Weird Karting Talents You Might Have
Some 'not noticed' talents drivers have - maybe you relate!
Some drivers have weird talents that don't get noticed at all. You only discover them when you listen to drivers going on about a lap - exactly how they do it, what they look for, the feedback they get from the kart, all the considerations they make.
These talents feel normal to them, so when they mention how they do something, it gets blurted out and largely ignored.
But these are things that set them apart, that are rare - proof they are rare is found when you ask lots of drivers to do the same, they can’t.
I think everyone has something like that, some weird way of perceiving, or a level of feel for things the kart does, some depth perception thing or special awareness - some capacity that is different and needs to be exploited heavily.
I’ll go through some ones that stick in my mind, maybe you can say ‘hey that’s me - I do that!’. Or they might trigger something in your mind that registers the fact that you have a few tricks up your sleeve that you need to lean into heavily yourself.
Either way, the point is that there is something there in you as a driver that is waiting for discovery or exploitation that sets you apart.
Here are some examples of driver weirdness that made them bloody fast:
Weird Braking Feel
I love flamboyant braking, it’s something that makes a kart look and feel spectacular.
The technical point about it though, is that it is important to get to the limit of the rear tyre’s capacity for grip, by overstepping it. It’s a great way to measure the grip available and from then on, you can demand that from the tyre and ensure you always get everything from the grip available.
However, one driver who later went to the top of British karting and actually just bagged a world title, had an uncanny ability to brake later than everyone else, deeper into the apex with zero drama, no locking or even any protest from the tyres.
For fun, he could stick the thing sideways and wave if he wanted, but when pushing he just had a feel for the absolute limit without having to test it.
Now, there is a great danger here of course, lots of us will say me too!. I don’t brake hard… OK, but it has to be combined with having two gifts:
You can feel and predict, without testing the limit, exactly how much grip the track has to give within one corner of leaving the pit, and drive to that limit and produce leading times.
When you hit the brake, you need to instinctively know how to make that brake, with all the nuances of the particular braking set-up, to get the exact right braking pressure needed to deliver the braking performance needed.
In this particular case, the driver was running a kart that had been welded up multiple times, with a shoddy old set of brakes.
This is why I couldn’t really believe what I was looking at. There was no feeling his way in. From the moment he left the pits, he’s out-braking good drivers, never going wide, never missing an apex.
Weird.
Weird Speed Awareness
Obviously we all know we are going fast, and we can feel that we are around the limit and stepping over it. We can feel all kinds of actual feedback from the machinery.
But some freak drivers have a sense for speed, like they’ve got a damn speedo organ somewhere. I say damn because I find it annoying that I have no hint of this weird ability.
It’s something I first noticed working with drivers on a sim. One or two can take this instruction and execute on it.
‘On the data, you can do 2kmph faster through t3’
So, they go and do it! Consistently. You can tell them drop a mph with apex speed. Same thing.
Obviously, there is no physical speed going on with a sim, it’s some sense they have, a perception.
So the same drivers in a real kart are extremely easy to work with. You can tell them they need to go a certain amount faster or slower. They deliver it.
You give them the keys to a fast lap over a few sessions, they nail it. You choose a couple of corners where you suspect there is a pole lap time, ‘if we find 1kmph there, and another there, we get pole’. They try it, exactly as - if it works, they get pole position.
If you have that, you are unbeatable really - if you can work with data.
Rotation Freaks
One of the most strangely talented drivers I know talks about a lap and points on the lap, not by the location of points, but by how rotated the kart is.
So, if he explains a corner to another driver, he will say ‘when you feel the kart turn a bit more, then you can get on the power’
In response, trying to translate for the kid he’s advising, I say ‘yeah but where is that, exactly.’ I mean, a mark on the track or something…
‘No, you just feel it’
Christ!! What’s he on about!
If you dig further with this kid, he drives a track constantly feeling for, inducing and reducing, rotation.
We all do that to some degree, but he thinks rotation.
The upshot of this is he is, conservatively, half a second or more faster than anyone else alive in a kart if it rains mid race. He’s a bona fide freak of nature.
He can do things with a kart, that nobody else can do…. He does fly a bit too close to the sun occasionally but whatever. He’s unique.
So, if you think in terms of rotation, and talk in terms of rotation (yaw angle) then maybe you are one of that strange species!
Special Ignorance
‘You will feel the kart go light there, like you are going to crash into the wall - ignore that’
Eh?
‘You just have to know when to ignore what the kart is telling you there, stay on it.’
But you don’t always ignore what the kart is telling you - right?
‘Of course not, otherwise I’d bin it!’
Now, with these ‘special ignorance drivers’ if you continue to pursue a rational breakdown of what constitutes ‘what you need to ignore from the kart’, and ‘what you need to pay deep attention to’, you will find the answer is arbitrary….
It’s another, well you just know job.
These drivers are always very sensitive and able to keep the kart right on the limit, yet at certain points where they feel the kart telling them ‘lift a bit or we are off’ they don’t - when normally they would.
So they get the benefit of being super sensitive PLUS they know when to be a brute, and just force their way through a moment.
That’s a talent. It’s not pushing through fear, it’s pushing through genuine reliable sensations that tell you no, and somehow you know when to say ‘whatever’.
One way a driver explained it to me is that he knew when the kart was lying to him! So if you can discern when your kart is deceiving you with its feedback, and forge ahead anyway because your confidence over-rides everything else - then you may be a super-ignorer driver.
Takeaways
I can’t give you instructions on these talents, they are abilities some drivers have, that I certainly don’t. I kind of understand them and see how they work, but in truth I’m just jealous!
They are just there in some drivers, it’s extremely cool to find them - and when you do, you can go all-in and miracles happen.
BUT…
I haven’t worked with a driver yet where there is no unique attribute, and they can all be developed and used effectively. Every driver has got something going on!
Thanks for reading
Terence