Dynamics of Speed

You know, after doing this for twenty years you’d think I’d have it all down by now – unfortunately not!  Bite is just such a strange thing sometimes.  It seems obvious enough that when we’re talking about bite we really mean grip, and when we have enough grip the kart won’t slide and when we don’t it will.  This certainly holds true for all of our car driving excursions but for some strange reason it does NOT always (or even typically) hold true for a kart.

I was at the track this past weekend with some friends and we flat stunk for pretty much all of qualifying and for the first of four races.  The kart never slid around any, it just wouldn’t make any speed.  The conditions were obvious enough:  it was a hot day and we were at a southeastern red clay track which typically makes lots of bite.  We tried everything:  we worked on the kart, we tried several sets of tires, all prepared a different way and nothing made any difference; no matter what we did the kart was about 0.2 to 0.3 seconds off the pace.  Finally, before our 2nd race we did the only thing there was left to do:  we started rubbing the tires much more vigorously.  Next race we came from 19th to around 5th:  better, not perfect but better.  We kept on wiping and the kart conttinued to come alive more and more so that we won the next race.  For the final race of the evening we continued to  wipe and again the kart got better, this time allowing us to come from 9th for the win.

The moral of the story?  Never assume the track has bite even if conditions suggest it should.  This particular day it was tough, the track was tricky and many people misread it.  The effects of the lack of bite on the kart were amazing:  the clutch looked bad, the motor looked bad, the kart looked bad; everything looked bad.  The only thing that  wasn’t really bad is that the kart didn’t drive badly.