General Cadet Kart Novices

[Seanl]

Should have mentioned beforehand, we were at Llandow CKC this weekend! It was the best round so far actually. Some questionable driving standards at Warden Law and farcical transponder issues at Rowrah (Tag transponder). Not the organisers fault at all and they were extremely apologetic for that. This is my boys first year racing so we’re toward the back in this championship (mid pack in local events) but would have been more than happy to talk to you. He has a Synergy Carbon too.

If you have any questions I’d be happy to answer, though I’m a novice with regard to setup too!

 

[Almeric1102]

Should have mentioned beforehand, we were at Llandow CKC this weekend! It was the best round so far actually. Some questionable driving standards at Warden Law and farcical transponder issues at Rowrah (Tag transponder). Not the organisers fault at all and they were extremely apologetic for that. This is my boys first year racing so we’re toward the back in this championship (mid pack in local events) but would have been more than happy to talk to you. He has a Synergy Carbon too.

If you have any questions I’d be happy to answer, though I’m a novice with regard to setup too!

I wish I had as well! Thank you so much for the offer, we'll be sure to reach out next time we're in the same location. I'm glad you enjoyed Llandow. They've been great with Chris and the guys always have time to help you out when needed. Very welcoming venue.

I thought the standards across the weekend were really high with only a few squeaky moments as you'd expect. How has Jacob settled into racing? The pack were well matched toward the rear so must have been great experience for him.

And I'm sure I'll have plenty of questions for you, once I start I can't stop

Best of luck for the season form Chis and I!

 

[Almeric1102]

There's no such thing as a "perfect setup" and it's all down to compromise on the day, conditions, how the driver is driving etc. What you're looking for is something balanced, predictable and consistent. I always like my karts set up with a little bit of understeer, with a loose rear end. However, it would be a case of building just enough front in (through width, caster, stiffness) and just enough rear in (stiffness of axle/bumper, width of rear wheels etc) to make it the three things that you can see above.

Until your lad is consistently posting laptimes within a tenth or two of each other, seat time rather than fiddling with setup is more important. Then, once you've got some kind of consistency you can start making changes to see if it makes him faster or slower and whether your change is going to throw him into the nearest tyre wall...

Finally, don't necessarily follow the crowd. By following everyone else, you're only ever going to go as fast as they are. And what works for them, may not necessarily work for your lad. The way I had a prokart set up when racing Endurance was commented on as being "borderline undriveable" by some....

This is really helpful, thank you. It's as much a learning curve for me as for him. Main thing is to let him keep pounding around until we find his pace and we'll go from there.

He had his first substantial encounter with the tyres a few weeks ago exiting onto the straight at Llandow, no big deal and straight back on with it. A few more lessons like that no doubt, but all part of the learning process.

And yes, last thing I'd want to do is give him a setup that works for somebody else and not him. As we learned this weekend, not everyone gets it right. At the moment we're focusing on opening up corners as he has a tendancy to drift toward the entry giving him tighter exits. Which was really why he crashed. Speed was good. Line was less good .

Thank you again

 

[mandelbug]

Project One have a setup sheet available at the bottom of this page
The Karts | Project One Racing (projectone-racing.co.uk)

It's a good starting point. We went to Bayford to test early on and one of the guys there helped and put this setup on for us. We ran it until my lad plateaued on times, then started tweaking things and what we tweaked was very little to be fair.

Tyre pressures were the main thing, and as the temperature went up, we brought the tyre pressures down 1-2 psi. That was the biggest thing. If I forgot to bring the pressures down, he'd go out and then half way through the session just suddenly drop off a cliff.

Watch, study, FOLLOW the faster kids whilst out on track. Do things one corner at a time. We started at Rye, and began working on the last corner, opening it up so that he carried more speed down the straight, then just kept picking points where he was getting left and worked on that one point so it's not too much.

 

[Seanl]

I wish I had as well! Thank you so much for the offer, we'll be sure to reach out next time we're in the same location. I'm glad you enjoyed Llandow. They've been great with Chris and the guys always have time to help you out when needed. Very welcoming venue.

I thought the standards across the weekend were really high with only a few squeaky moments as you'd expect. How has Jacob settled into racing? The pack were well matched toward the rear so must have been great experience for him.

And I'm sure I'll have plenty of questions for you, once I start I can't stop

Best of luck for the season form Chis and I!

Yeah we’ve been to Llandow twice before (last year) and it has always been very friendly. Very much recommended as a venue.
The racing went ok. His lap times weren’t great and quite inconsistent with mid 52 to low 53 most of the weekend, though we didn’t get there til Friday night so no Friday practice to better acquaint himself. He seemed to fare better in the final with lap times low 52, then put in a mid 51 which is a bit frustrating that he has the speed but just not consistent enough in his lines to make it count. He dropped the rear 4 or 5 and was about 7 seconds in front of them, but also about 5 seconds behind the next in front. If he could put in consistent laps that he was capable of, it’s very close all the way up to about the top 6 or 7.
Synergy also has a setup sheet by the way. You’ll need to register on their website to view it, but it’s free.

 

[Team13Karting]

This is really helpful, thank you. It's as much a learning curve for me as for him. Main thing is to let him keep pounding around until we find his pace and we'll go from there.

He had his first substantial encounter with the tyres a few weeks ago exiting onto the straight at Llandow, no big deal and straight back on with it. A few more lessons like that no doubt, but all part of the learning process.

And yes, last thing I'd want to do is give him a setup that works for somebody else and not him. As we learned this weekend, not everyone gets it right. At the moment we're focusing on opening up corners as he has a tendancy to drift toward the entry giving him tighter exits. Which was really why he crashed. Speed was good. Line was less good .

Thank you again

Whilst a lot of this is overtaking and is in a Rotax, you'll be able to see here where time can be made up around Llandow. Macwhirters. Surtees and the final chicane onto the straight are places where there's a lot of time to be made up...

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[Almeric1102]

Whilst a lot of this is overtaking and is in a Rotax, you'll be able to see here where time can be made up around Llandow. Macwhirters. Surtees and the final chicane onto the straight are places where there's a lot of time to be made up...

View this content on Instagram

View this content on Instagram

This will be great to show him. Was this yourself? Macwhirters he tries to bring the kart into the curb to soon which is giving him poor exits and brining down his minimum speed. You can really abuse the curbs at the exit onto the straight. I'll be sure to do some comparisons with our footage to help him out. Thank you

 

[Almeric1102]

Project One have a setup sheet available at the bottom of this page
The Karts | Project One Racing (projectone-racing.co.uk)

It's a good starting point. We went to Bayford to test early on and one of the guys there helped and put this setup on for us. We ran it until my lad plateaued on times, then started tweaking things and what we tweaked was very little to be fair.

Tyre pressures were the main thing, and as the temperature went up, we brought the tyre pressures down 1-2 psi. That was the biggest thing. If I forgot to bring the pressures down, he'd go out and then half way through the session just suddenly drop off a cliff.

Watch, study, FOLLOW the faster kids whilst out on track. Do things one corner at a time. We started at Rye, and began working on the last corner, opening it up so that he carried more speed down the straight, then just kept picking points where he was getting left and worked on that one point so it's not too much.

Thank you. Good idea to run him on something nice and simple and wait for him to find his consistency. Looking to explore some different tracks over the summer so will take a look at Bayford, will likely head to Rowrah first and go from there.

Up until now he's enjoyed a track to himself. I'll see if we can shorten the layout for his next session with the coach to keep him focused on one corner and see how he gets on! But yes, I think being out with the other kids is doing wonders for him!

I've got some decent gagues so will have a play with pressures and see how we get on. Surprising the difference the small things make! Thank you

 

[Team13Karting]

This will be great to show him. Was this yourself? Macwhirters he tries to bring the kart into the curb to soon which is giving him poor exits and brining down his minimum speed. You can really abuse the curbs at the exit onto the straight. I'll be sure to do some comparisons with our footage to help him out. Thank you

Yes, that was the last time I sat in a kart before calling it a day. (Even my profile picture here was taken at Llandow!) Macwhirters was very much the example I was trying to make in terms of carrying corner speed. Every overtake out of there was not down to power, but as a result of opening that corner up for a better exit (It tightens deceptively, but you can see it very well from the picture below...)

Llandow is very much an easy circuit to learn, but it takes a while to be quick around there. You tend to find a lot of the guys who went well at Llandow also seem to do well nationally

A lot of the inexperienced guys around there will tend to close a lot of the corners off early whereas the pace is to be gained by opening the majority of them up. Yes, it leaves you open to someone throwing it up the inside, but your exit will almost always be better.

 

[Adam]

Yes, that was the last time I sat in a kart before calling it a day. (Even my profile picture here was taken at Llandow!) Macwhirters was very much the example I was trying to make in terms of carrying corner speed. Every overtake out of there was not down to power, but as a result of opening that corner up for a better exit (It tightens deceptively, but you can see it very well from the picture below...)

Llandow is very much an easy circuit to learn, but it takes a while to be quick around there. You tend to find a lot of the guys who went well at Llandow also seem to do well nationally

A lot of the inexperienced guys around there will tend to close a lot of the corners off early whereas the pace is to be gained by opening the majority of them up. Yes, it leaves you open to someone throwing it up the inside, but your exit will almost always be better.

View attachment 2462

Looks like a very technical circuit! Is it mainly flat or does some of it have a camber to it?

Always amazes me on track walks you notice the camber of the track more than in the seat. Pick up on all the finer details.