The Setup Gremlin Returns – Norway Motorsports Park Club Race #3

Summer is finally upon us as the racing season enters the month of May, bringing some long-awaited warm weather and sunshine on Norway Motorsports Park‘s third club race of the season. I was eager to get back on track after the three-week racing hiatus to seek more improvements and look to get back on that top spot.

I showed up on race day having once again done no testing in the three-week break while keeping myself busy in other areas, however this didn’t knock my confidence level going into the weekend, knowing good and well I was capable of running at the front. The day started out pretty slow in practice 1, placing 4th out of the 12 Ignite Seniors, although it didn’t take long for me to find my footing again by going fastest in practice 2. Throughout practice I was battling a mid-corner oversteer issue which had carried over from the previous race weekend, so I ended up trying a couple different solutions to see what was most effective. The change I made going into qualifying seemed to be the magic touch, allowing me to push the kart to pole position by about a tenth of a second.

Loving the way the kart felt in qualifying and with conditions staying constant, I left the kart the way it was going into the heat, hoping I could keep hold of the point for all of the 8 laps. I start the heat race from the front, and guess what? The oversteering issue is back! I maintain the lead for a few laps trying to keep the kart pointed in a straight line, but the speed it was costing me was too much to hold off a hard-charging James Recendez, winning the heat race over myself. I was a mix of disappointed and confused at what had happened, but there was still the feature race to redeem myself.

After making further changes to the kart to make it feel less like a forklift, it was time for the feature race. Starting on the outside of the first row, I was able to slot into second behind Recendez out of turn 1 with Mike Stephenson close behind. Our three-kart train slowly started to break away from the rest of the pack, and within a few laps it was a three-horse race. By this point I had realized that my changes once again had failed to resolve the issue, and my job of getting past Recendez would now be exponentially harder. The massive draft meant I was able to stay with Recendez and eventually make a move for the race lead near the halfway point. However, similar to the heat race, Recendez was quickly able to capitalize on my oversteer issue and take the lead back a couple laps later with ease. Despite my greatest efforts, I could not get close enough to make another move, and Recendez went on to win the race, and I fell short once again finishing second.

Having more time to think and look back on how my race played out, I was able to pick up on a couple of trends related to the oversteering issue. First of all, it was only really present in left-hand turns, of which Norway Motorsports Park has a lot. And secondly, I would lose time to Recendez everywhere there was a good passing opportunity, but I would get that time back where it was much harder to pass. So basically, I was quick enough to follow him and run at the same pace as him, but it was nearly impossible for me to pass him, and super easy for him to pass me. I’m not very happy about finishing second, especially given that I had more potential that the kart wouldn’t let me maximize, but I at least have some more ideas on how I can improve and hopefully resolve all of these issues for next time.