I went outdoor karting ....

[mantis9]

... for the first time yesterday :D Me and sidepants, a few of our friends, and some guys of sidepants uni course. 12 twin engine karts, 5 min practise/qualifying followed by a 30 minute race at Birmingham Wheels.

Please excuse me while I blow my own trumpet but ... I won! My first ever win at a karting event! Im so chuffed its untrue. To make it even sweeter I beat some pretty strong opposition, the guy who came third races his own kart and the guy who came second is a genuine F3 driver! He was quicker than me on a single lap (by 0.2sec) but he had more spins.
Of course I put it down to LFS teaching me about race craft etc, this, for me at least, is conclusive proof that LFS can help real world driving skills :nod:

No more indoor karting for me, its too slow, if anything, Im now looking for something a little bit quicker than the hire karts at Wheels :tilt: Although I will go back, they are an awful lot of fun :D

[mrbogeyman]

I know the feeling! Its great fun!

I didnt get passed once when i did a endurance kart race and was catching and passing loads of racers, however, i was part of a team of 4, so we got thrashed overall!

[Bob Smith]

Well, good for you. Hopefully you can repeat the success during the next LFS meet up (whenever that is...)

[Jakg]

An F3 driver spinning in hire karts! What has the world come to? :shrug:


Watch out Bob, I will be there. MUAHAHAHAHA

:really:the place i go karting is tiny, but Rubens Barichello took his own kart there and got thrashed by a 13 yr old in one of the 240cc arive-and-drives (alright, so he had been there a few more times...)

[ajp71]

Whats the twin engined kart like on an outdoor track, guess it's not flat out all the way?

[mantis9]

The karts were not as quick as I was expecting, I thought it would be the speed in a straight line that scared me, but the corners turned out to be way more scary. T1 at Wheels is taken with a slight lift to make it turn in and then flat out again drifting out to the exit, its such a ballsy corner, it scared me every lap :)
They are twin engine karts but if I tell you each engine is 6.5 bhp :) Its not earth shattering and you still end up screaming "come on" in your head as you come out of the slow corners, poor acceleration. But, there is enough power there to spin you if you floor it mid corner.
Not massively faster than indoor karts, but enough for most to have alot of fun :D

[thisnameistaken]

One of my business partners had a bit of a bump in a kart like that this summer. Apparently he spun it on a corner and the next guy in the train hit him head-on. His injury was hilarious though - his backside was black and blue and he couldn't sit down for days :D

[shim]

hehe, ive had a few acco's in karting.. ive been rear ended pretty hard by someone not payin full attn on the road and they killed me kart.. also ive bent the steering arm from cuttin a corner and had to pit (front left came barely off the ripple strip, bottomed out and when commin back onto the track is when it bent)

[Leifde]

I've had one quite bad accident outside. First corner straight after the start, the same thing happens on LFS sometimes, some idiot came up too fast for the corner, hit my back bumper, bent it into my tyre and got pushed up into my arm.

I've had an accident indoor where i got flung out of the kart, that hurt quite a bit.

[ajp71]

Hit me head on the wall once, didn't stop me racing though. Broken two karts, one indoor getting punted from behind, just locked up and stopped dead and mangled up two corners from clipping other karts on an outdoor track.

[ayrton senna 87]

grats mantis9 lets get u on some 2 strokes now :D

try these 2 stroke indoor karts to start, then something faster!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8933869810642490334&q=senna

[mantis9]

holy cow they look quick! 2 stroke you say?
Needs to be done :D

[ayrton senna 87]

those are 19hp yamaha air cooled motors, great little engines but a little down on power for seniors :(

if u have 1.5k to spare u can have a day testing an FA, or u can come drive mine at whilton one day, aslong as we have that race at brummie wheels sometime!!

[ayrton senna 87]

sure m8, ive got an air cooled motor called TKM that u can go on, and if u do alright ill let u have a bash on the FA, if u did go on it i would expect u to have a bash litterally :p its quick.

first time i ran it i was doing about 85mph at the end of the straight, went to brake and found that my brakes didnt work, the brake rod had fallen off. luckily there was a lovely soft bush to go into, fences hurt at that speed!

im at whilton in northampton in january and at shennington in oxford in feburary sometime and loads of other tracks take your pick.

[keiran]

Me saw the name TKM *covers eyes and trys to forget*
I'll let the pic explain and the £210 price tag to fix ...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v204/keiran/rc006.jpg

Hopefully when I'm a bit older I can get back into karting again once my car insurance drops and I've finished my education :razz:

Keiran

[mantis9]

for sure Will, we are definately gonna do more events in the New Year, you can come and show us how its done ;) The more the merrier.
One of the things we talked about after the race was getting to more tracks around the country so yeah, lets do it!

[ayrton senna 87]

lol keiran, £210, u have it easy m8, a standard rebuild for tkm cost me £320 just a few weeks ago! And i just blew my FA up, the carb butterfly screw fell out and went into the motor lol :S Why did your engine seize?

ill send my engines up to scotland i think!

[keiran]

I can't remember the exact part that broke but I know its cost pence and that the previous owner didn't put new ones in when he rebuilt it :shrug: thats the reason it was so annoying as we bought the kart knowing it had been rebuilt and it would last the season but it all went wrong :s I think I missed a few races that season to save the engine and get a hold of my Rotax Max :smileypul

Keiran

[Leifde]

I'm hopefully gonna be at Wombwell in January. I race Jnr Max, IIC you can get over 70mph at Wombwell in my class so it should be fun :)

And i just blew my FA up, the carb butterfly screw fell out and went into the motor lol :S How did you manage that?

P.S. do you race your FA in 100 national?

[ayrton senna 87]

I'm hopefully gonna be at Wombwell in January. I race Jnr Max, IIC you can get over 70mph at Wombwell in my class so it should be fun :)

How did you manage that?

P.S. do you race your FA in 100 national?

nah, i have 4 motors, one rotary valve 100 national, 1 reed valve FA and 2 TKM Extremes. I wont be racing the 100 national but might be using the reed FA in 100 nat in 2007 when the homologation changes. Keiran used to race junior max aswell, with 24 kilos of lead.

did u hear about the LFS karting event we had?]

And clownpaint yes u can test without a licence at whilton

[Leifde]

Isn't that a bit dangerous, 24kg of lead?

No, I didn't hear about the LFS karting event.

I'm pretty sure I'm doing the Open Endurance Championship at Whilton Mill year after next. :)

[ayrton senna 87]

info in a thread called LFS meet 2005, scawen and victor raced aswell

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=2538&highlight=karting

theres a nice video which fordman made to download

[keiran]

Well my kart weighed a lot with that weight on it :razz: We had loads of lead and just shapped it to fit the seat and floor. Great thing is if I make it to the LFS kart meet next year then I've got an advanatage of being super light :p which in hire karts should be a big advanatage :D

The great thing with having a far chunk of lead weight was in the wet I could use it to my advanatage and mount it higher up on the seat :nod: I always used the weight as part of the set-up. I had 3 sets of holes on the back of my seat to play with :D

Keiran