Connor Iseli

2007 NTK Spring Champion

2006 NTK Season Champion

2006 KART Southern Regional Champion

2004 NTK Most Improved Driver

2003 NTK Rookie of the Year

Kid Kart Practice Tips

We learned a lot about practice techniques during this past year.  One of the most difficult things you will find is communicating with a five to seven year old about the specifics of kart handling.  You must be very observant of the kart while your child is practicing so you can tell when you have oversteer, understeer, or driver issues.   Also learn to listen carefully to the engine so you will know when your child is lifting and applying the throttle.  These observations will help in coaching him/her and tuning the chassis.  

Always keep it fun, don't make it work.  I tried to watch Connor closely and if I thought he was getting tired or losing interest I would ask him if he wanted to go home - if he said yes that is what we did.   Bring games or toys for the kids to play with when your working on the kart, it helps to keep the trips to the track a fun experience for them.  

Driving a go-kart is a tiring experience, both physically and mentally, take breaks and don't over do it. 

    Seriously, I believe Connor learned a lot about racing a go kart from playing Gran Turismo on Playstation.  If you help them and use the game as a teaching tool, they can learn the proper lines in corners, proper passing techniques, and relationships between basic performance parameters.  For example, the car/kart will be looser with cold tires.   

Plus it's a whole lot of fun - for both of you!

Before we went to the track for the first time we went to a parking lot.  Of course make sure there is plenty of open area and no cars around.  I laid out an oval course with pylons, and just let him do lots of laps to get used to driving the kart.  After he seemed to be doing well with the oval course, I put a dog leg in the backstretch.   We put in about two hours of parking lot driving time before going to the track for the first time.  I think this helped Connor's confidence tremendously for his first track practice.  He was already used to the kart and could concentrate on the new track.   

Before you go to the track draw a simple 90 degree corner, draw the proper racing line, talk about brake and acceleration points.  If you don't know yourself, there are several good books on high performance driving that you can read and then use what you learn to teach the basics to your child.  

When you are first starting out make sure and go to the track and practice a few times before your first race.  Also I recommend watching a race or two with your child before you actually enter one.  This gives you both a chance to observe race and start procedures, talk to other participants, gain overall familiarity with the process.       

Try to go to the track and practice when you don't expect it to be very busy, especially the first few times.  Weekdays are better than weekends for example.  If there are too many karts on the track to practice safely take a break and wait for things to slow down some.  

To help teach the proper lines through a corner, pick one corner on the track, put cones at the turn in point, apex, and exit point.  Walk out on the track with your child and explain to them the proper line through the turn and braking and acceleration points.  Let them drive the rest of the track however they want at first but work on getting that corner right.  Once your doing well there move on to the other corners.  We would try and work on just one corner per practice day.  

Take your time and be patient.  Keep it fun.  

Momentum!  This is the most important aspect of racing a kid kart quickly.  They are so under powered that any loss of speed takes a long time to recover.  If your child is behind a slower kart they need pass them as quickly as possible to get to the front.   

When your child begins to learn the proper lines through the corners you need to talk to them about faster traffic.  If they don't know the proper lines they should stay off the track if there is any significant faster traffic.  When there are other karts on the track they should always drive normally.  That is to say don't do anything different just because they think they are going to be passed.  Don't try and move out of the way and don't slow down.  They should always drive a proper line through the corners.  It is the job of the faster kart to pass them safely.  This is much easier if they don't do anything unexpected.  

Also be respectful of other racers, if it gets busy and you can see that your child is slowing lots of people up and disrupting their practice pull them off the track for a while and take a break.  

This is extremely important.  Get a notebook and log what you've tried and the results.  Log lap times, setup information, weather conditions and other general comments.