Don't Let Go - Hold Your Kart Steady
If you could choose tyres, you would ask the obvious question - “how much grip has it got?”. Right?
What is the maximum grip this tyre can take, and what settings do I need to get the maximum grip that tyre can ever possibly produce. And when the tyre does provide grip, you want the tyre to hold that grip, not collapse and suddenly lose it.
You want maximum grip, and you want to hold that grip.
The right tyre is made from the best compound of rubber to provide the grip, and the best engineering and structure to deliver all the grip in a stable predictable manner.
My argument here is - so should you!
That means as a driver, you need the raw material that provides the opportunity for grip to happen which is the right technique plus...
The right physical construction to be able to hold that grip through a corner.
That is skill + excess fitness.
You need to know how to hold a kart as stable as you can through a corner, and be physically strong enough with the accompanying stamina to do it, and then some.
Tyres don’t like to be messed about
Tyres like to deliver their maximum grip for a sustained period, BUT they don’t like surprises and they don’t like indecisive drivers. They want a strong steady build up, a hold, and then a gradual release. For that they will deliver everything they’ve got to get you round a corner fast af.
They don’t want you to piss them about with a lot of yes no, wait, oh now give me grip, now slide, oops I didn’t mean that - kind of crap. So if you have to adjust your steering a lot, lose the rear suddenly and randomly - or if you like sliding about improvising your way around a track in a playful way, your tyres will quickly fall out with you.
‘Don’t f**k me about mate’
That’s how tyres speak. They like to deliver top level performance in a professional environment, where everything is just so, bish bash bosh.
In practical terms this means you hold your kart steady through a corner, literally holding the steering wheel in as constant a steering angle as you can, adjusting it as slowly as you can manage. Your level of skill at doing that determines at what speed you can maintain that kind of steady state steering through a corner, and then your feel for grip determines how close to the edge of upsetting your tyre you can get, which is dancing at the limit, before you start to lose time.
Unfortunately, especially for physically lazy folk like me, this means you have to be bloody strong to drive a kart fast, and you need serious stamina to keep it up for full 10 minute sessions, without degrading.
