Track Tac

Track sizes, a comparison.

I find that with about 35yrs. of running different tracks, after a while you can often just look at most tracks and equate them to one that you've run at before , consult your notes and guess the sprocket combo within 2-3 teeth, your tach. and driver should be able to tell you. Microns help a lot too.
 
How close is the GPS tracking that is mentioned. I thought you could only lock in within 2 or 3 meters? If they are close and downloadable; information could be pumped to the guy with the google maps of go-kart tracks, to be attached to each track with sufficient dims and info to offer some insite ahead of time.....
Some tracks with a misstatement of actual size might not like it but....
Having said this: It would be one more project.....:cool:
 
Here's what we all need or will want after checking it out. ... :)

https://www.vectornav.com/purchase/product/vn-200-rugged-development-kit


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edit: If it was applied to a suspended car, I'd want one at the center of the sprung chassis, and one each on the left end of the non sprung rear axle, and a third on the RF end of the front axle or corner of the car to compare. With a kart where would you mount it? I'm thinking the corresponding mounting to a sprung car, would be one on the seat and one on the LR cassette, and a third on the RF corner. Wouldn't it be cool to see how cross changes in real time out on the track?
 
M.D.racing said:
How close is the GPS tracking that is mentioned. I thought you could only lock in within 2 or 3 meters? If they are close and downloadable; information could be pumped to the guy with the google maps of go-kart tracks, to be attached to each track with sufficient dims and info to offer some insite ahead of time.....
Some tracks with a misstatement of actual size might not like it but....
Having said this: It would be one more project.....:cool:
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With GPS Augmentation you can get within centimeters in accuracy. I know there are government and commercial augmentation services. Not sure about the availability or accessibility on the public side though.
 
rebsfan4 said:
With GPS Augmentation you can get within centimeters in accuracy. I know there are government and commercial augmentation services. Not sure about the availability or accessibility on the public side though.
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Yeah, I knew the government could get on down there and it's being used some in surveying, but I didn't know if they had started allowing better differential receivers into the general public so we can use what we payed for. All security issues considered.....
 
No Alvin your are not wasting your time. Some of the information that you give out is dead on target. But just like armpits, everyone has a couple of then and usually they stink. I wrote you one time and asked about stagger on a track that I had never seen, just pulled it up on Google earth. Gave you the measurements using the ruler and gave you the estimated banking and radius. You sent back a stagger and it was dead on.
Have used a couple of your spreadsheets, and now run an EGT sensor to fine tune.
I do agree that a lot of tracks are advertised as 1/4 and they are only 1180 ft.


alvin l nunley said:
Okay then, from what I'm hearing, none of this stuff makes any difference, the size of the track, the banking and the radius of the turn. You don't need any help with that stuff. Anybody with half a brain can just look at the track and see what he needs to know. I thought I was helping, but I guess not. Can't blame me for trying.
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Perhaps it doesn't matter. Maybe at any given time(lap time) the satellite coverage and triangulation will still produce a true geometric shape only skewed as to exact location on the earths surface, which would be irrelevant for what is needed...
Might be bad for the water truck if they fire...Told them to get that away for safety...
:cool:
 
Switch the GPS out for GNSS. Data can be sent to a computer using sitelink. It would be costly, but very accurate.

It's the automated program and antenna used on heavy equipment.
 
we use GPS on our tractors in the field,, they plot out our fields and actually drive our tractors to plant any given field to make the most cost effective and highest yield crops,,, just saying
 
paulkish said:
In theory with a LTO, it's possible to get up to speed, put your foot to the floor, take your hands off the wheel, and go around the track. It's not possible with a "real race car which turns right and left", because it gets no rotation from it's non-staggered solid axle.

How'd I do with my thoughts on it?
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For what it's worth Paul, I know of one humorous incident that proves what you said about LTO cars/karts. After checking the toe and something else in the front end, a friend of mine put the kart on the ground and sent his daughter out for hot laps - trouble was, he forgot to take the locking pin out of the fixture on the steering column! Fortunately, by that time in her career she had developed a whole lot of skills; she made it through the entire hot laps session steering with the throttle while he stood there in the pit lane trying to figure out why her hands never moved the steering wheel.....

And she never let him forget that little moment of inattention.

Mike
 
Outrider said:
For what it's worth Paul, I know of one humorous incident that proves what you said about LTO cars/karts. After checking the toe and something else in the front end, a friend of mine put the kart on the ground and sent his daughter out for hot laps - trouble was, he forgot to take the locking pin out of the fixture on the steering column! Fortunately, by that time in her career she had developed a whole lot of skills; she made it through the entire hot laps session steering with the throttle while he stood there in the pit lane trying to figure out why her hands never moved the steering wheel.....

And she never let him forget that little moment of inattention.

Mike
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darn ive done that before,,trying to get on the track,,with no luck doing that ,,she must be a superwoman kart driver
 
Yea I dont see how thats possible. How she get on and off the track without turning the wheel or work thru traffic on the track? Sorry but I just can't see that happening, lol
 
I have done it, and seen two or three others do it.. amazing how well a kart drives it's self at speed.
 
CarlsonMotorsports said:
Emphasis mine.

Is gearing or jetting more important to get "close enough"? ;)
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apparently neither. I've been on Bob's for about seven years or more, and still nobody pays any attention. I get a lot of critical reviews, which is okay, but I get very few "at-a-boy" remarks. Not that I'm too concerned about them, but they're nice when I get them.

I almost lost a divisional race, in the Mac 101 class, because I was geared wrong in the first heat. I saw the error of my ways, changed gears, and won the next two heats, and won the race. Against some pretty stiff competition. So I would say gearing is very important.

Jetting is not always important, not as long as everybody's using the same jet, and nobody changes them. People with air density gauges, often see the need for adjusting their jetting. Not that you absolutely need the air density gauge, not if you've been in this thing for ten years or so. You can go by experience if you can remember those times when you guessed that you might need to be a little leaner. In all honesty, you have to admit you had no idea how much leaner.

You can't deny the fact that the modern fuel injected engine is equipped with devices that will adjust the mixture of the air/fuel ratio. Especially noticeable when you first started up in the morning. Us old guys remember the manual choke and how we had to use it on a cold morning. I can remember a time when I went to Lake Tahoe in my 1963 Plymouth 383 with a four barrel carburetor. I couldn't believe how rich that thing was running. Billows of black smoke and poor performance. Pretty hard to change the Jets in that carb.

In case you didn't know, Lake Tahoe is at about six thousand feet elevation.
 
W5R said:
Yea I dont see how thats possible. How she get on and off the track without turning the wheel or work thru traffic on the track? Sorry but I just can't see that happening, lol
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You can call it anything you want, that doesn't change the fact that it happened. First, it was hot laps on a bull ring, so traffic and long straights weren't really an issue, second, the track entrance is a straight shot onto the back stretch at the end of turn 2 (apparently you've never seen that configuration) and she liked a loose kart, and loose karts are relatively easy to steer with the throttle (and tighten up real quick when you jump off the throttle if you need to correct the other way). At the end of the session, she simply backed off, stopped, killed the engine, got out, pulled the pin, and pushed the kart down the exit ramp on the turn 4 side of the turn 3-4 apex. You can do all that she did if your stagger, camber and air pressure are all spot on for conditions and you know how to drive the kart under adverse conditions.

I would think about it very carefully before I called someone a liar on these pages, sir.
 
When you put it that way it makes a little more sense how it could happen I guess. I just couldn't see how someone could get on and off the track both plus run some laps without ever turning the wheel or taking the pin out, mainly cuz I have been in a hurry myself and taken off with the pin in and know how hard it can be. I was thinking about how alot of tracks are layed out with the grid not exactly coming onto the track on the stretch but on the side, like at Ponderosa Speedway in Ky or like Lightning Valley in Ky with the entrance at the entry of turn 1. Didn't mean for my post above to be offensive, I apologize.
 
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