In kart-racing, is it faster to drift the corners, or stick?

Question

If you drift the corners, you can go less physical distance, but some speed might be sacrificed. If you stick the whole time, you maintain speed, but travel greater distance. So which one gets the faster lap, and why?

Answer 1

By pressing the brake pedal just a little harder on corner entry you can start sliding the rear.

Getting on the gas immediately and controlling the drift will keep the rear planted to the ground.

This is the best way to go through a slow corner because the kart rotates and is set up for the exit earlier.

This way you can also get around entry understeer if any.

The drawbacks are as follows:

1)Higher rear tire wear

2)More difficult to get right than just brake-turn-accelerate

3)Need to have enough power.

The idea is to drift the kart on exit all the way to the edge of the track, if there's not enough power to do that then it's best to avoid the drift in the first place.

That's why you can't use it in quick corners, never enough power to keep the speed up for that.

It's also next to impossible to do it fast enough on a very grippy track with lots of rubber or on soft tires.

So it depends on the situation, the grip-power-speed correlation.

In slippery conditions I do this a lot and is both quick and satisfying.

Answer 2

With a kart it is definitely a horsepower issue. The lower powered karts you definitely don't want to slide around and bog the engine down. With the higher powered karts you can get away with it a little. My train of thought is that sliding the kart heats up the tires too much and grip goes away. There are lots of factors to consider like track surface, temp, kart set up, etc. I've done some indoor kart racing in the last few years. My fastest lap times are when I never break the tires loose and keep the tires from spinning or sliding, but those things are kinda down on power.

Answer 3

in kart-racing, or any other vehcile with tires since the way tires work is still the same:

Drifting is slower... it is classic way to drive "fast in, slow out" which minimizes your momentum.  But of course, it isn't that simple, because "stick" as you call it is not as simple as keeping the tires from sliding.

Tires generate maximum grip when they are slipping.  If you graph out maximum speed against grip, you'll find a nice curve where you can obtain your maximum speed either just before or just after the tires are at their complete limit.  By going too far beyond the limit, the tires stop working, and the car slides excessively... this is classic "drifting."  This is well outside of the range tires work best.  Working the tires to one side or the other of the curve though can be equally effective, and will come down to driving style (though in the case of keeping it away from over-driving, it is often easier for a driver to "find more time" if under pressure since they have a little more leeway to play with).

The next factor that comes into play is the balance of the vehicle and the specific course.  While "drifting" does not gain anything, inducing oversteer to tighten a turn or widen your profile to both protect a line and straighten the exit is not the same.  Given a the vehcile and tire combination that effectively worked at greater slip angles, you would be able to go through that same corner faster by keeping to just the fastest line and driving at the limit.  But since there are always balance issues and tires work cannot work at all slip angles, sometimes the fastest route requires some creative throttle steering (similarly to issues you could find if driving on gravel or other surfaces where consitent traction becomes the issue to force some modification of "best approach").

It is almost always better to drive further to obtain a higher exit speed.  If you break down most tracks, you'll find you spend about 50% of your time on a lap in corners, and about 50% on the straight... by driving 2 or 3 extra feet, you can gain a couple mph better exit speed, which is then maintained all the way down the next straight.  Over an entire lap, this translates to massive differences in lap time (lose .05 in the corner, but gain .5 on the straight).

Answer 4

there is a fine line between drifting and sticking,you want a little sticking in the corners to lift the inside rear off just enough to allow the axle to work on the outside tire so you are not scrubbing speed off by trying to turn a corner with two equal size tires.if you are drifting in a corner or have too much oversteer you need to narrow the rear end by 1/8 increments untill the sliding stops,if you are hopping in corners it means you have too much traction in the rear and you need to widen the rear track by the same increments untill the hopping stops.the fastest way around the corners is by ballancing entry speed and driver smoothness around the corner.tire pressure is another problem and finding the right tire pressure for the track conditions can be a wild goose chase sometimes.in karts things work opposite of a car in referance to the chassis set up.remember smooth is fast.

Answer 5

In kart racing, drifting gets you more speed...I know cuz my bro and Dad drive, cna you believe it my 6 year old brother can already drift his ROTAX!!!!