So I finally drove a Shifter Kart this weekend. Tired of my constant teasing, fellow RealRide member Ben had me take his 125cc Shifter Kart for several sessions at Willow Springs this Saturday. I got the feeling that our resident karter, Steve, helped persuade him because of my incessant teasing about karting being for kids. I was reluctant at first since Ben had just recovered from a horrible karting accident which sent him to the hospital with several broken bones. But my wife made a good point... "Listen, you haven't driven in over a year so your skills are rusty, you're finishing up on your car which is significantly faster than anything that you've ever driven, and you've always wanted to try it... sounds like a Gimme!"

So off to Willow Springs Raceway we went. For my first time, we went to the upper track which was less technical, just a simple oval with a chicane thrown in at the exit of Turn 2, making Turns 1,2 & 3 a series of esses. With a track surface temperature of over 125 degrees, I was glad that it wasn't a typical race weekend where I would be stuck inside a full bodied race car. In my first session, my goal was to merely learn how to shift the thing. I did the typical novice mistakes: Accidently step on the brake pedal, thinking it was a clutch, while accelerating up the gears. Occassionally missing the paddle shifter with my right hand. Getting lost in the gearbox. Okay, so Ben commented that I wasn't the smoothest driver in my first session. I accidently overevved it once, rode the curb another time and really explored my threshold braking. And that "death grip" on the steering wheel didn't make my forearms feel any better afterwards too. So on my second session, I concentrated on not making any mistakes with the shifting, even bringing it to a crawl at one point in order to reset my brain. By the end of the session, the lap timer showed that I'd gained a couple of seconds. No more overevs, only accidently got on the brakes once, didn't ride the curb. Sometimes ya gotta go slow to go fast.

My third session was all about being smooth. Ben suggested that I take more advantage of the gears by adding an upshift and a downshift in the chicane. I relaxed my upper body, brought my elbows down, tried to do more leaning into the corners and trail braked deeper (more Ben advice). Lap times dropped yet another second. I can't believe how deep you can brake with these things... way past my turn-in and how much you use the brakes to rotate it. Ben describes it as "using about 60% of your braking in a straight line and 40% to rotate it".
My fourth session was short... it got hot and I lost my rhythm. I pulled in for a second to regain my thoughts, then went back out. Then I finally pulled it all together and did my best laps of the day. Still not perfect laps, once every few laps, I'd still miss a shift, accidently "clutch" the brake pedal, ride a curb, or forget the gear. But I was getting tired and wasn't going to get any faster so I called it a day. All in all, Ben and I drove about 80 minutes alternating between sessions. Yeah, I was pretty tired.... So how do I compare karting to sportscar racing? Well, I think it's possibly the best training tool for car racing to me. Karts translate information very similarly to a car. The feedback and inputs are the same... understeer, oversteer, throttle steer, braking, etc. You can do certain things in a kart that you couldn't get away with in a sportscar. But make an error in a corner and you've blown your lap in a kart. It's instant gratification.... do it right and you instantly know it. The feedback is much more direct in a kart. In a sportscar, there's much more to analyze in order to understand what's going on. In a kart, there's no question as to what it's doing and corrections are much more direct. You have to depend on your instincts with a kart, whereas you have to evaluate your reactions in a sportscar... with more components in the suspension, there are more parameters to consider. The equipment risks are much lower in a kart so you find yourself doing things that you wouldn't normally do in a car. Blow a motor and it'll set you back $350 at most, you tend to drive with less concern. Hurt a motor in a race car and you'll be spending 10 times as much AT LEAST. I find myself backing off in car racing mainly because of the cost of potential repairs, whereas karting is more about going as fast as you're physically capable. When you lose it in a car, you think "I hope this isn't going to be expensive!". However, the risk of injury is much greater in a kart. Somewhere between motorcycle racing and auto racing. The gokart track that we were at was fairly simple technically, but we did get to go flat out in 6th gear. Even then, I never experienced a moment of fear. In contrast, I've had moments of sheer terror in car racing when I'm traveling at triple digit speeds and the scenery is a blur. Ultimately, the stakes are much greater in a car so your sense of urgency is elavated.
Ben will have to tell you if I did well or if I simply sucked. But if you want to know which is more fun to me, I'll stick to sportscars for my racing and karting for my practice.

... oh yeah, and if you want to know if I'll still make fun of kart racing, you can bet your Superman Underoos on that!

RealRide/Pennyweb