really good and definitely felt like I was starting to get in the flow of things. I wasn't so abrupt on the brakes, which I know to be really fast you need to get on and get off, but I noticed that the fast guys weren't squeaking on corner entry where I was (meaning they were braking without locking up). I decided to try that, and it turns out the karts corner much better when you don't start the corner with a slide. Who knew? haha. 

Anyway, it was the first night that I actually made my way up into the A group, which was really cool. 

1. Do you feel you came away from your last race more developed as a driver? 
   1. Yes! I was really starting to 'feel' the differences in karts. Some understeer, some oversteer, some have high top speed. I felt like I was able to adjust my line a bit in some places to play to the karts 'strengths'. 
2. Did you learn anything new?
   1. It is better to not slide due to braking on turn in. OK to slide a bit mid corner, but the karts really don't like oversteer on entry (I think it just kills way too much speed). 
3. What would you do differently with just one more lap?
   1. I'd try going a bit wider on the entry to the slow section in the middle. This is an area where I'm not sure if the extra distance is worth the speed advantage or if I should just minimize distance because speeds are slow no matter what. 
4. How well did you meet your goals for the session?
   1. Pretty well. I feel like I was able to keep my vision up and forward, I was able to learn to not lock the brakes, and I was able to experiment with some slightly different lines. 
5. Where did you struggle?
   1. Still struggling with consistency. I lost one spot in one race due to an egregious error that was unforced. I just screwed up the corner and had to give up a ton of time in the process. 
6. What are your goals for next session?
   1. Continue to improve finess on the brakes. Experiment with where brakes are needed and where they are not. 
7. What does the data say?
   1. Last time on this track in this configuration my top time was a 23.0. Last night I got a 22.5. I was only 0.3 seconds off the fastest lap of the night. I would say the data agrees it was a good night for me. 

Another big gap in the posting. Tonight will be the last night of the 8 week series. 

Last week was a bit of a tough one for me. I felt inconsistent and couldn't really find a groove. I was pretty quick early on in the 2nd practice race of the night, posting a 22.5, but then in the qualifier race I got stuck in traffic early, and I slowed down to get out but found I had a cart that was extra sensitive to sliding and would cut power if you slid. I took it as an opportunity to try and learn to drive around the issue - and I do think it helped me learn a smoother line in areas - but at the end of the day i qualified DFL. Now, the field was unusually small, and instead of the normal 16-18 we only had 11 drivers I think, so points-wise the DFL wasn't as bad as it could otherwise be. 

Anyway, in the first race I started at the back, and again was almost immediately frustrated by driving behind folks. I was definitely faster, but not by enough to really get around them unless they made big mistakes. I did 4 laps trying to pass, and then decided to hang back and just try for a couple of flying laps to see if I could post a fast time. I improved my time a little, but still not matching the 22.5 from practice. I started the final race of the night in 4th (of 5 drivers). 

The final race started out with traffic frustrations again. 2 drivers in front of me bunched up and I couldn't find a place to pass, but since both inside and outside lines were plugged in front of me, it allowed the driver behind me to pull next to me. There was a lot of bumping and pushing and generally being aggressive for position, and I finally decided to just concede and again go for a couple of flying laps (I'm here to improve my driving, after all). This time I was a bit more successful at least, posting a best lap of 22.43, which was actually good enough to be in the top 20 of all drivers at that location last week. So I feel like I struggled with the traffic all night, but at least I was able to improve my best lap times. My previous fast lap on this track in this config was 22.8, so 22.4 is a great improvement. 

On to my questions:

1. Do you feel you came away from your last race more developed as a driver?
   1. Yes, specifically in my time in the cart that really penalized you for sliding. It made me be much more careful on braking and corner entry. 
2. Did you learn anything new?
   1. I actually noticed while doing some visualization practice after the event that in some specific corners my vision is not nearly far enough ahead.
3. What would you do differently with just one more lap?
   1. I'm going to look further ahead in those corners. 
4. How well did you meet your goals for the session?
   1. I do think I was able to experiment with slightly different lines in the slow corners like I wanted to, and I definitely developed more finess on the brakes. 
5. Where did you struggle?
   1. Still struggling with consistency and traffic. 
6. What are your goals for next session?
   1. Next session I will improve my vision, specifically in the corners I identified as having close vision when I was visualizing. 
7. What does the data say?
   1. The data says I continue to improve. My fast lap in this configuration was 22.8 but I posted a 22.4, so that is a great improvement.