Tall and heavy verses shot and heavy?

paulkish

paulkish

old fart
I have the idea it's an advantage racing a kart to be tall and have long legs, verses being shorter at the same weight.

IMHO, being able to stick your knees up in the air around the steering wheel is an advantage and about the best place you can put weight, to make it easy to use to help handling. I realize you put weight either in a neutral place or where it's needed. But I think if you have body weight to deal with it's the ideal place to have your body weight located for setting up to be fast.

wrong about it or generally is it right?
 
anything that sticks up in the air will create aero drag and slow you down. your knees are not aero shaped and will block the air. get yourself as low into the kart as you can and get your legs out of the stream that flows around the upper part of the body work. the nose of the kart is designed to split the air and go around the driiver, but that's not saying that your knees won't affect your aero. been told numerous times that aero is only affected on high speed tracks. larry macreynolds and i talked in person one day about the aero effect on ministocks and he explained that low speed aero on smaller tracks is just as important as it is on daytona. he said that anything not designed to slip through the air will create drag and slow you down...he was at our track with his son racing bandolero's....and they are about as fast as the karts and rely on air movement around, over and under the car just like we do with a kart.
 
Don't you guys know -- it's all about tires! ;)


Paul, Don't feel bad. At this stage of my life, I'm heavy and shot too!

Karting has always been a "little guys" sport. I don't think that will ever change.
Low center of gravity and short wheelbase is always an advantage. :)


Blessings,
Brian Carlson
 
I'm 6'4 230 pounds an when I get in my champ my knees have no choice but to be up in the air ....just gotta deal with it lol
 
paulkish said:
I have the idea it's an advantage racing a kart to be tall and have long legs, verses being shorter at the same weight.

IMHO, being able to stick your knees up in the air around the steering wheel is an advantage and about the best place you can put weight, to make it easy to use to help handling. I realize you put weight either in a neutral place or where it's needed. But I think if you have body weight to deal with it's the ideal place to have your body weight located for setting up to be fast.

wrong about it or generally is it right?
Click to expand...

Nope. Hense the reason you will always hear, the lower you can get the seat and it not adversely affect weight transfer the better.

Jp is correct.
 
I dont know i have noticed the taller guys in the super heavy classes winning a lot more then the short ones... Better call myth busters... We could fill up a whole series with them... New tire vs old, drum clutch vs. disk, prepped vs unprepped, home built clone vs pro....lol
 
Here's a new product for someone to make, It's called "Knee Wings". Two curved plastic wind shields, one for each knee, to replace the wind shield in front of the steering wheel. ... :)
 
me too!!! shot and heavy......nope.....i'm already heavy...don't need no shot to go with it!!! dang nurses always aim for my shoulder and hit me in the butt with that dang needle!!!

paulkish...don't know about knee wings, but I heard that a couple swallers of that red bull will grow some wings......
 
Paulkish.......Take it from a 6-7 go-karter. Flat tracks suck. Wet track ya we love them. Roll over weight turns into bite and run. The only true advantage to me is by moving my knees to the left took 2- 1/2 to 3 percent of cross out. Moving them to the right put cross in and was a lot easier to do. When u can move 5% of cross around when ur driven u very seldom make wrong adjustments when u get out of the seat.. When people ask me if I like being tall I've always said the same thing to them.........I don't remember being short so I don't know. I've never raced as Short and Fat or Shot and Fat.
Leggs
 
I've been behind a few heavy drivers with large shoulders, and you can just see the kart transferring the weight, hindering them.
 
Short and light...put the lead weight where ever you want to get what #s you want...im.5'8..130lbs..people in my class were always fighting being over weight or not light enough to be able to use lead where they need to, to acheive there percentage goals.
 
If you have to choose between a tall heavy driver and a short heavy one the shorter will always have an advantage because of lower gravity center. To give you a couple of examples, I never finished worst than 2nd when I could make the weight to run Super Heavy and I am pretty short. Another one, Formula 1 teams care much about the weight of their drivers not just because of total weight, but because a heavy driver won´tt allow them to distribute weight where they wan to, but other than problems with room tall drivers are not appreciated in F1 because of higher gravity center issues other than room in the cockpit. Driving with your legs around the wheel is notan advantage at all, though I´ll never be able to experience this, lol
 
Ryan Thompson said:
Short and light...put the lead weight where ever you want to get what #s you want...im.5'8..130lbs..people in my class were always fighting being over weight or not light enough to be able to use lead where they need to, to acheive there percentage goals.
Click to expand...


They are only discussing super heavy drivers. Every one already knows short and light is an advantage in karts. Personally 5'8-5'10" and between 145-160 is perfect for a kart driver.
 
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