Lesson 2 : GO FASTER!

Me checking the MyChron

On Wednesday 10th July I had a training day with Richard from Spellfame at Whilton Mill, using the international circuit. This is the second training session I have had with Richard, the first was in October I think.
We arrived early, about 8:30 and got everything set up. We went and paid, I got a green wrist band to show that. After that we went back to our area and made sure everything was where it should be. Richard arrived soon after and, after getting his needed bacon butty we went for a track walk. Dad said he would get the kart sorted first. Richards was showing me the lines as the last time I had driven the circuit, in relatively dry conditions, had been October. I found out, before I had even sat n my kart, that my driving style is all wrong. I drive a wet line or a wet style instead of a dry one. I square off all the corners which, sometimes, is ok but I do it all the time. My first aim for the day was to beat my time from the double header last year, fastest time of 50.3, which is terrible. My first outing I made it out of the dummy grid and realised the kart wouldn't accelerate. it got out of the dummy grid fine, but then stopped. I couldn't get the engine revving. I choked the engine a bit, everything just to get it back to the pits. I had to stop at the cut through on the back straight. We realised it was the carb so we changed it. The new one worked fine. I managed to get out in the second session and complete around 10 laps before Richard called me in. I was making good progress but I needed to be a lot smoother. he said I was quicker when I wasn't trying too hard. The next session was much of the same except I was going quicker. We didn't change much on the carb or in fact the kart. All that changed throughout the day was the tyre pressures, they went down, and the amount of fuel as we needed to keep topping it up.

Me not quite getting wide enough. Should have most of
the kart over the line.

Much better.

Once I had got my line pretty much sorted Richard said that I needed to use a lot more of the track, and use the throttle to power out of the corners and, ,somehow, adding more power reduced my under steer. Throughout the morning I was slowly but surely reducing my time, I was into the mid-low 49 seconds at lunch time. We had bacon butties for lunch. After Lunch we only had 3 sessions left. I managed to do my quickest rolling lap in the first session after lunch, which is the fastest I have ever been round Whilton Mill International Circuit, of a 48.74 second lap! I was using the whole track as Richard said, being very smooth with my turning and having no middle ground between braking and accelerating! Thank you very much Richard, I hope I can use the techniques I have learnt from you in my future races, and hopefully get results in the top half more often!