It may simply be lack of experience as related by others.
For example, being on the brakes going into a corner makes the kart twice as likely to be unstable as if he wasn't on the brake.
If, like many people, he has heard enthusiastic commentators talking about being quick into a corner and late on the brakes, he may be doing just that. The speed difference may be undetectable from afar, but it's the technique not the speed that is at fault.
Then there may be the problem of his placement on the track. A couple of yards later starting the turn, something you won't notice from half the track away, means that the turn in is just that bit sharper and just that bit more tendency to hang the back out.
Couple that with the wrong braking technique and there's a slide in the making.
Then there is the deathgrip. A novice driver is determined to put the kart just where he wants it with the front wheels, while a more experienced driver has learned that the kart will go where it wants with the wheels in all sorts of directions. So the novice is less able to counter the inevitable understeer, overseer and brake shimmy, while a more experienced driver has learned to make where he wants to be
more or less where the kart wants to be and persuade the kart that it wants to do likewise (ie; be where he wants it to be).
Something to watch is the rolling lap of a grid with novices involved. Bear in mind that for most of the drivers a rolling lap is slow to dead slow, but for the novices at the back it can be a full time job just to get onto the back of the pack....and those are people who have shown themselves able to drive at racing laptime + 10%.
When you get round to practice, aim at doing 'things' rather than just putting in laps. So go out with the intention of braking on corner 1 early. Start off (with cold tyres) and brake 30 yards short. Get him to stamp on the brakes in the middle of the track and find out what happens. Then just poodle round for the rest of the lap so that next time he is a bit faster but still on cold tyres, and keep doing it until either the tyres warm up, or he has a good idea of what braking into the first corner is like.
Then, with warmer tyres practice braking 10 yards early on another corner. The idea is to be at cornering speed before the corner, with the wheels settled, the foot on the accelerator, not the brake and rolling comfortably, not at hang on tight speeds, into the corner. and gradually try to speed up the bit on the straight (which means getting the previous corner right) but keeping that braking point early.
The reason is that the normal problem of a novice is to get so used to a braking point travelling at lowish speed, that as their speed goes up they are still using the same braking point.
And teh point about not worrying about the rest of the lap is that if you take a corner badly, then your speed down the next straight is poor, while if you don't care what teh overall lap time is, you can concentrate on getting one bit of the track right at a time. (and when he sees how much more control he has braking early, he will brake early into the corner before the one he is practising on and raise his speed down the straight and so on.
Worrying over lap-time is worry wasted. Once teh corners start getting right, the laptimes will come down....anyone can blast down the straight.
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lack of grip in minimax (newbie) by 'PaulClarke' (22 Jan 2009 @ 9:08)
