It's going to be cold

[speedy king]

I have my final on Saturday and the expected temperature is 6 degrees celcius!!! How cold does it get before things get real slippy? I remember a day last year i had brand new slicks and first practice was a nightmare, turn one, one kart facing the wrong way and at the end of the lap two facing the wrong way on the pit straight and then i went off at turn two followed by another driver.

I'm hoping that the only thing that will be a problem will be getting heat in the tyres but once i have heat it shouldnt be any different to normal if the tyre pressures are right?

[Alex Hodgkinson]

Dam, that's really ****, I hate the cold weather it's too... cold!

When it gets to around freezing at night the road will slowly drop to around the same temperature, and throughout the day it'll warm up slowly as well, because of it's density, colour, bla bla.. (A level Geography) Sooo be careful for the first 1/4 of the day I'd say. Could be icy or something early on Saturday.

I dont reckon that it'll make that much difference once they're up to temperature.

Also, remember to drain the water from your engine else you'll end up freezing it over night and it'll crack ur radiator n barrel.

[Karting_jenny]

Where were you racing?

I raced at Kimbolton last weekend, and first things first i told dad was lower the tyre pressures. cold track most logical thing to do.

In the radiator you should use anti freeze. Won't have any cracking there.

[Alex Hodgkinson]

Additives to the radiator water (such as anti freeze) are actually against the rules.

Lower them... :S
I shall be pumping mine up

[speedy king]

Originally posted by Karting_jenny
Where were you racing?

I raced at Kimbolton last weekend, and first things first i told dad was lower the tyre pressures. cold track most logical thing to do.

In the radiator you should use anti freeze. Won't have any cracking there.

Ellough, it has an unusually grippy surface compared to others. You can do a race at Kimbolton and then 3 competetively at Ellough apparently as its so grippy.

Interesting the whole radiator thing, just found mines burst

[speedy king]

Originally posted by Alex Hodgkinson
Additives to the radiator water (such as anti freeze) are actually against the rules.

Lower them... :S
I shall be pumping mine up

Last year when i had the very cold race i found lowering the pressures helped. First session i was on 15PSI which i start at every day as a foundation and then work from that. At 15PSI the kart was all over the place, Yvan Muller cornering minus the skillhrug:

[Alex Hodgkinson]

hmmm sounds odd to me, but hey whatever works!

Are they Bridgestone YEQ's you run in Jnr Max? I can't remember.

It's possible that you are running too high-a-pressures all the time though, because pumping up tyres for hotter weather doesnt seem right.

If it's not ****ing it down on Saturday I'll have a little play

[speedy king]

We were on YEQ's last year, Now Vega SL8's. The forcast for saturday is now showers and 5 degrees but should feel like -1 according to the site

[Alex Hodgkinson]

Ah.. I've got a forecast of 10 degrees and sleet for my meeting on sunday

I don't know what a SL8 is, but I have used SL7's. Is an SL8 harder?

[speedy king]

Not sure. It's weird because the lap record is with YEQ's, thought when i first put SL8's on the grip at mid corner was phanominal. Think they may eb ahrder, they're definately harder than the Bridgestones, and a pain to put on the rims

[Alex Hodgkinson]

Yeah Vegas always are hard to put on wheels, they seem to like their stiff beads. I think they like them because they're usually run at quite low pressures. For example with Vega XT's this summer I was somewhere around 6-8 psi. A Bridgestone would quite easily pop off the rim at that.

When you said you thought they had mad mid corner hold to begin, its wierd because I've noticed that too. They seem to have REALLY super bite for the first few laps (about 4/5) then drop off about 1/2 a second. Wiiierrdd..

[speedy king]

Put some on new a few races back and while they were still shiny they were so responsive and had no understeer at all, though like you say it soon drops off.

Also i'm guessign with such cold temperatures as it should be tomorrow brand new slicks would be a nightmare if they are not already scrubbed in?

[speedy king]

......i hope!

As i have part warn slicks on

[Alex Hodgkinson]

Yeah they could be a bit of trouble because it'll be quite hard to rub off the releasing agent. They'll just want to slide about ontop of it.
I've actually managed to rip some new back tyres in the cold weather, straight around the centre devide.

On my two karts I've put on two sets which have each done about a dozen laps each, so should be good

Good luck

[speedy king]

Was bitterly cold! From about 11 to 2 the track wasnt too bad but first practice and the Final was pretty dodgy!

Pretty eventful day, alot of heated arguements as it all came very serious.

Good news is i came 2nd in the Champs and managed to help my mate secure 3rd. Was very angry mid-day from one actions of a driver and his older brother who wrongly accused me of taking him out twice and confronted me in the paddock by myself when he looks like he's 10 years older than me and threatened me, thankfully one of the Seniors dad's interveined and put the guy right by saying any direct approach by an adult to an under 16 is an exludable offence, so much that not even the officials are allowed to question us without a guardian. Reported it to the officials and they got a strict talking to and the MSA also heard about it. Set the fastest lap of the day too, despite the sun setting and the evening ground frost settling in! Some great races though and despite the rather rude encounted between Heats 2 & 3 i thoroughly enjoyed it

[luke]

I have a club event next sunday and for the past 5 years it has been a down paw, there was even ice and snow 1 year.

I don't know why but for me Novemeber is the only meeting that rains.

[Alex Hodgkinson]

lol probably because November is synonymous with poor weather!

Nice one speedy king

I just got back from my final meeting of the year. It was a rainey freezing cold day. I raced in both ICA and S-ICC.

There were three heats & no final, with points being taken from each heat to decide the placings for the meeting. In the (kind of) ICA class my pre-decided grid positions were 5th 2nd and 5th again. I finished 3rd in the 1st race spun out in the second then finished 3rd again in the last heat. My none too impressive results in 100cc karting I think are a product of my 125cc gearbox ventures of late.

In S-ICC I started 7th 5th then 3rd. I won all three by at least 5 seconds Dead chuffed! The first win was my first 125cc win & it was only my 3rd meeting out in the class!


Alex

[speedy king]

Well done. It was dry for me but just bitteryly cold with frost on the track. Must have been awful for you as it would have been cold AND wet!!

I couldnt believe the fastest lap i set in the Final, even though the evening frost was setting in i set a 35.9 which for Ellough is very quick in Junior especially for the conditions, if only i had been placed higher up on the grid but the heats didn't go too well with being caught up in mid field bumper cars.

Very VERY impressive results though Alex

[speedy king]

Originally posted by luke
I have a club event next sunday and for the past 5 years it has been a down paw, there was even ice and snow 1 year.

I don't know why but for me Novemeber is the only meeting that rains.

It rained last November and i loved it! Thought it would rain on Saturday too to be honest but it didn't, it was just icey, we've had to race in the snow before a few years back.

This though for me was my first dry race since July!!! In August we had 3 dry heats and a wet Final, September 1 dry heat and 3 wet races, October 1 dy heat and 3 wet races

[luke]

Yeah, in the autum and spring races userly for the first races or practice the track is userly damp, but obviously the races in the winter are biterly cold and heavy rain.

[Nigel Wilson]

You southeners, don't know your born. Lol.
Up here in the north east the temp never got above 1c from Sat morning until Sun evening. Dry Sat, wet Sun. so cold on Sunday that there was ice formimg around the fuel tank filler and frost on the outside of the carb. In the final Tristran Oman's throttle cable froze fully on half way through and he still won.
Btw my 15 year old daughter came 2nd in senior max in her first time ever in a Rotax of any kind after 2 years of gearbox karting.
As Mario Andretti once said "if your a fast driver, you can drive anything fast"

[Nigel Wilson]

Oh! forgot to mention, on a borrowed outfit as well.

[Mackmot]

Nigel, is your 15 year old daughter thinking about going into cars? Or are you keeping her away from such expensive habits? That is a very impressive result.

[Nigel Wilson]

Cost has a lot of influence in the racing we do. I don't have a lot and there isn't much about in motorsport in general. I do what I can to promote her without wanting to sound too much like a pushy dad, but as you probably know its having the right conections and I'm afraid I don't have any.
Sarah would love to progress into cars but dosn't feel she has to rush into it. She took part in a scholership for T-Cars when she was just 13 and had to drive front and rear wheel drive cars on a skid pan, a road car and a T-Car on the circuit and sat and passed the T-Car ARDS test.
If we got the backing, yes, but without it we will stay in karting.
Thanks for your kind words and interest.