rain

[danny haynes]

we race in the rain at beaverun and yesterday was our first time gettin' wet.
my son runs jr. can with an R30. does Birel have a factory recommended baseline for rain? if not does anyone have any suggestions?
we did get the pole on a damp track but for the feature it was soaked and he was all over the track.

[Marc Miller]

on 5. Jun 2006 08:46 danny haynes wrote:
> we race in the rain at beaverun and yesterday was our first time gettin' wet.
> my son runs jr. can with an R30. does Birel have a factory recommended baseline
> for rain? if not does anyone have any suggestions?
> we did get the pole on a damp track but for the feature it was soaked and he
> was all over the track.

Hi Danny-

There are tons of things you can do for a rain set-up. The basic is to widen the front and narrow the rear... this allws the front tires to "jack" and gives you more front end grip. Other things are to help raise the CG (center of gravity). Try raising the seat up. Take out all the bars to make the kart nice and soft. Remove the 3rd and 4th seat struts if you have them... I've even loosened the seat bolts before. Go up on teeth as far as gearing.. 2-4 depending on the rain. That is the basic for most any kart in the wet... I'm sure Chris can fill you in more when he returns from Vegas.

Marc Miller
MRP Motorsport
Director of Marketing & Brand Development
www.themarcmillershow.com

[danny haynes]

thanks marc, i widened the front all the way. the only problem with that was with the cast aluminum fronts i could only go out 2 full spacers, which is one less than i normally run. i narrowed the rear about 3". i couldn't go any more on the rear beacause the key was in all the way and was flush with the outside of the hub. i thought about getting an extra set of keys and cutting them in half to leave more room to narrow further.
i didn't do anything to the seat or the gear. we had rain on and off yesterday and were switching back and forth between wet and dry so i left the gear alone. it was basically a practice for him.
he was sliding the front real bad and then when it caught the back would whip around.
i put cardboard in front of the rotor to keep the brakes dry. we run an HDC-5B and i just replaced the disks along with the floater and noticed the disks were sticking to the floater after the first session and it was dragging the rear axle down. i sprayed it with brake clean and fixed that but i don't know if thats normal or if i should do something to prevent this.

[Marc Miller]

Sounds like you got the basics going.. keeping that rotor dry is helpful. Also - you CAN turn the wheels around in the back and run them so the valve stem is inside near the hub. I have done this before so the hubs are way out wide and that allows the axle to have the hubs fairly normal to where they are, but the offset in the wheels does well.
Some wheels may not allow this. It sounds like you were lacking front grip until the kart got slow enough to grip and since he still had a lot of input into the wheel - when it gains grip it overpowered the rears... I call that "snap oversteer". It might have been your son not running the proper "rain line" and heading into the corner in the slick stuff - then once it drifted out and the front nabbed a bunch of grip - then it tossed the rears. You can get more bite by dialing some castor into it as well. That helps it weight jack even more and should give you more traction in the rain up front... though it might get tougher to turn.

Marc Miller
MRP Motorsport
Director of Marketing & Brand Development
www.themarcmillershow.com

[danny haynes]

that sounds pretty close to what was happening. i told him to stay off the old rubber but i know he struggled with that. as for the wheels i don't think the ones my rainsare on can be reversed but that is a good idea. maybe i'll put the rains on my other wheels.
i think he spun out every lap in the feature. he ended up last.
i don't have adjustable caster or i would have done that also. i left the front bar in and i only run the fixed seat struts anyway.
more wet practice will help but i'd like a basic setup to start so i'm in the ballpark when we start.

[Garry Lobaugh]

Marc for the benefit of Danny and others we suggest always using trucker hubs on the front( non bearing wheels) In the rain we then go to an extended version of the trucker hup.

From the description of the driver performance in the following post "spun out every lap" it would appear that we have to harness the emotions of the driver first and worry about chassis second. A good start would be to do a MRP summer camp school along with a rain practice with Wes Boswell.

[Garry Lobaugh]

Marc for the benefit of Danny and others we suggest always using trucker hubs on the front( non bearing wheels) In the rain we then go to an extended version of the trucker hub.

From the description of the driver performance in the following post "spun out every lap" it would appear that we have to harness the emotions of the driver first and worry about chassis second. A good start would be to do a MRP summer camp school along with a rain practice with Wes Boswell.

[bseward]

Marc,

Your comments about loosening up the chassis seems backwards to me. We ran in the rain at New Castle a couple of weeks ago and I tightened up the rear of the kart as much as possible, hubs in, third bearing tight, seat struts tight and my R30 even has a rear bar that was in as well. That with the front as wide as possible and front bar in, the kart was untouchable. I just assumed that a stiff kart would really jack the rear and give it more bite. Either way, it worked and we won the race but I'm always interested in learning more. FYI, class is Yamaha Can at 360 lbs.

Regards,

Brian Seward

[danny haynes]

garry, i agree that alot of the problem was inexperience. getting the kart set up with a good wet baseline would eliminate that factor though. after that we could focus on driving technique. i might try to come to one of your schools next year. i talked to you via phone a while back about maybe buying a new kart for next season.
my instructions to him yesterday were to use the feature as a practice session and just keep it on the track.
all 4 competitors were first timers in the rain and all spun out at least once.
the winner had a brand new CRG that came with a book that had a baseline wet setup in it and they followed that. the others just played it by ear although we did share info to try to help each other out for safety reasons.
the only reason we are even running in the rain is for experience for a possible run at the great lakes series and maybe 1 or 2 manufactures cup events next year.

[Garry Lobaugh]

Sorry,but rain set up was not the issue! mind control and concentration.

[Garry Lobaugh]

There are multiple ways to accomplish a win. The first and foremost comes with the mind control of the driver.

A second problem will be the terminolgy of the items discussed. Numer one remains mind control. I've seen it time and again, and of course experience after that. Look at the result of Boswell in Oklahoma! three years before in Texas Motor Speedway and SKUSA, Bos was one of the lowest perfromers. We brought him in for exhaustive testing ( drive time) in the rain or with a wet track condition. To this day, every time it rains and Bos is in town, he gets on the track on anything we have and practices his rain race discipline, and we don't change a thing on the kart!

[Graham Odell]

Try the articles at karting1.co.uk
There are articles there on wet weather driving. Very good.

We get plenty rain here. Wet setup IS important as a lot of drivers here are experienced rain drivers but you can be several seconds off the pace if you don't adapt your driving style. Just needs practice.

Sounds like he needs to be more agressive. With the lack of traction the only way to make the kart work and "jack" is to be more agressive with steering and braking.

Soft vs. stiff setup both work however....
Soft gives more grip if you are agressive and can load the chassis up cornering.
Stiff gives more "feel" if you like to feel your way around the track.

Both work but depends what driver prefers and is confident with.