Getting Forward

25 Apr

This early morning I finally got 2 friends into the track and had
some fun in its rental fun karts. This is the their 1st time. I do
hope and believe they had some fun driving around.

While I know I will not be on the track too much as I will have to
bring & 'entertain' them to 'makan' and perhaps some shopping too.


So I planned my time just try to have a program that does about
15 laps of the race configurations with all times no more than 0.3
seconds adrift. Target time was from 47.5 to 47.8 seconds
That was the plan, anyway.... and obviously I did not managed these
times as I did for last week
Also my track time was seriously hampered at the start of the day.

Firstly, because there was a group of SMU students there to 'destroy'
the fun karts while we arrived ... which means I would rather stay
off the track then to have the opportunities to 'Merge' with them
while I'm in my kart. Graeme nearly smashed into one of the moving
targets near the pit entry

Next, more frustratingly was that my first few laps after I exited
the pits had an intermittent problem. The engine just go into a
'idle' mode for awhile while it's running at the high speed.
Battery terminals intact... fuel line intact.... darn darn! What's wrong?
Apparently nothing! As Jason took it out for a few laps, it was perfectly
fine again. My turn. Yup, everything seems to be normal but left me
confused Thank goodness!

In the end, I had only had time for 2 runs before my friends scream
for Aircon and lunch! nah, they are cool with it but I felt it's not
nice just to do my thing in a 'group outing'.
Timing was not on par as previous week, but I think I know the reasons.
One of them being the rear tyres are deteriorating faster then I assumed
they would. Then again with the high track temperature and they being
more than 2 months old I reckon it's about time to have some fresh ones
on the kart soon.
That's one reason, the others I would rather not say as it's not quantifiable.


However at the end of my 2 runs, I was just pleased to get a better and
better times as I went along.

Somehow or rather I always found myself in situations which I go faster
from the mid section till the end of a session . Perhaps it's me learning
the track condition to what the limit of the kart go there and then.
I think I need to work on this a little and see how I can move faster.
Or I need to understand how to make the tyres and engine work
faster and better in a shorter period of time frame.

That's something to think about and work on in the next outing


Meanwhile, I have these quite useful pointers from appm.co.uk:

1. Take one corner at a time - and take your time, the more thought you put into this the better the plan will be

2. The objective - is to find a small improvement in every corner or to discover what you need to do to drive that corner consistently quickly

3. Review your notes and data - of previous tests and races and how you performed at that particular corner - what worked for you and what didn't, then write it down!

4. Analyse the following areas -

· The loading of the car (entry, mid-corner & exit)

· Your mindset

· Your line

· Braking

· Power application

· The balance you created in the kart

5. Identify your key limiting factor - from all of this analysis identify your one key limiting factor (this could also be described as your opportunity to go faster!). It could be an error you want to eradicate or something that you have already done and you need to do it more often.

6. Work out your correction - what do I need to do to correct this limiting factor?

7. Visualise - yourself making that correction

Now when you turn up at the track you wont have to think about how you are going to go faster, you already know and you have visualised 50 laps of yourself doing it perfectly!