karting vest recommendations?

[johnmdanskin]

I just joined a league, but my injury rate is not really sustainable. I cracked a rib about a month ago. Last night I was rammed a couple of times and a rib on the other side is very painful, depending on what I am doing. I have a shirt with high-tech gel in it, but while it clearly helps, it doesn't seem to be cutting it.

Part of the problem is that the seats are wide for me and I rattle around. They guys weighing 260 don't have a problem getting in and I weighed in at 160 with all my clothes on.

I can't find any reviews at all and even the information from the manufacturers is uniformly very light. You'd think they'd want to describe their product clearly...

I'm looking for something with some kind of solid protection. Plastic inserts or whatever.

thanks!
john

[Wabbit]

I feal your pain, as my ribs took 4 months to fully heal.

I use to Kart Race in the Ottawa area, until they changed the engine rules, which would of forced me to buy a whole new engine. This was around the time I started to instruct for Club BMW, so it was an easy choice as I only did 2-3 races a year.

The biggest improvement to any Racing Kart is to get a seat that fits you stugly without being to tight, because if you are moving around, you WILL injure yourself, be uncomfortable, or just be plain SLOW.

Look for a rib protector that gives you protection on the side of your ribs as that is usually where the worst impact happen with the side of the seat.

At Karting events it is common to have a father and son running the same kart, so you have a smaller seat for the son strapped to the larger father's seat. See if they will allow you to do simlar, or build a insert to make up the difference by carving rigid foam to suit.

Bennett

[johnmdanskin]

I've ordered a shock-doctor vest (there are two choices. HMS guys were looking at the vests and couldn't figure out why anyone would get the more expensive one).

This vest has hard inserts and so on.

There are also seat inserts for smaller people. I was thinking of smaller as meaning shorter legs, but I'm opening up my definition to include width-challenged, so I'll try one of these.

I'm also experimenting with weight placement. I'm carrying 35 pounds of ballast. There is a 20 pound weight which can be way forward or way back. The fast guys put it forward. I was faster with it back because I was getting excessive oversteer, slowing the kart. I want to put it forward, to try to eliminate differences between me and the fast guys, but I'm not sure how I'll get through "the sweeper" without losing a lot of speed. It's either better fine corrections (less sawing) or perhaps getting more of the cornering over with at turn in. Or else it's something else.

[Andrei]

The local karting place has foam inserts for the seats for the skinny types. John M. Danskin of 2006 vintage would not really need them, though.

What kind of HP are you running to keep hurting yourself? The local place has 6.5 hp and we don't really bang each over much to crack ribs.

[johnmdanskin]

The local karting place has foam inserts for the seats for the skinny types. John M. Danskin of 2006 vintage would not really need them, though.

What kind of HP are you running to keep hurting yourself? The local place has 6.5 hp and we don't really bang each over much to crack ribs.

I think the HP is about the same, but we are going 40mph past start-finish. Two mechanics of getting hurt examples.


Tap on inside rear corner spins me at start finish (the high-speed sweeper). Now I'm sideways on the track stopped and two separate people hit me at full speed.
At "the top of the hill", I turn in, someone taps my inside rear corner spinning me 180 degrees. He then hits me head-on, ramming me backwards into the wall. I think I blacked out. When I opened my eyes I was pointed in the right direction and my neck hurt a lot (3 days later I still have to be very careful how I move around), so I put my foot down and went.


There are moderately frequent mass pileups at the hairpin because it's the big passing oppty and you get a lot of real-time disagreements as to who had right of way, and also a lot of speed differential in this tricky weirdly banked shockingly late apex corner.

Sunday, someone spun at the exit of start finish: fastest place on the track. My friend t-boned him, and his kart went under the other kart. Both karts had broken steering supports.

Monday night, someone spun in the other sweeper and his kart went under the plastic armco. The workers had to go grab a 6' pipe to lever the kart back out.

Karting at this track is a little bit more of a contact sport than I was expecting. The outdoors guys don't seem to have this issue because they have more space.

[bmwqc]

John,

Where do you guys go karting? At F1 Boston?




I think the HP is about the same, but we are going 40mph past start-finish. Two mechanics of getting hurt examples.


Tap on inside rear corner spins me at start finish (the high-speed sweeper). Now I'm sideways on the track stopped and two separate people hit me at full speed.
At "the top of the hill", I turn in, someone taps my inside rear corner spinning me 180 degrees. He then hits me head-on, ramming me backwards into the wall. I think I blacked out. When I opened my eyes I was pointed in the right direction and my neck hurt a lot (3 days later I still have to be very careful how I move around), so I put my foot down and went.

There are moderately frequent mass pileups at the hairpin because it's the big passing oppty and you get a lot of real-time disagreements as to who had right of way, and also a lot of speed differential in this tricky weirdly banked shockingly late apex corner.

Sunday, someone spun at the exit of start finish: fastest place on the track. My friend t-boned him, and his kart went under the other kart. Both karts had broken steering supports.

Monday night, someone spun in the other sweeper and his kart went under the plastic armco. The workers had to go grab a 6' pipe to lever the kart back out.

Karting at this track is a little bit more of a contact sport than I was expecting. The outdoors guys don't seem to have this issue because they have more space.

[johnmdanskin]

John,

Where do you guys go karting? At F1 Boston?

Yes. Said to be the largest indoor karting facility in the US.

[bmwqc]

Yes. Said to be the largest indoor karting facility in the US.

The facility has 2 tracks. Do you run on the short track or extended track?

[Gregster]

I wish I could go karting again... I get wayyyyyyy tooooo competitive when I would go to kart tracks :(. My dad has the same problem.. he once spun me out into hay bails on the final lap, final corner of a family/friends race we had, I was leading... After my crash the kart didn't want to refire, I planned on doing the same to him on the cool down lap...

After the race the guys at the place wanted to have a word with us.. it wasn't about me being taking out but rather why we had taken out the screws that kept the throttle on the engine at 60%.....

[bmwqc]

Gregster,

Next karting date is Sunday Feb 8th. Come on down and show us a few moves! :D



I wish I could go karting again... I get wayyyyyyy tooooo competitive when I would go to kart tracks :(.

[johnmdanskin]

The facility has 2 tracks. Do you run on the short track or extended track?

http://www.f1boston.com/racing_track_maps.asp

Last time we ran on track1=city track. A good time is about 20sec. Next time we'll run on country track = track 2 which is faster. a good time is about 16sec. There is also a variation on track 1 which we'll use (basically an added chicane).


I have not seen the extended track in use. I don't know when they do that. It doesn't look like any of the 3 racing leagues (rookie, sprint, pro) use that track.

[bmwqc]

If the average lap is around 20 seconds, the track cannot be all that long (unless it's a real fast track with not too many technical corners). Would be more interesting merging the two sections together.








http://www.f1boston.com/racing_track_maps.asp

Last time we ran on track1=city track. A good time is about 20sec. Next time we'll run on country track = track 2 which is faster. a good time is about 16sec. There is also a variation on track 1 which we'll use (basically an added chicane).


I have not seen the extended track in use. I don't know when they do that. It doesn't look like any of the 3 racing leagues (rookie, sprint, pro) use that track.

[johnmdanskin]

If the average lap is around 20 seconds, the track cannot be all that long (unless it's a real fast track with not too many technical corners). Would be more interesting merging the two sections together.

http://www.f1boston.com/images/track-maps.gif

Track runs counter clockwise.

Track1: Start-finish at left is a high-speed sweeper with a semi-optional microlift at turnin to hold the inside. Bottom of image is the uphill with a single 180 degree left-hander at the top of the hill. No lift. Concentration is on holding the inside to minimize distance. Coming into the hairpin separates the big boys from the little boys. If you turn in too soon or fail to rotate you can hit the wall hard. Almost everyone brakes. Everyone at least lifts. There is banking, but it is not uniform. This is probably the most important corner of the track. Under the tunnel is a slick right-hander (-the- right hander). It's a 270 degree turn. Challenge is to take it tight for distance, but many track out. This is where I cracked a rib by clipping the outside when I wasn't controlling oversteer smoothly.

Probably either half of the full track isn't "the largest indoor track" etc. I know they run them merged, but I haven't figured out how to get on it merged. It would be considerably more dangerous merged because of the long long straight coming into the left hander at bottom-left. The curbing is not that soft (I've heard of compound fractures) and the bumper-cars aspect of racing there means that your cornering experience is not totally under your control.

[Gregster]

Gregster,

Next karting date is Sunday Feb 8th. Come on down and show us a few moves! :D


err I'll have to pass on that.. the 8th is Daytona 500 quals.

[bmwqc]

No problem. We can wait till March 1st (our next event after that) for your honorable presence!




err I'll have to pass on that.. the 8th is Daytona 500 quals.

[johnmdanskin]

err I'll have to pass on that.. the 8th is Daytona 500 quals.

Watch the quals on a heads up display in your helmet!

I actually go to my karting place to watch races. They have a nice bar (diet coke, make it a double) with lots of TVs. Can you watch the quals between sessions?

I'll be at the audi ice event at mecaglisse during the karting event. I can't drive 6 hours to kart with you because I'm driving through montreal and maybe 2 hours more to stand around shivering on an ice track. Go figure.

I hope to see at least some of you at the ice track. Maybe Sebastien in his yellow suit.

-john

[sebdavid]

Haha!!

No John, I won't be there, with or without the yellow outfit, because I'll still be in France, I get back on the 9th. I wouldn't have gone anyways because I'd rather just go lapping, since I did all the tutorials last year over two days.

Look for my friend Yannick and his black Subaru Impreza wagon though. I convinced him to go.

[blacksheep]

yeah I went karting once and came home with my ribs all blue and purple for a week. The next time I used one of the foam inserts Andrei mentioned and I was fine

Anything which wedges you tightly into the seat and you should be good to go. You don't get bruised from the impacts, you get bruised from slamming into the side of the seat if you're too loose

[johnmdanskin]

yeah I went karting once and came home with my ribs all blue and purple for a week. The next time I used one of the foam inserts Andrei mentioned and I was fine

Anything which wedges you tightly into the seat and you should be good to go. You don't get bruised from the impacts, you get bruised from slamming into the side of the seat if you're too loose


Sounds like the trick. I'm going to wedge myself in AND I now have a shock doctor vest with hard inserts, AND a bigger neck ring to try to mitigate further whiplash. The left side rib is mostly better after 6 weeks. I'm starting to wonder if the right side rib is cracked (slightly). If it's still painful in another week I'll call it cracked. It doesn't really matter since there is nothing you can do, it's just amusing to track the injuries.

I need to improve my traffic skills. My individual lap times and my finishing place aren't consistent with each other. I have midpack lapping skills and back of pack traffic skills. I'm not sure if I'm just not aggressive enough or if I'm just not good at seeing the patterns when a lot of cars get together. Either way practice should help, but the only real practice in traffic comes from driving in the league. Tearing up the track and scaring the civilians at the arrive and drive is totally different.

One noticeable difference between me and them. The karters will just ram you from behind if they catch up. We don't do that in bmws, so I back off and keep some distance. I need to throw all that politeness out the window without going nuts and spending the evening in the penalty box or (in the case of repetition) off the track.

[bmwqc]

Either way practice should help, but the only real practice in traffic comes from driving in the league. Tearing up the track and scaring the civilians at the arrive and drive is totally different.


John,

The next time you pass thru Mtl (on the way to a driving event), we should get together with a few of the guys and do a few rounds at the local indoor karting track. (A lot of fun and a lot cheaper than what they charge at F1).