WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN

Chances are, if you go to any karting event, be it pavement or dirt, sprint or enduro, 2- cycle or 4-stroke, you’ll see the same drivers winning, week after week. And you’ll see others; drivers with seemingly all the best equipment, who never seem to find their way to the front.  If you ask these karters why they can’t seem to get to the winner’s circle they’ll most likely tell you it’s because they don’t have the latest chassis, or the secret tire dope, or some other excuse. If you’re one of these drivers, well, just flip past the rest of this article. If you’ve got good equipment and can’t win because you don’t have the “secret stuff” that the winners run, I can’t help you here. But if you’re really committed to doing well at the racetrack, if you’re serious about moving out of the pack and to the front, and if you’ll willing to take a hard, dispassionate look at your karting effort to get there, read on.

To begin with, it’s critical to understand that winning is not an event. It’s a process. Being the first driver across the finish line comes as a result of several factors, some tangible, some not.  Since non-winners are always quick to point at the equipment, let’s start there. While it’s important to have a good quality competitive chassis, that doesn’t mean that you can’t get to the top of the podium in last year’s model. Same goes for engines, tires, etc. Taking the time to understand how the chassis works best, learning how to tune the engine for best performance, and how to get the most out of the tires is the important first step. That means testing, and plenty of it. Do you think the top NASCAR or IRL teams just show up at the track on Friday and set up for Sunday’s race? Those teams use the days between Sunday afternoon and Friday maintaining and testing their cars. So should you.

Some karters show up at the track with their karts exactly like they were, sometimes with the same mud still on them, when they left the track the week before. Then they expect, by some miracle, the kart to be faster or more competitive than it was last week. Someone once said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. Even if your schedule or the track’s availability means that you can’t do dedicated testing between races, you can still use that time to analyze what the kart was doing, what about that needed to be better, and how you might change it to get the desired improvement. Then, when you come to the track you can be prepared to test those changes to see if you figured right. 

We’ll talk more about the testing stuff in a minute, but first I want to discuss the maintenance side of things. We’ve all heard the old saying “To finish first, you must first finish.” Add to that, “To win, you must have a kart capable of winning.” Racers who put the kart away after each race and don’t touch it again until they load up to go back to the track are programming their effort to fail. Race karts require meticulous, almost continuous maintenance. Bearings need to be inspected, clutches rebuilt, welds checked, and nuts and bolts examined and tightened. Almost everything on your kart wears, vibrates, or is stressed in some way. Taking the time to make sure that your machine is as good as it can be will go a long way toward getting you to the checkered flag. And an added bonus of this routine maintenance is that you will become more and more familiar with your kart and all its components. The more you understand how all of the pieces work to get you around the track, and how they wear and fail, the better you’ll be equipped to tune and adjust them for best performance. The best plan is to develop a detailed maintenance plan to be completed each week between races. Make a checklist and use it every time. Commit to spending at least one evening each week cleaning, checking, and adjusting every component. Start at the front of the kart and work back, checking things off the checklist as you go. You’ll be amazed at the number of problems you uncover using this approach, and even more amazed at how much better you’ll run next time you go racing. 

Now back to testing. Whether you have the luxury of taking a day between races for dedicated testing, or you have to do your testing on raceday during practice sessions, you have to test if you want to improve. For successful, winning drivers, there is never enough time to test. There is always one more combination to try, one more adjustment to make. Dedicated, non-raceday testing obviously offers the advantage of more track time, but regardless, the first rule of successful testing is to have a testing plan. You need to show up with the kart ready to go and a predetermined series of things to test and evaluate. While time does not always permit, try to make as few changes between test runs as possible so you can keep track of what changes had what effect.  And don’t run any more laps that you need to evaluate a particular testing change. There is no point in losing valuable testing time running lap after meaningless lap. Go out for just long enough to determine whether the change you are testing was better or worse. Then come in and move to the next item on the plan. Sound rigorous? You bet it is. But the guys winning races have been doing it all along and now they make it look easy. It’s not. 

The final piece of the winning puzzle is the driver. Wishing you could win is not enough. Talent, though helpful, is not enough. You need to take an active role in your karting success. Honestly evaluate your level of effort and commitment. If you’re not working every week on your racing program, maintaining and improving your equipment, developing your tuning skills, and watching successful drivers to pick up driving tips, your effort is doomed to stay where it is. Right now, before the season is too far along, make a list of the things that broke, fell off, or didn’t work right during the past season.

Develop that list into a checklist to use every week between races. And make a mental list of what you could have done differently as a driver. Were you ready to go on the track as soon as you unloaded? You can bet the front runners were. Prepare your equipment to win. And even more so, prepare yourself to win. 

The bottom line here is that winning is a SKILL; a series of learned behaviors that can be practiced and developed and honed. Non-winners become winners by learning to do the things that winners do. Winners make winning look easy because they’ve learned how to do it. AND, winning is a habit, like any other habit. Once you start winning, you’ll be amazed at how much easier it is to keep winning. Once you equipment is in winning shape, properly maintained and tuned, you can concentrate on driving to the front. Slower drivers will learn to expect to see you passing them and will let you by. Fancy paint jobs and 40-foot trailers don’t make winners out of losers. Perseverance, commitment, careful preparation and attention to detail, and a relentless drive to succeed do. 

See you in the winner’s circle!