Become a Freak on the Brakes

Wild confidence on the brakes is what makes a driver tremendous. But your instincts want to do the exact opposite of what you need.

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Back in the day it was quick… today you should still master it!

Braking for a tight corner after a long straight, is the ultimate test of nerve. It’s the art of driving distilled into its purest form.

In karting, it is an even greater test. When you only have braking on the rear wheels, you are being asked to completely destabilise the machine at its highest speed, exactly when you don’t want to - right before a corner, usually facing a barrier.

Proper braking demands you do the exact opposite of what your survival instincts want.

This is why mastering braking is so joyous. You have to overcome your instincts to be safe, and do the exact opposite of what your instincts want. You have to master yourself.

By ‘proper braking’ I mean braking hard enough that the rear tyres immediately scrape along the surface, creating a scrubbing or screeching sound… Almost, but not quite, locking up.

To do it you have to hit the pedal hard, and very quickly.

When you brake like this:

• You induce the kart to jump out of shape on demand. It’s like calling your kart out and saying ‘come on then!’. Rather than hoping it won’t slide on the brakes and scare you, you are forcing it to slide on your command, and becoming it’s master.

• When your kart makes angles on the brakes, you don’t want to react in fear, you want to react with a ‘yes!’ and shape the angles you make, to help you angle the kart to your advantage.

• You create a slide. Rotating the kart with your feet and balancing with the steering, opens up your range of control skills like nothing else in driving. It expands your abilities, and therefore confidence, to a whole new level.

(This video shows a skill you should practice, it may not be the quickest way any more, but you must have this skill, fully mastered, in your back pocket)

However, your instincts can hold you back, making you brake early, too soft, and the wrong way around!

Here’s what you go through as you approach a corner after a long fast straight:

Hammering down the straight most karts are geared to be doing just shy of 70mph. The closer you get to the corner the more urgently you feel the desire to brake, the sensation of speed heightens and alarms go off in your head screaming ‘danger dumbass!!’ - understandably you want to have fun and be safe BUT…

Trying to be safe on the brakes is screwing you up. Your instincts want to do the exact opposite of what you need, to be quick.

The first instinct will say ‘brake a bit early it’s no big deal’. You have to fight that instinct to break early, or you will be losing time and inviting drivers to pass easily.

The second instinct says ‘ok, don’t go mad on the brake, keep the kart stable and brake gently at first so we can feel it’. But you know that braking gently is going to require you to brake early and lose time.

The third instinct says ‘we are going to miss the apex, slow down even more!’. As you approach the corner after starting to brake, the natural association is that the brake means safety. So the closer you get to the corner, and therefore the barriers loom larger, the more pressure you want to put on the brake pedal. Of course, your rear tyres don’t agree with you here… If you are braking harder as you approach your apex, then you are asking more and more of your tyres.

And this is the most common scenario I see with drivers who have avoided overcoming their braking fears

1. Too early on the brakes means you lose time immediately.

2. Braking too softly means you don’t drop enough speed, even when you brake early. A secondary effect is that you haven’t put enough load into the front tyres from hard braking, to get the kart to turn.

3. Because you are heading into the apex too fast, you have to increase braking pressure and start to lose the rear. The kart is giving you feedback that makes you feel you must have braked too late, because the thing is right on the edge.

Become a freak on the brakes by knocking over your fears

Fear Number 1 - If I lock up the brakes I will immediately crash (again!)

Everybody in a kart has locked the brakes at some point on the track and immediately binned it. The natural learning response is ‘right, I’ll never do that again then!’

But really, all that happened is that you found a limit. And driving is all about finding limits, not shutting them away, never to be visited again.

Instead you need to find a way to dance with that limit and master it, otherwise it will always haunt you. You cannot allow yourself to drive with a rule in your mind that says ‘I can never lock the brake’. If you do, then you are drastically limiting yourself.

I’ve got braking drills spelled out in a free chapter of my book, so that you can step-by-step get into living with a locked up rear here.

All you need to do is find a quiet practise day somewhere, and practise the skill of hitting the brake hard enough to lock the rear wheels, then instinctively releasing brake pressure to regain control. Start slow and build up as your skills increase.

Fear Number 2 - I’m going too fast, I need to brake harder to slow down more

The most common error with braking is increasing your braking pressure the closer you get to the corner. You have to completely reverse this!

The hardest you brake should be the moment you first hit the brake. Then following that, your brake pressure should decrease as you balance how much braking your rear tyres can take, as they start to take on the demands of going around the corner. The kart needs some braking all the way to the apex, but nowhere near as much as when you first brake.

If you let fear, or safety instincts run the show, your kart will be an absolute nightmare to handle, and will require way more skill than is necessary to get around the corner. Increasing braking pressure, as you get closer to the corner, is asking for the rear tyres to suddenly let go at any point without warning.

You have to train yourself diligently to learn to release brake pressure the closer you get to the corner.

Fear number 3 - Doing big lock ups is actually slower

Quite often this is actually true. Doing a big old lock up, and backing a kart into the corner might lose you time. Not because it’s necessarily slower, it’s just so hard to get perfect.

But that is not the point of mastering very hard braking

The point is to become very comfortable, to the point of sheer enjoyment, with a kart that’s locked up on the brakes. Then you can feel totally assured that you can take your kart to the very edge of locking the brakes with zero apprehension. You can dance with the limit, and step over it, with no consequence and always be happiest at the limit. You don’t have to smash the brakes every time you brake, at all.

This becomes extremely important when it comes to overtaking. If you are afraid of getting your braking wrong then you have a VERY good reason to avoiding overtaking on the brakes.

Don’t get trapped in the soft braking, easy life. (even if it can be quick!)

Now even though the slightly softer approach to braking can be super-effective, even superior to really nailing the brake, you must not allow yourself to skip challenging yourself on the brakes.

You can easily find yourself being able to collect purple sectors and fastest laps at will, but get stuck behind drivers who are slower than you. Even if you can pass them eventually, you might be waiting one more corner than necessary, and that’s going to cost you wins.

All because you aren’t 100% certain that you can pull off every out-braking manoeuvre, no matter what happens.

That’s the confidence I want you to have - the ability to switch into a braking mode that says:

I can throw this kart into any situation I like, it can snap sideways on me and I don’t care - in fact, I’m gunna pass this driver fully sideways just to make a point!

Then you can switch back into a softer braking technique and bang in more purple sectors. That makes you a formidable driver, maybe even a complete driver!

Summary of becoming a freak on the brakes

• Understand that your instincts want you to do everything exactly opposite of the way you need to brake. They want you to brake early, soft and increase the brake pressure as you approach the corner (like you are approaching a roundabout, trying to pass your driving test!)

• You actually need to brake very sharp at first, and release brake pressure as you approach the corner.

• Learning to deal with braking lock-ups is extremely fun, massively accelerates your confidence and makes you super-skilled at overtaking, because you are ready for anything and everything.

• Overcoming your instincts that want you to use brakes the wrong way is exhilarating. Becoming the master of your fears is what makes racing incredible.

• Braking super late and super hard as practice, helps you feel very happy at the limit and beyond the limit. If you find braking slightly softer is the ultimate way to brake, then you’ll find doing that so easy now you are a master of sliding on the brake.

Thanks for reading

Terence