My son Jack Cowell (@racingjack16) first stepped into his IAME Mini Swift sprint racing kart at the end of November 2023, with no prior racing knowledge outside of rental karts, and with myself having no previous mechanical or racing experience. This article summarizes the learnings from our first six months cadet racing at different tracks at the local, citywide and regional levels in and around Texas, and with a view to planning our first national competition race before the end of the year.

The purposes of the article are threefold:

1. To help us consolidate our knowledge and experience so far, and go “quicker, faster” in future by identifying further questions, contacts, knowledge and opportunities, and the planning required to reach and maximize those opportunities
2. To try to pull together in one place the relevant karting knowledge for beginners that can seem fragmented and even contradictory depending on who you speak with and where you look. This is the type of article I wished I had when we started
3. To shine a light on and publicize karting at the grassroots level as a legitimate and exhilarating sport, one that a much broader group can both participate in, and also more actively provide support for existing drivers and teams

Why now?

We were approaching our first six months in kart racing when I first decided to try to write this article, thinking it would be quickly done and we’d move on. That was a couple of months ago now. Six months seemed long enough so that we’d have gotten enough experience to be valuable to others, but not too long to lose the beginners perspective and freshness of those first experiences. Even if those perspectives were later modified, or changed with more experience, they are still based on our experience at the time, how we dealt with and thought about things. So much of that is glossed over when an expert teaches a topic, but might be very relevant to a beginner, so I’ve left it in, take what is useful and makes sense and leave the rest.

We are also in a transition phase from beginning, to trying to take things more seriously and move up the field with a view to regular national competition in 2025.

Lastly, why now is that there are also no guarantees about the future. Perhaps Jack will lose his motivation for karting, or even not make the cut in terms of the highly competitive environment. We’ve already put in the time and effort, I concluded, so let’s not allow that value to completely slip away, no matter what the future holds.

Caveats

Now the disclaimers and caveats to this article. This information is provided as-is for entertainment purposes, and we’re not warranting its correctness or applicability to your unique situation. We are in no way or holding ourselves out to be experts in any shape or form, in fact the opposite is true, and your mileage will likely vary. Karting comes with inherent risk of injury or death (see the waivers that you’ll sign hundreds of) and can suck a lot of money and/or time. Ensure that you are informed and make your own decisions based on a variety of inputs and trusted experts.

I hope that perhaps this article is a helpful starting point rather than an ending point on your journey to get into karting and build karting knowledge and experience. If nothing else it might give you some pointers on ways to think about things, and questions to ask those real experts. At the least I hope the information you find here saves you time and money, and helps you go quicker, faster. A little or a lot.

There are some good books around, specifically about kart driving. One I’ve found useful is Learn How To Master The Art Of Kart Driving by Terence Dove. To be honest it was a read I struggled to complete several times when we first started, but six months on I’ve found in rereading that it has a wealth of information that is relevant to where we are now.

There are many other books too, no doubt. If you know one, please reach out in the comments and I’ll add it to the list. Also, although it sounds geeky, it is also worth reading the manual for your kart engine, which contains a lot of useful information! In addition, there are countless videos on karting and karting fundamentals, and throughout this article I will encourage you, as we did, to watch races on streaming services and at your local track.

Structure

I’ve split the 33 learnings into five areas/stages:

1. Getting started
2. Going faster
3. Kart maintenance
4. Racing
5. Overall Learnings

And the key takeaways in each area are:

1. Evaluate, then get raceable (buy what they’re racing). Shorten the time between when karting first comes on your radar to when your driver is in a kart class that is regularly raced and has a good-sized participant group in your area
2. Seat time is critical, but driving is still a skill that might be accelerated using a creative approach, coaching and focus on experimentation and learning
3. Kart maintenance — find the Zen and do it anyway
4. Build a racing practice and practice racing. Being successful at racing is about more than just what happens on track. Make racing the drumbeat to drive your activity
5. Remember your why, get creative, and have fun. Keep the big picture in mind!

This article ended up being much longer than I thought it would be at the start so below is a scannable list of all the learnings.

You’ll notice that I’ve used the terms kids, young drivers and your driver interchangeably. Using the word kids seemed natural to me, because I literally have seen Jack grow up while he has been karting and he’ll soon be 10, a young man, before the end of the year. The word kids is not meant in any way to minimize racing at this age or the skills and effort required. This is real racing by any measure. At the same time, I’m sure that while there are commonalities, the approach to helping young drivers learn (who this article is for) differs at least slightly if not substantially from teaching adults.

I’ve tried to raise learnings and explain them from the position of the younger driver, and my audience is the parent or responsible adult for beginner karters around the same age Jack (9) was during this time.

The racing class Jack is in goes from 9-12 years old, so if your driver is slightly older don’t be put off by the word kid when you come across it, just substitute driver or your preferred term.

Here is the master list of learnings.

Section 1. Evaluate, then get raceable (buy what they’re racing)

Learning #1 — Be deliberate, relentlessly proactive, and take accountability

Learning #2 — Kids start karting early. For future professional drivers at the top level this is basically mandatory.

Learning #3 — Karting is a legitimate sport for kids, even if you don’t hear about it

Learning #4 — Rental karts can be a good stepping stone, not necessarily the best long-term track into competitive karting

Learning #5 — Focus on getting into a raceable kart

Section 2. Seat time is critical, but driving is still a skill that might be accelerated using a creative approach, coaching and focus on experimentation and learning

Learning #6 — Seat time is critical

Learning #7 — Being on track with other young driver’s speeds progress

Learning #8 — Your driver can make a lasting lap time breakthrough after racing

Learning #9 — There are karting fundamentals, learn them

Learning #10 — Improve your driver’s rest and fitness

Learning #11 — Use data and camera footage to analyze and improve track performance

Learning #12 — Watch live and recorded races, practices

Learning #13 — Practice and race on other tracks

Learning #14 — Understand the significance of big-ticket kart configuration options

Learning #15 — Joining a team might help you go quicker, faster

Learning #16 — Get creative look at cross training and skill accelerators from other fields

Section 3. Kart maintenance — find the Zen and do it anyway

Learning #17 — Find the Zen and get stuck in

Learning #18 — Acquire a minimal set of the right tools

Learning #19 — Learning basic maintenance tasks empowers your racing

Learning #20 — Having basic spares will keep you racing

Learning #21 — Deepening technical knowledge will take you further

Section 4. Build a racing practice and practice racing

Learning #22 — Know who you’re racing

Learning #23 — Racing comprises a specific set of skills beyond driving fast

Learning #24 — Make racing the drumbeat rather than practice

Learning #25 — Practice, watch, get coached, and race tracks before you race them

Learning #26 — the success of a race weekend is down to more than what happens on track

Learning #27 — Plan and debrief races

Learning #28 — Yes, make a racing checklist

Section 5. Remember your why, get creative, and have fun

Learning #29 — Racing will take your relationship with your driver, and their relationship with themselves, to a different place

Learning #30 — Managing the business aspects are key to a successful career

Learning #31 — Find the balance with the family and other stakeholders (teachers)

Learning #32 — Be a good member of the community

Learning #33 — Have fun

Don’t worry if this seems like a long list, I’ve tried to break everything down and take it step by step. Let’s move.

Section 1. Evaluate, then get raceable (buy what they’re racing)

There was a sense of nervous anticipation as we pulled into the parking lot of the indoor kart place, about 30-minutes-drive from our house. Despite the size of the building, there weren’t many cars in the lot, and inside we pretty much had the place to ourselves. We typed Jack’s details into a computer, signed the release forms and paid our money. Moments later Jack was wearing a head sock and hearing the safety briefing, then moments after that he was on track. He seemed to get the hang of it straight away. Perhaps it was the time in those little battery powered cars he drove around our neighborhood. Or even earlier, as a baby, racing toy cars around the carpet, something he still does to this day. The final session was ending and he enjoyed it. Good, so now we might have found a father son activity I thought, after many other false starts. We should come back again sometime I said to myself as we headed back out into the bright daylight of the parking lot, the first step in our karting adventure completed.

If there’s just one single “I wish I knew then what I know now” biggest regret I have about our adventure in karting so far, it’s delayed action.

That it took too long to get Jack into that first indoor rental kart session, and then it took too long to get him into his own kart, a further 18 months from the first day I described above. I imagine that if we’d taken a different path back then and gotten him into a real racing kart earlier, we wouldn’t feel the same time crunch and sense of urgency as we do now, constantly playing catch up, and wondering if we’ll ever get there.

This brings me to the first learning.

Learning #1 — Be deliberate, relentlessly proactive, and take accountability

To be successful and get the most out of something, and this applies to anything in life, you typically need to be deliberate, organized and proactive in your approach, rather than simply reacting, being in crisis mode, or going with the flow. That is not a new idea, but something that it’s worth remembering definitely applies to karting.

Being proactive is about taking the initiative to expand your knowledge, ask questions, make connections, anticipate issues, and to find out the pitfalls and accelerators in karting and at the level of what you’re trying to do and achieve within it. The higher you potentially want to shoot the more proactive you need to be. What’s tricky is that you might start with low or no expectations, and if your driver likes it the level of proactivity required shoots up even if you don’t realize it.

Being proactive is especially important in karting because champions start so young, and there is this long and indefinite period at the start requiring turning laps and putting in “seat time” until things “click”.

If you just “set and forget” and not remain proactive, your driver could get stuck turning laps on track in a plateau and give up due to lack of progress. You could get stuck in rentals not making the leap to having your driver in their own kart, and hitting the learning curve of racing karts as soon as possible.

As a parent I’ve rarely felt, except probably the first weeks in the racing kart, that we were exactly where we needed to be and I could just get Jack in the kart and everything else would take care of itself.

Since then I’ve been wondering and worrying about if Jack is doing the right thing in the right way at the right time, unlike in other sports where it seems that you drop your kid off with a coach and team and they get to work and you watch.

No, in karting you are the person that needs to relentlessly inform yourself, ask questions and set the agenda for training and development, even if you do use a coach or some sort of driver development program.

To say a bit more about things we’ve experienced that make proactivity so important in karting:

1. It can be difficult to get a reliable performance benchmark. How do you know if your driver is on course with their development, or ahead or behind? There is no standardized “playing field” in terms of pitch, court, pool and so on. Each track is different and even the same track is different in different weather conditions, temperatures, times of day and so on. Given this it’s hard to compare “scores” across tracks and drivers or even different sessions. An expert can watch Jack on track or review his videos and give an assessment but it’s difficult for a parent to do that straight away
2. The “click” is so important. There is that moment I’ve heard about so much, and seen in other more advanced kids when they are at one with the kart, grip, braking, acceleration in a flow state. They are not overdriving the kart. Everything seems to happen smoothly, even elegantly, and in concert with every other part. Getting to the click people have told me takes 6–18 months, and is related to seat time that you’ll hear about shortly. There is no secret formula and as such it’s up to you to experiment with different ways to get the click faster, I’ll talk more about that shortly
3. There isn’t the same critical mass of experience and help. Karting is still fairly specialized in the US and there isn’t that broad base of coaches and parents who have experience and contacts in the field, at school and in local programs. This means you have to be proactive in finding these coaches, and in networking on practice and track days to meet other parents and experts
4. It’s person and machine. Unlike many other sports the kart setup itself is another variable that can help or hinder performance in a big way. Perhaps the driver was good but the setup was way off and therefore the results weren’t there
5. The parent’s role is front and center. It will be up to you to decide your driver’s early development and “career” path, for example when to enter your driver in city-wide, regional and even national competitions beyond your local track’s club races. Before that you’ll be making decisions around which engine type/kart class, which tracks to join, which team or teams to be part of, and many many other choices

This need to be proactive is made even more critical given what might be a high cost of running and the time ticking for your driver to not only learn but compete and move up the field. Don’t wait for “someone” to come along. That person is you.

If that sounds like a lot of work, it is, but the payoffs in terms of your child’s development and confidence, your relationship with them, and your satisfaction are great as you will hear.

Lastly, although I’m introducing this message about being proactive is in the section about getting started, it really applies to all the sections in this article and I can’t see the need to be proactive ever stopping.

Learning #2 — Kids start karting early. For future professional drivers at the top level this is basically mandatory.

Drivers that progress from karting into the top levels of professional motorsports, we’ve seen, typically start driving early, some as young as 4 or 5 years old. Many of the current Formula One grid, for example, started racing at around 7 years old or before, as did many of the current National racers on the way up that we’ve met in person and raced with, in our Mini Swift kart racing class competition. You could have a philosophical argument about “letting kids be kids” and not pushing them too early too soon, but the fact is that champions in almost any field start young, and they have for at least the last 20–30 years if not longer.

I probably didn’t fully realize this and connect it with Jack early enough. We were focused on his school, and trying him in the usual other mainstream sports in the US. If pushed I would have even have said at the time that Jack “wasn’t sporty” and his skills lay in other creative areas such as engineering or architecture. He still has those skills and we’re careful to also invest some, but necessarily less, time in developing those. Karting wasn’t even on our radar until by chance I read an article about the Australian F1 Grand Prix in the Aussie news (where I grew up), and one thing led to another. Things have turned out well so far, and we wish we’d started earlier.

I have heard a couple of stories where things didn’t really work out and the kid didn’t enjoy kart racing, so I guess you have to make your own decision about whether it’s best to try and fail or never to try at all.

There are no guarantees about anything in life, but it would be difficult for my advice to be anything other than don’t wait, if you’re reading this make your own decision to get your driver to a local track and go from there.

Learning #3 — Karting is a legitimate sport for kids, even if you don’t hear about it

Even after Jack began to show good progress in rental karting it was definitely seen on the “fun” side of the equation, not as a “real” sport. We kept filling his time trying out other sports, and trying to fit karting in around that. It was probably only after buying him a kart and hitting the track for practice for a while that we understood that karting is a legitimate sport that he could pursue, and be his main sport excluding all others for a while, even though it’s not one of the other more mainstream and popular ones in the US.

It seems as if karting has much less visibility (and is sometimes invisible) in the US, compared to a long list of other popular sports: basketball, baseball, flag football, soccer, and so on, or compared to other places in the world such as the UK or Europe where karting is more mainstream. People still have blank looks when I say my son is into kart racing. I suspect they are picturing a homemade box car on a steep slope or something, like you see in those old movies.

We also didn’t have the frame of reference of other karting families, until we were well into competitive karting already. Karting wasn’t in the school newsletter, or on the regular activity sign-up sheets. As far as we know Jack is the only competitive karter that there has ever been at his elementary school. his elementary/primary school is one of the biggest in Dallas with over 1000 students. We are planning to try to talk to and engage with the school a bit more formally about talking about karting as a sport, so we’ll see if it’s really true that he’s the first.

Now we are well into karting I’ve begun to hear about some fledgling grassroots efforts to reach out to local schools and promote and inform them about karting. If that is you then please reach out, I’d like to hear about and promote what you’re doing. As I said, we are thinking about doing something with our school and school district, which I think is win-win. The more the merrier. The more kids coming into the sport helps them for practice and development and helps the sport stay vibrant.

The other part of this legitimate sport equation are the positive things you might want for your child from competing, such as teamwork, health, competition, confidence and discipline and so on.

These things are all part of karting especially once you begin to race, and driving has become part of Jack’s identity, something that is him.

Ironically, to help his karting we’re reaching back into other sports for cross training, like tennis, swimming, cycling, and even fitness/gym sessions. Karters increasingly need to be endurance athletes in the traditional sense, but there is this persistent belief that drivers aren’t athletes.

Another benefit compared to other sports, at least right now, is that the national and even international level of competition is still quite accessible to many drivers prepared to put in the effort and funding to do so. You are competing against tens or perhaps hundreds of drivers rather than tens or hundreds of thousands, even though the standard of current competitors is still sky high. We often get to compete in regional and sometimes even local races against national champions or those who’ve raced internationally. It’s well known that having role models or examples is a great for motivation, and it makes these dreams seem all the more achievable.

We have got to meet and befriend a bunch of other karting families so there is that important aspect of sports too, although none live exactly in our area. Another random factoid is that karting is increasingly, at least in the US is being covered on niche streaming services like Kart Chaser also, so it is possible for grandparents, parents and others to tune in even if they can’t make it to the track.

You can’t choose what your kids like and are good at, so I think it’s a good thing to shine a light on grassroots karting in the US, and give kids a chance to find if it’s their thing.

Learning #4 — Rental karts can be a good stepping stone, not necessarily the best long-term track into competitive karting

We began our competitive karting adventure with indoor rental karts. This was a convenient and fun way to start, and gave us the comfort that Jack had some talent and enjoyed karting, without having to outlay for a kart, and rentals helped him build some basic karting knowledge. Quite a few of the staff there were really great, and made us feel welcome, and we got to know some of the parents and drivers too.

Jack was even able to compete against other kids in an indoor monthly rental league, and to quickly be in the top part of that field, even though we eventually got frustrated at the variability between karts and stopped doing it! At age 8 Jack was old enough to drive solo in outdoor karts in our area which solidified our view that he had some real ability, at least compared to the average driver on track, even adults. Luckily for us, the outdoor rental track we went to also had a members track for racing karts, and we were able to walk over to the “other side” to connect with some key people, and we eventually joined there.

That was our journey over 18 months, and while it all kind of moved at what felt like the right pace, looking back I feel that we lost quite a bit of time, and instead would have cut rentals down to 3–6 months max knowing what I know now. This is not a criticism of rental places at all. Quite the opposite, they were great for us as a stepping stone, and great for taking the racing experience to the masses. My simple point is that if you want to be in kart racing at higher levels, as we do, you need to be in a racing kart, and not leave it too long to take that step.

We got caught up in chasing lap times, lap records, and monthly race results at the rental track, in what turned out to be quite inconsistent karts that kept us coming back. More fundamentally we began to see overall success as Jack winning rental races and beating the lap record, when success really should have been around using rentals to test his potential to move forward much sooner.

So, how do you use rentals to test potential?

Knowing what I know now, I’d say that if your child is quickly getting into the 5–10% range of a competitive time for the track (lap record, or recent race winning pace), and they can do that consistently then it’s already time to start thinking about contacting your local member’s track. In fact, it’s never too early to start making contacts and understanding the broader karting industry and community.

For Jack, he was onto a competitive pace the first couple of session/weeks. Then there was a very long tail of incremental improvements before we hit the lap record from when we started. I’ll show a graph in the next section.

That “tail” time I wish we had instead been spent chasing incremental improvements in the kart we have now, and literally if we had started age 7 ¾ we would have had exactly the same chassis and engine we have now (although with a changeable restrictor). We’d likely be so much further along.

If your driver can also do consistent laps and handle themselves with other drivers on track then it’s definitely time to think about next steps, and if they can also handle themselves in a race situation it’s the icing on the cake but you don’t have to wait for that. You certainly don’t have to wait until your driver is regularly winning races, that never happened for us in rentals and yet Jack won his second club race in a racing kart.

If you’re meeting these measures, I just talked about it’s probably time to reach out to your local member tracks and go visit them to see what the next step looks like, and you can ask them what they’d do in your situation, and I think I know what the answer would be.

Learning #5 — Focus on getting into a raceable kart

We also probably lost six months overall trying to work out the optimal kart to buy. And I also probably didn’t realize at the start that when you talk about buying a kart, you’re really buying two things: a chassis and an engine, to make up a certain package that needs to match a racing class that a good number of other kids race in your area.

There are so many permutations of chassis brand and engine that it can be overwhelming, and I found myself going down many rabbit holes in kart forums when in the end, the answer boiled down to basically two options that were raced for Jack’s age in our area: a four-stroke engine and two-stroke engine.

As it turned out for us, the deciding factors on what to buy weren’t really about the kart in isolation at all, but also about having a mechanical shop and kart storage on site too.

Just to repeat, you’ll want to pick a kart class (combination of age, chassis size/type, and engine type) that is well represented and has good participation in your track/area. I did that check looking at racing at the regional and national levels for IAME Mini Swift, before we finally pulled the trigger

We heard and read several times that your driver will develop faster and have more fun if there are others to practice and race with of all different abilities and that have the same or similar equipment. We’ve found that to be really true, especially for that period up until things click for your driver.

Often tracks will group similar classes together to allow people to be on track and race together but if your driver is the only one in a class that is much faster or slower than the majority they won’t learn as much. Jack’s Mini Swift kart class is relatively faster than the 4-stroke engine, so he was pulling away from better drivers on the straights and they were sometimes catching and overtaking him on the corners (that require skill!)

He got a bit of false confidence about how good a driver he was and would overtake those better but slower drivers (because of the faster kart) rather than try to learn from them, for example how they were using braking and approaching corners.

Another point, having standardized kart classes and engines helps in keeping the focus on driver skills rather than kart tuning, and crazy engine enhancements. You will know, getting the basic setups right aside, that if you are faster than someone else or they are beating you then it’s almost certainly due to skills and not the kart.

The quickest way to navigate what class/package to buy is to contact your local tracks, even going along to a track day or race, and then also cross reference what you see and hear against research on local and regional racing series. You can use apps like RaceHero too that show actual participation in race classes in recent races, or you can often find the timing app various tracks use, or find the results directly, by going through the track’s website.

Our area had one track with more of the 4-stroke Briggs/LO206 engine population and the other almost only the 2-stroke IAME Mini Swift engine, even though either class was raceable on either track. Even though the four-stroke is seen as more cost effective and has a broad population, we chose the two-stroke since that track had, as I mentioned, a service shop that was also a distributor for the kart chassis we bought. It also had kart storage so we could simply arrive and drive.

The reason I’ve tried to explain all of this about classes, as best I can, is that I’ve seen several examples of a parent getting a great deal on a used kart, but then can’t race that kart in regional races beyond the local track because the engine type is not supported.

In extreme cases the local club might not even allow the kart on track because it doesn’t meet minimum technical standards. For example, and I’ve seen this, the kart might be cobbled together with bits and pieces (a “frankenkart”), and the parent simply didn’t know what they are buying.

So, you’ll need to remain mindful that whatever you buy is raceable in your area, and also recognize that the running costs of different engines vary widely, so initial kart/engine purchase is only a fraction of all that you’ll spend, particularly if you go racing.

I’ve been happy with the Mini Swift, particularly as I look to the future since there is good representation in regional, national and international competition in this class. The running costs are high, something to note, given we’re regularly racing, particularly around engine rebuilds and special fuel and oil required.

We’ve found that at the club level the participation has been a bit patchy and probably less than expected across the two member tracks in Dallas we are part of. The last club race had 1 Mini Swift, the one before, none (and we missed those two anyway), two previous ones we participated in had three, our first race had six! I guess this goes in waves with new people coming in and leaving too, and is heavily dependent on your specific geographic area.

For us, the Mini Swift drivers are around but have typically already moved to regional and national levels, or at minimum only come out for citywide competitions. This is one reason why we’ve also started travelling to Houston.

That means that, when not racing, more often than not Jack is practicing on track by himself or with drivers in other classes such as the IAME KA100 which has many more participants at our main track than any class of junior/cadet kart. To try to deal with this we’ve gotten to know other parents/racers similar to our level and arrange practice sessions with them which is something we’re still trying to arrange at the moment.

I do see the point of view that particularly in the first 6–12 months the 4-stroke engine is more cost effective as you’re putting in so many practice hours to get seat time. I’ve seen a good level of participation in that class too, and see that this engine package might also force the driver to develop stronger fundamentals earlier, out of necessity, such as keeping momentum through corners, and following others closely.

Do your research and work out what’s best for you given the specifics of your budget and participation levels in your area!

Section 2. Seat time is critical, but driving is still a skill that might be accelerated using a creative approach, coaching and focus on experimentation and learning

This section is our learnings about helping Jack to develop the fundamentals and go faster on track. I will cover racecraft in Section 4.

Even though he’d already gained some of the fundamentals in rental karting by the time we bought Jack a kart in November 2023, it was still a learning curve transitioning to the racing kart, but one he was up for and took to easily.

Although seat time is critical and not something you cannot get around, we’ve found over time that other factors have helped Jack to go “quicker, faster” and I’ll talk about those now.

Learning #6 — Seat time is critical

“It’s all about seat time”

You’ll hear that, in relation to driver improvement, again and again if you’re around karting for any amount of time. If there were to be any single piece of karting advice carved on a stone tablet it would be that.

We’ve come to understand, in our experience at least, that there are several things wrapped up in this seat time mantra:

· Don’t overthink it, get your driver on the track as often as possible, and many things you’re worried about at the start will work themselves out. It will happen, keep going and keep pushing

· That seat time is related to the idea of when things “click.” It’s a physical and sensory thing more than a mental thing. Your driver has to be at one with the kart, grip levels, braking, lateral forces and so on, where driving and reactions happen automatically. You might want to compare this to climbing a mountain, step by step, and there are incremental improvements but I’d say that it feels more like trekking through a thick forest or deep valley. It’s hard to see the end in sight until you’re there

· Seat time is a way to drill the fundamentals and the bridge to other more advanced techniques to chase incremental improvements later on, coaching on mindset and other improvement approaches. Get the fundamentals right first before pouring in money chasing quick fixes

As I’ve already mentioned the “click” period I’ve heard is anywhere between 6–18 months, so although I trusted the advice, I was also wondering if all seat time was equal or if there were ways to speed along the click and Jack’s development. I believe there are, and I’ll get to those shortly.

In writing this section I thought I’d go back and analyze Jack’s best lap times both in rental karts and in his racing kart. The results are shown below and definitely seem to support the “seat time” advice.

Figure 1: Best lap time per session over time

We first reached the lap record on the website of 22.7 seconds after 67 sessions (around 800 laps) and then reached that time again after another 6 sessions, showing that it was repeatable. It’s a reality that Jack and drivers in general will almost by accident pull off a good time, then it will take more sessions (weeks and even months) to be able to repeat that consistently.

You’ll also note that in the graph the time (blue line) comes way down quickly in the first few sessions. Jack set a best time of 25.240s the first day in the kart, which is just under 11% off lap record. You’ll recall that I suggested above that if the driver is 5–10% off competitive lap time it’s a sign that it’s time to think about next steps, so in a sense we were there from the start.

The orange line in the diagram is a linear trendline, which shows that despite there being differences between karts, Jack’s times were steadily coming down in proportion to the time he spent in the karts. Obviously, that improvement doesn’t carry on forever and we’d expect the line to flatten out and be more of an exponential curve shape as we reach the limits of what’s possible on that track for a given kart. If you kind of squint your eyes you can see the shape of downwards overall trend in the blue line is a curve that flattens out. That shape would probably be more clear if I further cleansed the data to remove outliers, but I think that you get the point, and I wanted to show the raw data so you could see the full picture for yourself.

The faster adult karts record is around 19.2 or a bit less for comparison. I think the current best lap time is around high 21 something seconds for junior karts last time I looked.

Other notes are that the conditions are controlled since it is indoor and at a relatively constant temperature, which is different from outdoor. Jack’s level of tiredness, for example, no doubt had an effect on times (and still does). A greater effect was variability of karts which I’d estimate to be up to +- 3 seconds per lap which was huge, and other variables were beginners on track that might crash into the barriers or Jack or others and stop the race.

Despite all of those notes, you can quite clearly see that lap times did improve with seat time. That’s good to know, but also cold comfort as I’ve already mentioned we probably had the wrong goal, going with the flow chasing lap times when we should have moved Jack to a racing kart.

Next, let’s look at the same graph for his racing kart.

Figure 2 — Racing Kart — Best lap time per session

Again, you can see that the times fell away quickly in the first few sessions, then took on a more gradual improvement over time. The orange trendline shows Jack’s best times gradually coming down over time, and with increased seat time.

Here is another version of the diagram omitting the first 2 weeks, letting us see the variability in more detail.

Figure 3 — Racing Kart — Best time (omitting first 2 weeks):

I’ve tried to analyze and give my best explanation for the highs and lows in the data, and annotate those onto the chart as you can see above.

There are several things to note here on this zoomed in graph which starts at Session 9 on 9th December 2023. First is that we are in late fall moving towards winter and we only had a few more sessions before heading off for the holidays and being out of the kart between 17th December and 11th January (Sessions 16 & 17 have a gap of 25 days). Note also that what I call a session is a group of laps (usually 10 or more) on a day when we visit the track. On any track visit we’d do 3–4 sessions with a break in between. Sometimes we’ll do shorter sessions if we’re practicing a specific thing, or longer ones as we’re really trying to build endurance and seat time.

Next note is that there are some gaps in the data. I stopped importing every session from the data logger unless we’d gotten a personal best lap time on that day or there was something I specifically wanted to look at in more detail. Then, not long ago, Jack accidentally erased all the data from our logger so I was left only with what I’d imported. This might be a lesson to back up your lap times if you think you’ll return to them later. It is also a good practice to make notes and keep a record of each session and track practice day. I’ve started to do this on my phone, especially to record when we’re experimenting with tires pressures and gearing, for example.

To explain some gaps, Session 19 on Jan 11th and Sessions 20–21 on Feb 21st 2024 actually had 6 track days and probably 12–18 sessions between those points which are not shown on the graph (I saw by cross referencing from my phone camera photos and Instagram posts at @RacingJack16). As I mentioned I didn’t import those sessions since there would have been little or no improvement. If I had that would stretch out the graph and show more of a plateau during that period

The breakthrough for Session 20 & 21 (same day) was our first set of new tires since we’d bought the kart back at the end of November! Sessions 22 & 23 were 4 days later on 25th Feb, which showed consistency there in the 57’s.

The sessions that immediately followed were during a club race, which Jack actually won before Spring Break, then Session 28 was the first one back after the break and still good times. Perhaps some carry-over confidence from his win? Confidence I’ve seen again and again with Jack makes a big difference.

After a race in Houston (only our 3rd race) we’d changed Jack’s rear sprocket down from 80 to 78, so from Session 32 onwards and looking back that might have masked some of his progress??? Session 43 the next breakthrough happened after Jack raced only for the second time at a different track (our 4th race overall). That track was more high speed, and he gained a lot of confidence that weekend.

The graph ends at around the first five months, and since then we’ve definitely been travelling around a lot more to other tracks. We did four races in the first five months, then seven races in the next three months! Our track has started to run in reverse direction more often so we’ve had to learn the differences there too, and also means we don’t have consistent data and I haven’t included those times in the graph.

After getting his first podium outside a club race at our home track just over a week ago (and after 5 weeks out of the kart), Jack returned for his first practice sessions at our home track for a while and got a 56.075s, which was 0.5s better than his previous best time in the reverse direction.

Also relevant is that I offered Jack $20 if he got a lap time beginning with 55.x seconds, and $100 if he got 54.x seconds. I’d heard other parents say they paid their kids for each overtake in a race, so thought I’d give it a try.

This seemed to work really well and when I asked him the secret of his big jump forward he said that he was “pushing” on the laps. I said to myself if you haven’t been pushing what have you been doing all this previous time! But I get that sometimes it’s hard to push in practice when there are no other kids to race, especially when you’re still starting out. I joked to someone at the track that this kind of incentive scheme was sensible financially too since it was less than the cost of fuel burned doing it the old way!

Although the data set is far from perfect, I think that the quantitative drivers of improved lap times are:

1. Fresh rubber — running on over worn tires is something to look out for
2. Seat time — experience on track
3. Confidence/mindset — can provide a quick boost if driver is pushing
4. Racing at different tracks
5. Gearing

In addition to these, and the data doesn’t specifically show this but I feel that qualitatively Jack improved most quickly when:

a. He was on track with other slightly faster kids. He learned by osmosis and copying the others, and was pushing

b. Having some coaching on specific key corners and karting fundamentals.

c. He was well rested and not over tired

Just to repeat, I don’t believe that things have fully clicked with Jack yet, even though he is progressing well.

If there were one thing I’d change it would be to have had a few more coaching sessions early on especially ones just focused intensively on braking. Getting him to understand different braking techniques and to drill those again and again, and to get the process for and confidence in taking personal accountability for experimenting with different braking zones and approaches.

I just want to say a bit more about the qualitative findings I just talked about.

Learning #7 — Being on track with other young drivers speeds progress

Having Jack on track with faster kids is like free coaching! It’s a free education in karting fundamentals, delivered in a way that Jack (and your driver) will actually pay attention to, and learn from!

Although I’ve mentioned this already, I wanted to talk about it again since it links to Section 1 about getting a raceable kart, and picking a class that has a high participation rate in your area.

For 99% of what I’ve called the plateau time with Jacks practice, he has been the only kid on track, either the only driver on track or with other older drivers in different classes.

We’ve found that the only reliable way to get him on track with others is to go racing, which has the added bonus of teaching him racecraft. We just haven’t found the critical mass at our track to have regular group practice sessions.

Jack loves racing and tolerates practice. So, when other young drivers are there, it seems more like the former and fun, rather than the latter.

He doesn’t have to be told to push and chase others on track, he just does it, and naturally follows their lines and braking and so on even if he’s not consciously thinking about that. I’ve said it’s like osmosis, he just soaks up the knowledge automatically. And sometimes there are probably bad habits too that he’d try to copy early on, but this is outweighed by the fact he gets used to pushing, and has more fun.

There is also a type of coaching that simulates this “lead follow” where the coach will either go slightly ahead of the student leading them through the lines, or slightly behind, pushing them. We did a couple of sessions of lead follow at the indoor rental track and were very happy at the results. Actions do speak louder than words in a sense, showing someone and getting someone to do it for themselves is much more powerful than listening to a lecture, even for adults.

Jack is also getting to the stage where he will discuss what’s happening on track after the session with other drivers (but particularly the young ones), and it makes the whole practice session more engaging for him, and he gets to meet other drivers.

Jack also loves sharing his knowledge with other young drivers, especially those younger than him. At a recent visit to a track we’d just joined, Jack offered to do a lead follow session with a young driver that was still a bit hesitant, and over a couple of mini-sessions that driver knocked 2 seconds off their best time. The Dad was ecstatic, and I was too but for a different reason, we were happy to help.

Learning #8 — Your driver can make a lasting lap time breakthrough after racing

To build on the prior points, Jack seems to have progressed quicker by racing more often. One reason is what I just talked about, being on track with other young drivers. But there is more going on in a formal race situation too.

Definitely the level of pushing is higher on Jack’s part, as is the confidence boost of doing well, or at least nailing another race start, and finishing the race well without major mistakes.

Another reason I think, is that racing/practicing on different tracks exercises different driving skills and fundamentals given the different shapes and different technical sections. Our home track is not highly technical but we’ve joined two other member tracks that are, and the kids coming from and being good at those tracks seem to be able to race anywhere competitively.

We threw Jack into his first club race after a week, but I’ve talked to other parents that seem to want to wait 3–6 months until their driver is more comfortable before racing, which is something I’m glad we didn’t do, although I respect that everyone has to make their own decisions on what’s best for them.

We’ve found that although Jack might not make a huge breakthrough immediately after every race, racing does seem to have stopped him from plateauing at our home track, even if we’ve been off racing elsewhere.

See Part 2 of the Article HERE (https://www.brettcowell.com/blog/goquickerfaster2)