How to Go kart in the wet

Learning to Go-Kart in the wet to destroy all other competitors and enjoy it at the same time.

Go karting in the rain is one of the best ways to master the true skills of karting, and to discover how the kart really functions under wet conditions. The beauty of karting in the wet is that you will become more noticeable to all faults you may come across on the road and figure out ways how to overcome them easily.

When you figure out these techniques you will be cruising to the finish line with ease, this is because most other go kart racers won’t have much of a clue when put in that situation.

Now let’s move onto details of karting in the rain.

For starters when driving in the rain in a go kart you will feel the difference then when driving in the dry, at every corner that would be faster will start to feel much different now, and if not a bit weird. If you ask why there are two explanations for this.

1. Like other tracks, the dry areas have the most amount of rubber on them which becomes a bit sticky, these areas cause those parts of the road to have more grip on them.

2. Go karts work in a funny way, when taking a late corner you tend to go as close as you can towards the corner.

I will now discuss the high speed corners and also the mid speed corners followed by the low speeds corners all individually.

 The Low Speed corners

Braking

We begin by saying if the first corner you come across is at the end of the straight and you can see it’s pretty tight. One of the first things you will need to do is start braking, and you need to be aware the latest breaking point is exactly the same as if you where driving in the dry. You might even find it a slight different to braking in the dry. This will give you an instant advantage already over your competitors.

The key feature you must remember is trying to get the tyre to bite without it locking up, you must be as sensitive as you can while being quick to release the braking pressure at the same time before they lock.

Turning inwards

Go-Karts don’t like to always go around in corners only in the wet, so to get them to turn you will need to somehow get the inside rear tyre launched off the floor, or else the kart will just run directly straight.

Make sure to brake a little later than usual and always try to plan to go as wide and deep around the corner as possible. Make sure you turn the wheel until it fully locks in an aggressive way. As if you just want to surprise the kart while doing so. Then in a blink of an eye while on a straight wheel you should than be to a full lock. It will feel as if the kart ignores you, while this is happening you should lose enough speed so it will then bite and turn as sharply as possible. Usually to make the go-kart turn it’s a good idea to lean forward towards the outside wheel. At this stage you should be much deeper in the corner which means you may be on the grippier part of the track which will give you much better r traction to speed off. As soon as the kart has turned you will need to sit far back to get weight over the tyres to gain more traction, while doing this try to feed into the throttle to avoid wheel spin.  

Go-Karting in the rain is about gaining traction, high speed corners and losing the wheel spin.

When understeering in really fast corners it can feel quite nice, so just try to drive the kart through corners as smooth as possible. Theirs no need for you to lean forward or do anything crazy with the steering wheel. Just always make sure you try to get the power lower to avoid any wheel spin. The line shouldn’t be too much different to the one in the dry.

Cornering in mid speed

Here is the part where your techniques have to come out, there different racing lines in the wet, and normally the wider is the preferred line. Most likely you will have to be aggressive on the turn in, but make sure that the faster corners may need an even less aggressive approach. You may have to learn to use the outside front wheel, or maybe not it depends. It’s hard to tell depending on the driver. This is why every racer must get out on the wet track and make sure to be judged by some professional in the go-karting scene.

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