Kart racing

[Krys TOFF]

I made a kart race this afternoon organised by my job.
I had never raced motor kart, it was a very nice discovery.
we were supposed to be 50, 10 teams of 5 pipsqueaks, but in the end only 40 people enlisted, so we did 10 team of 4 pipsqueaks with a toss.
There was around 5 regular kart pipsqueaks, 5 that tested it once or twice. these 10 were designed as team managers.
I was tossed in team 4. Ok.

Ok, let's go for 10 minutes race to discover the track for everyone.
Mmmm, track isn't very easy, 2 slow difficult parts.
My best lap during this test : 25.180 seconds. Average time, best time of training session is 22.830, but made by a guy that is familiar with kart racing.
Best newbies time was around 24 seconds.
Now, team leaders do a few laps to define starting grid. My team qualified 4th. Good.
Let's go for the race. 3 times 10 minutes racing per pipsqueak.
Quickly, we were leading the race. But 3 teams were very close to us.
Change of drivers, we missed a little time during this change. Now we are 3rd.
Now it's my time, I'm 3rd to race. I gained one place. We were 2nd when I stopped. Very good.

But our 4th driver wasn't very good... He went twice in the tires, lost around 15 seconds each time, and we lost 2 laps to leaders. Now we are 7th when our leader took the kart.
He did a very good race at this moment, bringing us back to 4th place. Nice.
The second pipsqueak goes, still 3rd, still nice.
I go, still 3rd, still nice.
4th pipsqueak goes, and we felt down to 6th place...
3rd part, our leader goes back, and we are 3rd again. Good.
2nd driver, still 3rd. Good. But he entered pit lane too fast, and so I had to wait 20 seconds penalization before leaving pit !!! Grrrr. 20 seconds is almost 1 lap !

When I finally started, I was 5th. I managed to reach 4th place, but 3 leading teams were 2 laps before us.
But in the end the 4th pipsqueak decided not to race his part, and so it's our 1st driver that took the kart for the final part.
Then we found back hope : top 3 teams entered pit at the same time, and so they lost many time ! We are now in the same lap ! Everything is possible !

Unfortunately lost in traffic in the last laps, my teammate was unable to reach the 3rd pipsqueak. Too bad. We finally finished 4th of 10. Quite good for a start. My best lap was 23.020, our leader did his best at 22.560, the 2nd driver did a good 22.890 once. Our 4th pipsqueak never managed to go under 24 seconds...

Then I saw final times, and became angry : 3rd were 13 seconds before us, 2nd were 16 seconds before us, and winners were 17 seconds before us (yes, battle was hard for 1st place until the end : only 4 seconds gap between 1st and 3rd after 2 hours racing :shock: ).
If we had not this penalty of 20 seconds, we could have really fight for victory... And if our 4th pipsqueak had made no mistake during his 1st relay...
That's race, things like that may happen, my anger felt down quickly.
I spent a very nice afternoon, raced 40 minutes in total, and enjoyed it a lot.

Today was the perfect 4 day : team 4, 4th in qualifications, 4 times 10 minutes racing overall, and 4th place. And also a 4th place at Z37.

My arms hurt a little, but I'm happy to have done this competition afternoon.
I suggest everyone to test kart racing, it's really fun.

Little precision : it was an indoor race in karting of Saint-Souplets, karts were 270 cm3, 4 stroke engines (the max allowed in France for indoor kart racing).

[Krys TOFF]

I made a Stunts track as close as possible to the kart track.
It's here

Drive it with indy, in order to reproduce fast accelerations of real karts like those I used, but remeber that it's a "no part of the car outside the road" race, as all border were full of tires. :wink:

[Mislav]

Wooow!! That sounds like real fun Krys! And it was really tight battle... I plan to organize a small kart race with my friends, there are to kinds of karts to choose - 160ccm and 260ccm. But the first ones are much cheaper to rent, so we will drive with Honda 160ccm. Do you have a clue how fast these karts are 160 and 260ccm)?

[Krys TOFF]

Wooow!! That sounds like real fun Krys! And it was really tight battle... I plan to organize a small kart race with my friends, there are to kinds of karts to choose - 160ccm and 260ccm. But the first ones are much cheaper to rent, so we will drive with Honda 160ccm. Do you have a clue how fast these karts are 160 and 260ccm)?

I depends of kart overall weight and also your own weight. And of course it depends of the track.
St Soupplets track I raced in 2004 was short with sharp corners, our max speed was around 55-60 km/h.

I made another kart race with my job at Argenteuil, offered by my boss last year as a Krys-mas (lol) gift, with also an absolutely funny free fall of 2 minutes (you know, where acrobatic paratroopers train).

Here is the website (in French) : http://www.aerokart.fr/index_parti.html, check the green button at top left to see free fall training and the orange one at the bottom to see kart informations.

This track is indoor too but much bigger than St Soupplets. Karts were too 270 cm3 (max authorized in France for indoor karting) but max speed was really reached : 70 km/h at the end of the long straight, including the following right large corner. That's impressive how good these karts reacted in this large corner, there were almost "stucked" on the floor but when you stopped accelerating in order to slow down for the following right/left sharp part, they tend to slide a lot. Really funny to handle and to try to push to its max.

It was a single pipsqueak race, not a team one like in 2004. We had 10 minutes training/qualifying, I qualified 6th of 17 pipsqueaks.
Sadly for me, at the 1st lap I did a good start, overtaking one driver at the beginning, but this driver then hurted me and we both lost numerous places because of that. I finished 1st lap at 14th position... During the full 20 minutes of race, I managed to go back to my original 6th place. One more lap and I would have passed the 5th driver who was just in front of me (0.2 seconds at the finish line) at the end of the race.

Even without the 1st lap incident, I think I could have reached 4th place at the best, because the podiumers were almost 0.5 second faster per lap during the whole race, mainly because they all 3 are only 65kg weight or so, while I'm 80kg... Effect on max speed and acceleration is huge. But I was faster in corners because of this weight. On a sharp track like St Soupplets, weight is almost and advantage due to numerous sharp corners, but at Argenteuil there are 2 long straights and it was a handicap.

Anyway, whatever my final rank, it was a real pleasure to do this race and the free fall, I hope my boss will offer us this fantastic trip again this year.

In order to try to answer your question, 270 cm3 katrs have a max speed around 70 km/h at the best, 260 cm3 karts should be close to this if the track has a long straight.
160 cm3 karts, well, I don't know them at all. They have less power but also less weight, maybe 50-60 km/h max.

[Mislav]

Thanks, yes, the were going max.50km/h - we raced today, it was such fun!!! My friends, sister and me rent 6 gokarts for 15minutes. It's an outdoor track, 1010m lenght (we were driving the shorter way cca 600m. Weather - sunny, 24C...the whole track just for us!! I have some photos, so I'll put it here...

[Mislav]

a problem occured while I tried to sent photos, it said they were to big..so here a smaller ones

1. my sister and Iva as the "pit stop girls"
2. that's me...No.1 - what a coincidence!!
3. the battle - half minute later the first one on the picture was third, I fought with the second one (on the straight line he was faster because of a better car (he has 15 kilograms more weight but still was faster!) But in the corners I managed to come as close to attack what I later successfully did

There was a perfect move today, so if you remember how Hakinnen once managed to overtake Schumacher with a help from a slower car that both overlaped - one from left one from right, in the end Hakkinen was in front! We had an even more dramatic situation!

My friend (cart No.10) tried to overtake the slower friend (cart No.6) from inside line, but it was a left-right-left corner so he found himself on the outer line. He had to go off the throttle when he was inside again (the last left, because No.6 cut his line)

Before that I knew that I'll have to go off the throttle behind them because No.6 was slow, so better to brake earlier and to take all the speed out of the last curve so that I can be faster on the coming straight part. Nr.10 had to brake just before the straight line because of No.6 who cut his ideal line, so as we three came on the long straight part, No.10 moved to right to overtake No.6, an I (No.1) did that but to the left! It was amazing, tree of us parallel, fighting who will be the first at the end of the straight part! I already was in front on half the way but my car sucked with high speed, so Nr.10 was 50 centimeters in front at the end. If we hade all the same cars...

and yes, I had the fastest lap with that shitty car No.1

[Mislav]

the pics...

[Mislav]

what the hell...

[Mislav]

ok...now I understand - only one pic per post....

[Mislav]

Nr.1 hehe...

[Mislav]

after the race we had BIG hunger....

[Mislav]

this is what I wished to happen to No.10 in front of me (as I couldn't overtake him on the straight part...)

[Chulk]

Hahaha, nice picture... but you should be a good rival!

[JTK]

Whoa, pit lane girls - nice! Looks good and I really like the motor burning one!