How to learn a new race track
Learning Shenington kart track for the first time.
In this blog, Rich Tea Racing has kindly shared a video of how to learn a track before you visit for the first time. We’ll be looking at Shenington, prior to the first round of the Club100 SP60 Championship and the first proper Club100 race since the Coronavirus pandemic kicked in.
Over to Rich Tea Racing!
Shenington kart track
One of the top tips is to learn a new track before you get there—whether that be onboard footage or looking at pictures. Anything like that can be massively beneficial to helping you when going to a new track.
My process will be:
Look at a photo of the track
Review race footage from Suze (Junior TKM)
Review race footage from Super GT (Club100)
A bird’s eye view of Shenington
Let's have a look at this track from a bird's eye view using Google Maps. We're looking at 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 corners.
That's not a lot for a kart track, but there we go. Lots of long straights and heavy braking points, which isn’t ideal for the heavier driver.
A closer look at TKM race footage
Suze is a very good driver. She knows her stuff. And when it comes to learning new stuff, she would be my first port of call that's why I'm using this, not actual Club100 footage. (Although I will look at that in a bit.)
We can see the start finish straight is really wide and we can go flat out through the first left and brake at the white line.
Coming on to the first little straight and then into the first big braking zone… And we’re braking at the marshal post.
Onto the first back straight. Turn, then brake into that kink and get on the power as early as possible onto the biggest of the back straights.
Flat out through the first part of the right curve and again brake at the marshal’s post. Then it’s flat out all the way back to start/finish straight.
Club100 footage at Shenington kart track
Let’s have a look at some Club100 footage from SuperGT. Grip in Club100 might be a bit worse than it looked in the TKM.
Picking up off the first back straight and he’s getting his turning done before braking into the kink.
Onto the main back straight, and Super GT is going much wider than Suze was.
Onto the start/finish straight and he’s coming out very wide for this first corner. Yep, white line for the breaking. And flicking back on the power… You've got loads of run off there.
It looks a bit simple. Famous last words, but that looks all right.
Recap of Shenington: What did we learn?
Here we go, I’m going to go through it out loud now:
Start/Finish, coming into the left. Keep out wide and cut in
When the curb changes to white a line, brake
Flick in early and get on the power asap
Loads of run off on to the straight
Brake as close to the marshal point as possible
Use all the track onto the first back straight
Turn into the right, as soon as the wheel is straight, brake
Early on the power
Full power through the early part of the corner
Either go narrow, like Suze or wide like SuperGT… I like the idea of going tighter… We will see
Then we’re back on power the as early as possible… In fact, that’s my take out here, early on the power as often as possible.
More from Rich Tea Racing
You can see my race footage here!
