Imposible to get into karting: My story

This is NOT to make another "impossible..." thread. I am just posting so that i can get help and advice from you guys.

Ok onto
The Story:
When i looked at the "impossible to get into karting" thread, i was devastated. I knew that all hopes of making it remotely close to Formula 1 were gone. Until i went to Drafting.

i am taking a Drafting class at my school because earlier i had hopes of engineering race cars. But then i met my to-be-good-friend Arik. After a couple of weeks sitting together in the class, he broke the silence to ask me why i was in the class. I explained to him i wanted to design race cars, and he revealed his passion for racing. After a little while, he told me he had seen a couple of the GP's this season, and i soon learned that he does karting. I being interested in this, started asking him about it. i now know that he is on a really good karting team. But the intruiging part is that there is one spot open for a driver out of 4, 3 places taken up by Arik and 2 other drivers. Now i don't know if they have such a thing as karting teams in Europe, but it seems as if now is the opportunity to start what might be a good racing career

The team is was Arik claims to be a "super team", meaning that they're kinda like Audi at Le Mans and win all the time. If i jump in, i don't know if i'll drag the team down, or if they'll drag me up. I do have some driving skill, as i have a copy of Gran Tursimo 4 and a steering wheel set of my PlayStation2. I really want to start my racing career and if i don't now, i feel as if i will be too old to start, as i am 14.

I really want to race karts but i dont know if there are any downsides to this. My family is poor (sorta) and dad might be kinda worried, since he is so pairinoid. Arik says the team can compesnate for the costs, but i guess this means only if i am a great driver.

I dont know how to measure how 'great' a driver i am. All i can tell you is that i have beaten my cousin in GT4 with almost any car, my cousin having more experience with the game but not having been playing for a while.

Please help me

Hey slicer,

well this sounds like an opening doorway to get you're foot on the ladder. Now i don't mean to put you down or anything but just because you are good on a "racing game" doesn't mean you are going to be a good racer in real life. on games you take plenty of risks flat out through corners doesn't matter if you bounce off the wll, but in real life you'd hurt yourself so the risks are different so you will drive differently. the best thing to do would probaly be to go along ith your friend arik and see if there is the possibilty to have a go, and measure yourself against him, ifhe's good then try and be as fast as him, but remember tese things take time and practise to get right so do't be dissapinted if you're not that fast to begin wih stick with it, and hopefully it'll come.

and as to being too old already you are far fom it, there are only 22 seats on an F1 grid and almost everybody who starts racing wants one, so it's very difficult to get into, i only started karting when i was 19. i've tested a few rce cars for the past couple of years but lack of funds has stopped me racing but next year i'm due to be racing a radical sr3 so it's looking pretty good. i'm also a race driving instructor workin here: [www.palmersport.com] so there arelots of opportunities beyond F1 if yo're willing to work for them.....

Stick with it my friend and if you want it enough you'll get it.

barry

"Racing is LIFE. Anything before or after is just waiting"
Steve McQueen.

The only thing games do (particularly arcade ones like GT4) is show how good your reactions, hand-to-eye coordination and particularly timing is. It doesn't give you the understanding that's necessary in reality. You don't need to be an engineer to be a racer, but you need to have an understanding of how, for instance, the car will react if you sit a touch further forward (particularly in karts, where you're obviously a major part of the overall weight). GT4 won't teach you that. GP4 won't. LFS won't. NR2003 won't. There's nothing that can teach you that until you go to an event, do some running and see how the car reacts - even cheap arrive-and-drives that anyone can do will teach you a lot that you couldn't learn in a game. You just have to go into it not just jumping in to drive, but how you can use what you can to improve something, thinking about everything all the time.

You'll soon enough know if you're going to get anywhere, but sitting twiddling your thumbs wondering whether you're going to do something about it or not won't get you anywhere, that much is certain.

Here's a clip from Top Gear comparing driving in a game to driving in real-life

Yeah, that was quite a poor segment to be honest. A rather drab ending to series 7 (IIRC). That shows 2 things. How poor GTx is and how crap Clarkson is as a racing driver - James May proved they're all hopeless without some training (as would most of us be, no matter how good we think we are in sims).

lol, yeah i watched that before. i think ur right about how my sitting and stuff. I have driven in those really crappy karts you usually find at a fun center. Although they don't as fast, they do provide the feel of being thrown to the side while racing. Nobody is left unlapped from me! And my dad is fast on the streets, likes to swing the back end of his Saturn Vue around. Infact, he does it so much, my 10 year old sister has to sit in the front so she wont get car sick!

About the vid. Jeremy is using the stock PS2 controller, not an actual racing wheel. secondly, i think he forgot to turn off ASM and TCS, as i don't think the car he actually drove on the circuit had those devices on it already. those things really make the game arcadish and also makes it hard to drift. My cousin's perfered driving style is drifting, so he usually turns off the the crap before racing in GT4.

but i like to drive the Formula Gran Tursimo car and the other Le Mans cars. I'd say those cars have ASM and TCS, right?

And my dad is fast on the streets, likes to swing the back end of his Saturn Vue around. Infact, he does it so much, my 10 year old sister has to sit in the front so she wont get car sick!

Woahhhhhh, back up. He slides his car on public roads with his kids in it!? WTF!

Even with all the driver aids off, GT4 is still a poor arcade game. Doesn't do weight transfer and has no tyre model to speak of.

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slicer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> About the vid. Jeremy is using the stock PS2
> controller, not an actual racing wheel.

Frankly he could be playing with his built-in joystick and it would still prepare him as much. Actually that's not true. It would make him a touch lighter.

slicer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Infact, he does it so much, my 10 year old sister has to sit
> in the front so she wont get car sick!
>

Public roads are not raceways.

Ah, I can relate to this a little bit.

I'm currently studying Engineering (will be in Mechanical Engineering next year) at Virginia Tech in the United States. I've always loved racing from the beginning, mainly from going to lots of Saturday night when I was young (all oval tracks of course), and my dad used to have a racing kart, but he sold it when I was like 7 (I'll be 19 soon). Since then I showed an interest to getting into the sport, but school always came first in my life, so racing became a spectator hobby for me(eventually found a good road course to go watch races, walk in the pits, etc.), but of course I wanted more. Some how I wanted to spend my life around race cars. I would even settle for Stock Cars ;P

At the earliest opportunity, I got into drafting classes (since it was the closest thing to engineering at the time). My teacher was really good, and used to be an engineer, so instead of treating it strictly like a drafting class, he usually allowed us some freedom as far as assignments go to let us be creative whenever possible. It really helped me get an appreciation for engineering, and drafting in general, but it really helped me set my sights on a possible engineering future in motor sports. It seemed like everyone my drafting classes were car nuts, but since this is the US, not many people knew a lot about F1 (most knew it existed, but those were usually the sports car/ALMS fans). F1 is still my ultimate engineering goal.

Now I'm at Virginia Tech (all the previous school work paid off) and probably the most educational thing I've been doing is helping out the Formula SAE team (It's called Formula Student in Europe I believe), which has been a great motorsports Engineering activity. I hope by senior year I'll be able to drive the car (its effectively a really small formula car, designed and built by students, loads of fun).

Now I've pretty much counted myself out of a motor sports 'driver' career. Maybe its not too late, but I certainly have to go looking for the money and get good real quick. Hopefully I can find the time to see how I measure up in a driving school or something. But for now, I'll probably just go as far as club racing as a hobby.

I've never actually driven a purpose built race car, but like you, I always felt like I was the best driver on the track at those dinky little kart places, assuming my kart wasn't about to fail. I do think that the sims do help you in knowing what to expect, and learning the basics. They definitely don't teach you how to cope with the forces, which I would imagine are extremely significant factors in driving ability, at least compared to the car I drive (A 1999, Chevy Blazer, basically an smaller SUV... high CG, lots of body roll).

As posted before, risk taking is of course worlds apart from the games/sims. That's what makes them games/sims. When you are driving even a normal automobile there is much more you have to worry about. Firstly if you are on public roads, well, you have to deal with the people that don't know they are driving a car, and secondly, you have to be more aware to taking care of the car you drive (both maintenance and how you drive it) as well as developing a keen awareness to different sensations, such as the forces you feel through the steering wheel (some sims actually do a good job of this, like netkar-pro, not just having force feedback in the wheel does it), as well as how to cope with body roll, when to figure out when you are in a slide, and the correct way to correct a slide (it is a little bit different than the sims), etc. etc.

Now you have a good opportunity if this kart team is everything your friend says it is. I would by all means at least try to test with them, even if you are slow at first. Its not everyday you get that kind of opportunity. So even if you are slow, just enjoy it. Don't forget the basics though, learn to drive with you head, as a former Mclaren Engineer told me recently. Practice having the correct line, throttle control, braking, who knows, maybe you will be quick!

But you're much younger than I am, your choices are still open, and if you want it enough you can make it happen, it will require a lot of dedication, but if you want it, that comes naturally, at least that's been helping me out so far in Engineering (I've been getting good grades ).

So my suggestion, talk it over with your parents, and try to work it out. have fun, don't give up on school if you happen to move up the latter in the process though (its a good back up plan, a really, really, good back up plan).

And uh, don't try anything crazy on public roads. Save it for the sims, and the track... and maybe an empty parking lot.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/2007 10:38PM by aims20.

lol aimsmaster! Yeah, my drafting teacher is kinda strict. My friend John Lewis, who runs with me in cross-country practice, says he hates that class. It actually took me a while to figure out where he was sitting, as the classroom is big with compys blocking everybody's view. I'm actually doing pretty well in the class. I started behind everybody when we were designing "puzzle cubes" (aimster, i dont know if you did this in your class), and managed to complete in front of most people.

And the best part is, our teacher was out for almost a whole week for eye surgery, so we had a sub and he let us watch "Hot Shots : Part Deux" ROFLMAO!!! now THAT was a funny movie. We were gonna have the sub until monday, but then disaster struck with the fires. At least there was no school monday and tuesday :D, which gave me monday to literally PWN my cousin at GT4. Sad part is, he acidenatly exited me out of the Formula GT Championship, so i got pissed. But after a while, i realized it took alotta weight off of my shoulders, as now i can do arcade mode and use my good cars.

Now even though i luv F1, i have a big problem with being able to watch the races as i don't have SPEED. So i have to ask someone who goes to my church to basically tivo the races. But since he cant find a way to put them onto a disk, he suggests that i have an F1 party.

So basically, everyone's invited!

now, enough with that!

Thanks you guys. I really appreciate the help. It looks as if that last spot on that karting team was meant for me. I've told my really paranoid dad about me and racing. (yes, i know that a person cant slide the back end of the family SUV around all the time and worry about my sister's and I's hygene, as well as his own. Its just my dad, he wierd that way.) Sounds like he's cool, but he wants me to research how much karting costs. I guess i didnt tell him about the team benefits!

Tell Fernando Alonso i said hi!
-teh_$L!cerer

In Race or when karting,never keep thinking your timesheet it will cause alot of trouble on you and for me i dont mind what kind of driving style i have or do i need to do as other great other drivers done?

razgriz? RAZGRIZ?!?!

is your name refering to the myth in Ace Combat?!?

if not, please disregard
-teh_$L!cerer

aims20 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ah, I can relate to this a little bit.
>
> I'm currently studying Engineering (will be in
> Mechanical Engineering next year) at Virginia Tech
> in the United States. I've always loved racing
> from the beginning, mainly from going to lots of
> Saturday night when I was young (all oval tracks
> of course), and my dad used to have a racing kart,
> but he sold it when I was like 7 (I'll be 19
> soon). Since then I showed an interest to getting
> into the sport, but school always came first in my
> life, so racing became a spectator hobby for
> me(eventually found a good road course to go watch
> races, walk in the pits, etc.), but of course I
> wanted more. Some how I wanted to spend my life
> around race cars. I would even settle for Stock
> Cars ;P
>
> At the earliest opportunity, I got into drafting
> classes (since it was the closest thing to
> engineering at the time). My teacher was really
> good, and used to be an engineer, so instead of
> treating it strictly like a drafting class, he
> usually allowed us some freedom as far as
> assignments go to let us be creative whenever
> possible. It really helped me get an appreciation
> for engineering, and drafting in general, but it
> really helped me set my sights on a possible
> engineering future in motor sports. It seemed like
> everyone my drafting classes were car nuts, but
> since this is the US, not many people knew a lot
> about F1 (most knew it existed, but those were
> usually the sports car/ALMS fans). F1 is still my
> ultimate engineering goal.
>
> Now I'm at Virginia Tech (all the previous school
> work paid off) and probably the most educational
> thing I've been doing is helping out the Formula
> SAE team (It's called Formula Student in Europe I
> believe), which has been a great motorsports
> Engineering activity. I hope by senior year I'll
> be able to drive the car (its effectively a really
> small formula car, designed and built by students,
> loads of fun).
>
> Now I've pretty much counted myself out of a motor
> sports 'driver' career. Maybe its not too late,
> but I certainly have to go looking for the money
> and get good real quick. Hopefully I can find the
> time to see how I measure up in a driving school
> or something. But for now, I'll probably just go
> as far as club racing as a hobby.
>
> I've never actually driven a purpose built race
> car, but like you, I always felt like I was the
> best driver on the track at those dinky little
> kart places, assuming my kart wasn't about to
> fail. I do think that the sims do help you in
> knowing what to expect, and learning the basics.
> They definitely don't teach you how to cope with
> the forces, which I would imagine are extremely
> significant factors in driving ability, at least
> compared to the car I drive (A 1999, Chevy Blazer,
> basically an smaller SUV... high CG, lots of body
> roll).
>
> As posted before, risk taking is of course worlds
> apart from the games/sims. That's what makes them
> games/sims. When you are driving even a normal
> automobile there is much more you have to worry
> about. Firstly if you are on public roads, well,
> you have to deal with the people that don't know
> they are driving a car, and secondly, you have to
> be more aware to taking care of the car you drive
> (both maintenance and how you drive it) as well as
> developing a keen awareness to different
> sensations, such as the forces you feel through
> the steering wheel (some sims actually do a good
> job of this, like netkar-pro, not just having
> force feedback in the wheel does it), as well as
> how to cope with body roll, when to figure out
> when you are in a slide, and the correct way to
> correct a slide (it is a little bit different than
> the sims), etc. etc.
>
> Now you have a good opportunity if this kart team
> is everything your friend says it is. I would by
> all means at least try to test with them, even if
> you are slow at first. Its not everyday you get
> that kind of opportunity. So even if you are slow,
> just enjoy it. Don't forget the basics though,
> learn to drive with you head, as a former Mclaren
> Engineer told me recently. Practice having the
> correct line, throttle control, braking, who
> knows, maybe you will be quick!
>
> But you're much younger than I am, your choices
> are still open, and if you want it enough you can
> make it happen, it will require a lot of
> dedication, but if you want it, that comes
> naturally, at least that's been helping me out so
> far in Engineering (I've been getting good grades
> ).
>
> So my suggestion, talk it over with your parents,
> and try to work it out. have fun, don't give up on
> school if you happen to move up the latter in the
> process though (its a good back up plan, a really,
> really, good back up plan).
>
> And uh, don't try anything crazy on public roads.
> Save it for the sims, and the track... and maybe
> an empty parking lot.

Damn, you sound like me except better at the engineering part. I wish we had a Formula SAE team here at MTSU.

My friend has these parameters for seeing if i am race car material.

If i am within 6 seconds of his lap times, i am born to race.

Im inviting my friend to this local (almost) karting track. We both don't know the layout, we will be given the same karts (almost) and they will judge places by laptimes.

My priesthood leader in the quorom and church is looking at prices. He says he might be able to get the track for about 2 hours. I will probably own my fellow church members (been practicing up on GT4 without the drivers aids) and get close enough to my friend to gain bragging rights.

Sadly enough, i was too slow to make it into the team. They are moving to legend cars. So is 16 a bit too late to start karting. My family's financial status is in ruins (dang credit cards)so my mom is working at customer support at Cunard Lines. Hopefully she'll get promoted in 6 months. And the good part is that she's already getting noticed by some of the more executive peoples. So i will be late for karting unless my friend's uncle can do a little magic for me(he's supposedly filthy rich. He's the one who got my friend started in karting). So i'll go for the magic part!

I'm sure racing isn't that far away. Maybe this was the wrong opportunity. I guess it was since the team was shifting towards oval racing than sports car racing (ugh!). I'm sure i'll run into someone else, i am really sure of it!

Hoping for another chance...
-Slicer

ooh new info. For xmas, i got a trackpass to the local karting place. But while it says pass, it really means its your membership card. So New Years Eve day, my dad took me to the place. At first i did not know what the G-forces were gonna be like. You get a racing helmet that is sutibal for F1 racing. But what is really cool is the karts. What these guys can do is actually tell the karts how much power to apply since the karts are electric. They start everyone off really slow when everyone is exiting the pits. Once everyone is out, the turn up the power to medium i guess. It is kinda fast at first. But when they think you have complete control over your kart, they add extra power to set those competetive laptimes. And the karts sound like an F1 car with a V12 engine! although there are no gears to select.

The first time i experienced that rush was on my second race (a race is essentially a 14 lap qualy session) was at the high speed turn. I oversteered for some odd reason, and i almost crashed into the wall. But then i finally realized it was the extra power.

But i believe i am race car material. When i get going in the kart, The g forces are nothing! i dont give a crap about g forces or how i get thrust into my seat when i accelerate. Its just not there at all! I just focus on places where i can gain time. Im freaking fearless out there. Well almost, since there is this really high speed right-left turn. I do have to get some nerve to take that full speed since i have to turn heavy to one side and way back to the other side fast enough. The g forces are sumting there as i am thrown from one side to another. Even my phone today was being thrown around in my pocket!

They have this really cool leader board where they display your laptimes as you go. And at the end of the race, they post it online on their website! Last time my best time around the track was 30.72 seconds. But today i beat it with 30.69.

The usual crowd is actually the opposite of what thought before i entered the doors. Most of the people i am racing are in their late 30's and early 40's, possibly even more experienced than i am. The best usually get a time of around 29 seconds.

But MB2 Raceways is certainly the place for me. My dad is unusually enthusiastic about me getting a better time there since we have been going at least every week since Christmas. He's even suggesting that i recreate the track in Grand Prix 4, when i know nothing of making tracks!! Unless some of the track makers in this house can help me out, i gotta figure out how to do this lol!!

I even hear there is a league of some kind there so i might try that. I haven't seen that around yet but it is probably because it's off season or something. You can all thank possibly the only other Formula 1 fan in the United States lol.

slicer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My friend John Lewis, who runs a chain of deparment stores

:O he's friends with mr heelas :O

H E L L O

what teh hek knottmiester!?! i didnt say that! im 14 and so is friggen John Lewis!

Well, i just want to say that with a huge quantity of patiente and support from all the family we can buy the kart and get sponsorship for my 5 years old son... some videos:









and pictures in my facebook album:
[www.facebook.com]


Back to basics... I feel like a newbie! hahahahaa!!!

Another video of my son... now is going faster than one month ago...





Back to basics... I feel like a newbie! hahahahaa!!!