For those unfamiliar with karting, the first thing you will notice driving one of these is just how quick the steering is. With the steering ratio approximating 1:5 (depending on setup), three times quicker than most conventional road cars, you may fall into the trap of too much steering input. Small and precise movements are best.
Karts are also forced to run a locked axle, which means the inside rear tire has to be unloaded to allow the vehicle to steer properly. Significant understeer results if you fail to do so. The primary mechanism for providing a means to overcome this issue is through the front end steering geometry. Cranking the steering is usually accompanied by oversteer. A common mistake of amateurs is both applying lock too early or using excessive steering lock which can result in sudden snap oversteer. Though sometimes that might be exactly what you want!
The wide sticky tires used in karting provide huge amounts of grip, able to exceed 2G’s without any downforce to speak of. The chassis is finely tuned to deal with these G-forces.
Braking can be rather difficult in either category, the Junior kart, having only rear brakes, requires a constant watch for snap oversteer on account of locking rear wheels. Trail braking is of limited use, as this can lead to excessive oversteer upon corner entry, which on account of only having a single speed gearbox, with grippy tires, can bog you down right out of the power band. The ideal corner is to brake in a straight line, very limited trail braking on turn in, and then keep the kart in a shallow and consistent slide with high percentages of throttle input to ensure the engine does not bog down.
The engine in junior form, provides peak power just below 9000 RPM, however still sings on song until 12000 RPM before the power curve begins to fall away sharply. You will want to make sure the engine seldom sees RPM of below 6000.
In Kart F1 form, the engine produces peak torque and power at much higher RPM, peak torque is around 12000 and peak power around 13500 RPM, the curve doesn’t fall off too much until about 15500. Gearing is very important to extract the maximum performance out of your karts.
We would like to express our gratitude to Skip and Joey Essma of Ess Racing for their time and effort. (Hey, sponsors, sponsor Joey).
