How fit are the quickest kart drivers, and how fit do you need to be to beat them.

What level of fitness should you aim for and how should you go about it

Welcome to a paid edition  of my weekly newsletter. Every week I take a deep dive into driving technique and unique perspectives on becoming a proper racing driver.

In this week’s article

1. Why you need to have way more fitness than you think.

2. Fitness breakthroughs - what drivers I know took on to get in shape.

3. Specific exercise drivers do that make big differences directly with karting.

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Pull ups are the ultimate karting exercise in my opinion.

You need to be fit as hell to race karts and perform at the very limit of your potential!

Now, its very easy to say:

Well, I am not all that fit and I can get around the track fairly well.

That’s not the point….

You need to be so fit, that all the grief your body takes whilst you are driving does not even reach your awareness, at all.

In other words, you need to be way fitter to be quick, than you need to just drive.

Racing drivers are NOT athletes - they are far superior

There’s always this thing on TV with Grand prix coverage, where they have to say ‘these drivers are actually athletes’ like thats some kind of compliment. As if racing drivers have an inferiority complex, and we need to elevate the status of drivers using the term ‘athlete’.

It’s dumb…

Calling a racing driver an athlete, to my mind, reduces their status - ‘racing driver’ is the highest human form you can be - why call yourself an athlete? I don’t get it!

The term ‘racing driver’ just so happens to automatically mean you treat your physical condition the way you treat your racing machine - it needs to be tip top!

So, training is not about becoming an athlete, it’s about becoming the highest human form there is - a racing driver.

The primary function of physical fitness - that minimum attention goes to your body when driving

The harder you can train, the less your body can affect your driving concentration.

The core motivation of all your training needs to be to prevent your body complaining when you are pulling 3g of lateral force, whilst hitting a kerb with the seat bolts trying to break through into your ribs. All this whilst your head is being rattled around and being pulled off your shoulders at three times its natural weight.

Under that duress, rather than your body secretly trying to tell your mind to back off just a little bit, you need your whole physical being to be putting out the message:

Yeah, and what?

You don’t want a single signal of distress to reach your mind, as you plot your way over kerbs at maximum G force. Perfect clarity is what you need, so that you can signal your right foot to delicately adjust to increase the G force, and for your arms and hands to guide the kart for more speed and more physical punishment without a hint of resistance from your nervous system.

So lets see how to get you there…

The ideal of kart driver fitness for you to aim for

The question I always ask drivers who are still at school is this:

Are you the strongest and fittest kid in your year at school? Because you need to be.

Thats a pretty straightforward way that junior drivers understand. If you want to be a quick junior kart racer, there simply cannot be a fitter stronger kid in your year at school. It cannot be so, unless you want to give away some advantage.

For adult drivers lets get into what fitness regimes I’ve seen with elite drivers.