Before I came back from France, our instructor made an end of course activity, which is Go-Karting!!!!
Anyway, the Go Kart experience taught me lots of new stuff... mainly, I suck T.T
Before this I was just running around the Touge having fun, trying my best not to cross the center line.... suddenly at the track, the whole road is for the taking... line have become a serious issue O.o
Anyway, we were given a single lap tour, then they gave us some free practice lap, which I was having so much fun going sideways with the Go-Kart that I didn't notice they were timing us for the starting position... so consequently I was 4th on the grid T.T
To make matters worse, I had a bad start and had to defend my position from the start... which leads to me almost spun out at the first lap xD
I was able to recover and started to make my ground, finally when I was in 2nd place behind my instructor he gave way O.o He is so dang fast that I can feel the difference in skill... he was 3 seconds faster than any of us in qualifying anyway O.o
He kept on pressuring me from behind, something that is new to me also... since I have been only doing fun solo touge run.... so in the final lap... I hit a barrier!!!! xD
I was paying too much attention at the back and tried turn too close to the apex that my Kart scrape the inside barrier, making me lose significant time and drop 2 places behind....
That was the final lap and nothing much can be done... so I settled at 3rd place and after that I had some great Tsuiso Drift session with one of my classmate who is also a petrolhead^^
the third place trophy
The most important thing I learned from the experience is that the shortest route or the most aggresive line is not necessarily the fastest way around the corner... I may not have notice that although I tried to maintain a neutral steer throughout the corner, but I lost some small traction that made my friends pass me on the following straits with the small difference of the traction that they gain at the exit...
And mostly I lack the concentration necessary not to crack under pressure which I did on the final lap T.T
Finally here's an interesting quote I found in one the webs I surf on advance racing technique^^ :
Stirling Moss on fast cornering: “A racing car is always in an attitude at corners, never pointing directly fore-and-aft in its line of travel as a road car would be in normal motoring. The racing car is sliding, to some degree, nearly all the time, but to be quick the best drivers try to do the slides and drifts with the least drag possible at moments when drag doesn't matter. One can put the car into a Kriste - a broadside as in ski-ing - to slow it into corners. But once one has presented the car to a very high-speed corner it's rather like throwing a dart - when it has left your hand you can't do a thing about its path. If you present a car accurately to such a corner it will track through in a long drift on a virtually predestined trajectory. You can make tiny adjustments, but once you have presented it to the corner you can only adjust the trim, not make major changes of direction - not if you are on the limit. Steering is used to present the car, then to compensate for the throttle, because as one opens the throttle, and car starts to slide you may have to use the steering wheel to compensate - to balance the power. I would describe the steering wheel as the presenter and balancer really.”
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