Quote from lizardfolk :

Cool, infinion. Good luck you seem to be on the right track (no pun intended :P)

I plan on going Spec Miata and from there into Skip Barber as I go to school in the East Coast and I'm only 45 minutes away from Watkins Glen.

Again, good luck and if my plans for Miata racing ever gets off then we might see each other on track lol

Ah, the Glen. I like the look of that track a lot.

What's your budget for SM? You should be warned that there are dudes spending 40 or 50ks a year to run that. It's possible to run with them and maybe even beat them for less, I hear, but 50ks is MX-5 Cup money. Skip Barber MX-5s are about 22k IIRC, so depending on your budget that might be a better deal. But, I'm sure you've thought of all that and I'm preaching to the choir.

I too plan on riding that Mazda ladder as far as I can. This year a kid just like me (19 years old, 1 year of Skip Barber MX-5s) got a free ride in the Playboy MX-5 Cup after being awarded a scholarship at a shoot-out with 7 other drivers, worth about 70k. Then the Playboy prize I think is a ride in SPEED World Challenge touring cars, which is about $250,000. Maybe we'll meet each other at the shootout?

Quote from Intrepid :

I am just being frank and giving you free practical advice about how to improve and where faults lie in thinking Rotax is going to teach you the skills your need for car racing.

But not for one moment do I believe the BEST way to teach throttle control (for cars) is to show drivers that less throttle = more power!

As much as I appreciate the gesture, I will continue believing that the Russell School has taught me much more in a year than I would have learned in 2 or maybe even 3 years on my own, and probably for a lot less money. When I took my first High Performance (not racing school) class at Skip Barber, my first time getting a full sized car on the limit, it only took a few laps on the autocross and even their toughest instructor said I was really good and that he didn't have much to critique, and they all loved me because I was so smooth and consistent. Now, the skid pad, that's a different story... but that's not the point here! Just watch me dominate that Mazdaspeed Challenge!

Wish you the best of luck

I know how hard it can be to get started in the sport.

1 tip, don't think if you can kart you can race a car aswell. It's something diffrent. I've seen so many amazing karters fail.

good luck! Racing in america is cool !

Quote from Intrepid :

Some of the earlier laps are rough because in a kart you need to warm the tyres up. Notice the absolute MINIMAL slide, and MINIMAL steering input MUCH less than say current F1 WDC Lewis Hamilton - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... 4NTiE&feature=related

Well thats all to do with steering lock, look at the kart video and you can see how quickly those front wheels turn, and hes constantly tweaking the wheel, there is no minimum input here, only the inputs are very small, but vital none the less. In an F1 car these movements are amplified because an F1 car has much less steering lock, also, not how the Kart driver is not riding the kerbs half as much as Hamilton is, which on several occasions on the lap, causes the back end to step out, (such as at Luffield corner, I should know because I spun here myself because I touched the inside kerb).

I'm only saying what I've seen, all the Kartor kids ive seen seem to swap ends a lot and are generally not smooth, thats does not mean the majority of people who race Karts, just the ones whos daddies are rich enough to go car racing, the driver in that video just so happens to be a good driver.

Anyway, there is nothing brutal about car racing, unless you do something very very stupid that is.

And if you want to learn throttle control, get a 1600 Zetec.

But yeah, good luck Mad Cat, from what I've seen of the videos you have good car control, its just a case of keep practising whenever you can.

Well i'm not interested in the ego debate over what kart engine is best, that all sounds like wanted to be reassured you each made the right decision to me.

I'm posting to say good luck.

Whilst I can't tell all that much without a throttle trace, looking at the video, and accepting i've no experience of the track the conditions and havn't a feel for that particular kart or any such of the like, and also discounting the hairpin which you where consistently wide through ... it looked to me like you where apexing a bit late.

Could it be you are carrying too much speed into the corners?

i spotted that too but thought meh

Maybe hes setting himself up for the left right left secton that folllows soon afterwards?

Quote from 5haz :

Maybe hes setting himself up for the left right left secton that folllows soon afterwards?

Yes, on the "infield" layout (we call it Sprint) with the many hairpins, the karts can't fully track out there if you want a good run from the 2nd corner down the next straight. So we have to give up some track on the exit of the 1st to be fast down the longer stretch. We do this both in turns 1/2 and in turns 3/4.

It's a devil of a track, because those direction changes really beat you up over a 15 minute race, especially after you've been driving for a couple hours already. My fitness regime is pretty tough and I still really felt it on the cooldown lap.

Quote from Becky Rose :

the hairpin which you where consistently wide through

Which hairpin? The one that leads off the main straight or one of the infield ones?

Quote from Becky Rose :

Well i'm not interested in the ego debate over what kart engine is best, that all sounds like wanted to be reassured you each made the right decision to me.

All racers have massive egos.

good luck Mad Cat! sounds like you know what you want, and are taking the right steps to get there, unlike this dumbass:

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=32577

Quote from evilgeek :

good luck Mad Cat! sounds like you know what you want, and are taking the right steps to get there, unlike this dumbass:

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=32577

Y'know, I've heard rumors of this type of creature, but I only thought they existed in myth and legend!

I'm feeling the heat for sure. I know I started late, but that's why I ruled out F1! I figured out that it would cost me about 6 or more million Euros to reach a level where an F1 team would notice me. I don't have that dollar! It's a lot more realistic to try for tintops in the USA, especially if I start late. I figure I can make it to a paid ride with a 0.5 to 1 million dollar outlay over the period of 6 or 7 years from now. Two years ago, I had similar ideas to this guy, like "oh it'll be easy, I'll just approach 1 or 2 companies and they'll take me to Le Mans!" but I dropped those notions quickly. I'm setting up a business with my dad that will hopefully pay for a good portion if not all of my racing. I consider myself very, very lucky in that regard.

Great stuff man

I raced karts at sears point from when they opened the track until like 2006 when I got my license. They're expensive ****ers..

I never won a race..didn't have that kind of money, but I was still quick and very clean/consistent. It never did make sense to have factory teams with new chassis, engines, tires, and sometimes drivers every race. All this for a plastic trophy and SOMETIMES a gift certificate . My crowning achievement is coming 5th overall in points in the tag class my first and only year racing it.

My favorite was definitely the reverse sprint...its HELL on your body though. I always found it to be the most demanding of all the tracks.

Flying into the tick tac toe backwards after that huge straightaway...launching off the curbs and hoping you land pointing the right direction heading towards a backwards T1..way fun

Nice! Yeah, going reverse into TTT is kinda hit or miss. Just aim for "tac" and hope you make it out alright!

I think my favorite corner is Kramer... it's just so crazy. Downhill/uphill, off camber, increasing/decreasing radii... tough corner to get just right. That's the corner right before the big S-curves for y'all not familiar. For anyone interested, here's two track maps I made: Corner names and the two main configurations.

I was playing with Kramer all throughout the day last week and I found that sometimes I'd come off the corner a bit early and I'd seem to get a better run... but I didn't have the GPS data that day so I just stuck with what I knew for the race. Maybe cresting over that hill binds the kart up in ways that is hard to feel normally?

That's what I love about Infineon's kart track; every single corner has a trick to it. No token corners - they're all critical. Some tracks like Laguna Seca pretty much drive themselves because most of the corners are really textbook.

Kramer is definitely an awesome corner. Its named Kramer after the guy from Seinfeld because you never make the same entrance twice

It was really popular to early apex Kramer in the national course when I was racing. It frequently would put you in the dirt if you tried to carry too much speed...and it would always kill a sprocket because you go off before the rumbles on the outside because on the early apex...

From looking at the corner it makes sense to late apex it, but if I remember correctly it is wayyy off camber on the entrance, and it gets more flat the closer you are to the inside of the corner.

I think what makes kramer so fun is how much speed you're carrying out of memo. The clutch locks before memo and you really start screaming on the way out...the kart wants to float wide out of memo but you have to pinch it to get to the turnin. It can get really hairy going 2 wide out of laguna...I only did that a couple times and it never really went well.

I really want to go karting now

Quote from spanks :

From looking at the corner it makes sense to late apex it, but if I remember correctly it is wayyy off camber on the entrance, and it gets more flat the closer you are to the inside of the corner.

Yep. Going the normal direction it's good to hug the inside for a couple feet and not approach it from way outside like you would on a banked corner. Going the reverse direction, you can see that I get my inside front tire over that small anomaly in the paint stripe right at the apex. That little bit of road is flat and seems to suck the kart in a bit and helps keep you turned as you climb the hill.

Quote :

I really want to go karting now

Hey man, Jim Russell will get your fix and it's cheap for a rental series. Just 4 and a half thousand for a full season, then add in practice days here and there. The whole season of 10 races over 8 weekends costs about 6 grand if you do every practice day. Can't race for cheaper than that... plus it's really friendly.

yeah, I moved

I'm like 10 minutes from the fontana kart track, but they don't do arrive and drive. Its a really neat looking track though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay0hsYtec8U

Its really a fast track..bumpy though

When my uncle comes down I think he'll bring his kart. I'll have to kick him out for a few laps

Super epic race today. I counted 8 lead changes in 15 laps, between me and my main championship rival. I epic failed but I'll leave the video to tell that story (it's uploading). EDIT it's done now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWumxHwJCGQ

At the end of the day I got to meet Townsend Bell at a low-key seminar put on by Jim Russell. He had a lot of interesting things to say about sponsorship. Just to refresh your memory he finished 4th at the Indy 500 this year after starting 23rd.