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This spring, I drove a Leopard in New York that was using plastic sprockets. We put a brand new sprocket on it, and within 4 sessions all of the teeth were completely ripped off. This track had some bumps, but overall was pretty smooth. Definately smoother than Bandi, and probably smoother than IMI as well. IMI is fairly rough the entire way around partly just because you’re at such a high speed the entire time.
Really, after my experience of ripping all the teeth off a plastic sprocket, I’d be wary of using one at all on a TaG car, on any track. Don’t know if anyone else uses them or not, but I would recommend either Kevlar or aluminum sprockets, then you don’t have to worry about it.
@Ben Schermerhorn wrote:
Im sorry but my dad would waste all of you.
Only ’cause my Dad would, shall we say, not have any trouble making weight 😆
Congrats to the Schermerhorns for a great job. Ben drove very well, and they had the chassis working great.
And JB, we’re kidding, we liked the track to be different. I definately would have had more of an advantage without the teardrop, but then I might not have gotten to have so much fun trying to hold back Donel and Marc :cheers:
At the CSC race earlier there this year, Donel won and his best lap in the main was around 39.4. This time though, they are running a slightly different configuration that adds about 2.5 seconds to the lap time. The track is running the opposite direction too, but as far as I know that doesn’t make a big difference. So I’d guess the best laps will be low 42’s or high 41’s.
If you can, come to the Colorado Sprint Championships (CSC) race this Sunday at Bandimere. The biggest events of the year are the CSC races, so you’ll have tons of very helpful people to talk to. The CSC also goes to IMI on the 29th, so that would be another great race to attend. And of course, if you can’t make either of those, be sure to hit one of the club races. If you make it to either CSC race stop by the Shockwave Karting trailer and we’d be more than happy to share our advice. Going to a race is by far the best way to get information about karting.
Ditto what Curt said. The best way to figure out what you want to do is come out to the track and talk with the people in the various classes and see what they think. Feel free to stop by and talk with us at the Shockwave trailer.
I’d like to see exactly the same thing Kyle wants. Those 7 races, one drop.
My view is this series is a state championship. So, I think that means the only real way to find out who the best driver in the state is in each class is to go to every venue. Every one of those tracks requires a different set of skills, and I think the best championship series is one that has diversity.
As for street races, they require a totally different approach than a permanent circuit does. On a permanent track, you drop a tire, no big deal. Street course, you don’t have that luxury. That means that you have to learn to drive more precisely, not faster, to be good on a street course. There’s a lot of complaints that street courses tear up equipment. You can easily do a street race without bending a single part, if you have conditioned yourself for it. That’s why I’m all for street races, it separates those who want to improve themselves from those who don’t. Add in that experience on a street course will improve your driving and tuning skills exponentially when you go back to a permanent track because you learn to adapt quicker to changing track conditions, you learn tracks faster, and you drive smoother and more precisely. I’d also like to note that the roughest track I’ve ever been on is a permanent track, not a street course.
Blink,
I don’t quite see why we can’t just use a Digitron gauge. It works great everywhere else in the country, I don’t see why it wouldn’t here as well.
Your suggestion of protesting fuel isn’t bad, but here’s the problem with it. Usually when you protest, you put up a certain amount of money wagering that the other guy is illegal, and if you’re right, you get your money back. In this case, we wouldn’t know if the other guy was legal or not to begin with, which means the track would keep the protest fee to cover the cost of the spec fuel. Now, what that means is basically, if I suspect someone of using hot fuel, I have to buy their fuel for them to get them to run legal. Why should I have to buy their fuel? I’m not the one cheating! They should be DQ’d, not get free fuel.
Here’s another concern: if somebody uses legal fuel for qualifying and the prefinal (and thus giving their competitors no reason to suspect them), then they can use illegal fuel in the final and get away with it. If you’re not going to tech the fuel, with a gauge, when the karts come off the track, and check air filters for nitrous drip bottles, it will always be very easy to cheat on fuel.
I think a spec fuel and oil (along with fuel tests) is the best solution, but for this weekend, I think it’s absoultely neseccary to test fuel.
I do appreciate the increased tech, thanks to both you and JB for doing this.
Jim,
I don’t remember for sure if the unit you’re looking at is downloadable or not, but I would definately recommend that you get one that is. You can learn a incredible amount by downloading the data and analyzing it. On that topic, consider that sometimes there can be spikes in your data (especially or RPM and speed values) caused by bumps in the track that may give you innaccurate maximum values. If you look at the data on the kart, all you can get are the maximums, so you have to download the data to be able to get accurate numbers.
I know you said you wanted to keep it simple, but the software really is pretty intuitive so it’s not too hard to figure out how to use it 😀 .
We use a MyChron 3 Golds, with H2O only for temp on both my and my brother’s rotaxes, but I do wish we had EGT also.
Hope this helps.
I believe Genesis Racing is the Vega importer for Western North America. You should probably contact them to find out who their dealers are.
http://www.genesisracingproducts.com/vega.htm has the contact information.If there’s any interest, I would be willing to host a session (free of course)for drivers. I could do several things, teach techniques to be a better driver for one, and also talk about how karting can help kids with education. I really believe my karting experience was a huge part of why I got into as good a college as I did (Rochester Institute of Technology) and also into their Honors Program as well as getting several scholarships, in addition to teaching me an enormous amount that will be beneficial to my major in mechanical engineering and life in general. So if there’s interest enough, I could put together a presentation to help kids get the most out of karting as a driver in terms of becoming a better driver, how the driver can communicate and work with his/her tuner to make the kart better, and as karting can relate to other aspects of life such as education and careers. Of course, I wouldn’t it just limit it to kids if there’s adult drivers who’d be interested as well.
I’ll be back in Colorado from college from December 21 to January 3. Send me an email [email protected], call me (585) 758-3149, or talk to me over IM using AOL or AIM, my screenname is freeskicolorado. Let me know if you’re interested and when you’d be available, and what kinds of things you’d like to learn about.
@Curt Kistler wrote:
PS: Any good helmet painters in this town? I need to get a Christmas present painted soon.
They’re not in town, but I would recommend Y. B. Normul Designs. Several of members of the KGB team had their helmets done by them, quicker turnaround time and less expensive than all other the other painters we looked into, and their quality is very good too. My dad should have their phone number, give him a call.
