[0:01]Welcome to Cart class, brought to you by 18-time Australian champion David Sarah. Cart class strives to give Cart racing drivers the fundamental driving skills, cart setup and the mindset required to take you from beginner to winner. Your host David Sarah has over 25 years experience in cart racing and is the most successful driver in Australian history.
[0:25]Good day guys and welcome back to Cart class where we give you all the tips and tricks to help you move up the field and go from beginner to winner. In today's episode we're going to be chatting about apexes and how to identify where the apex is. Talk about an early apex, a late apex to give you the best possible run around the corner in the exits as well. So obviously it's a it's quite a crucial part to being a fast racing driver. Whether that's from cart racing, as you're moving through the categories when you're looking at open wheel race cars, um you know your stock cars, your super cars, all the way through to Formula 1. Apexes is the the main critical thing in regards to cornering as fast as you possibly can as well. So in this episode we're going to be trying to give you guys um you know basic things to look out for and when you should try an early apex or compared to when you should try and late apex the corners as well. So, in regards to identifying what is an apex, it's basically a point in uh in the corner where you want to place your inside tires as close as you possibly can to the inside of the racing track. So depending on the radius of the corner, obviously if you've got some more fast and flowing corners, that's going to change at what point you want to get close to the inside of the racing track. If it's quite a tight corner as well, you might find that you want to turn a bit later and hit the apex a little bit later on. So that can give you a better possible exit as well. So, again, looking back at our first episode in regards to to racing lines, you're trying to again, look ahead for where that dark line is on the track. And you're going to see at some points the carts are naturally going to turn in earlier. And then at other times you're going to say, oh, hang on, it looks like the carts are almost missing the entry to the apex or into the corner, but it's turning quite sharp as they get further around the corner as well. So, they're the sort of corners where you're going to be later apexing it. So when it comes to our apexing, um it's generally the middle of the corner is when you want to get your inside wheels closest to the inside of the racing track. But where it can differ is, um if you've got a quite a tight hairpin and it leads into a long straight. The problem is if you turn in too early, you're going to run wide on the exit and that means you're going to hit the accelerator that little bit too late and that's going to cost you your momentum on the on the main straight that you're looking to um to try to maximize your your speed as well. So if you've got a tight corner, tight hair pin corner, and it leads on to quite a decent sized straight, they're the sort of corners that you want to apex later on. So that might be three quarters of the way around the corner, um and what that does is as you're turning later on the entry, it allows you to get on the accelerator earlier, which is why you're going to see a bigger benefit on the exit as well. Now, where an early apex corner might come into uh into benefit is that you've got a fast flowing corner. So you can actually turn in a little bit earlier and because you're not turning the steering wheel very much, it's not really going to affect the rear end of the cart. So um yeah so so a faster flowing corner, you can naturally turn in that little bit sooner. Again you're going to try and uh realize if the backend is sliding on the way around the corner, then you may may possibly be turning in a little bit too early. And like I said with uh with your later apexing corners, it's generally on the tighter corners because if it's a fast and flowing corner, you turn too late, you're just leaving a massive door open for another competitor to pass you, which is obviously what we're trying to minimize. We're trying to drive the fastest possible line, but also not give opportunities away to other drivers that we're we're competing against as well on the racing tracks. So, again, apexes are are very critical in regards to even the camber of the circuit. So, again, it's quite hard to explain it over a podcast, but when you're looking at some circuits, they're they're very flat. They're sort of like uh you know, like like a bit of um laid concrete, so it's nice and flat. And then you're looking at some cambered corners, so uh thinking towards like a NASCAR circuit when they're sort of going into those domes, those speed balls, how they're going to be lower towards the inside of the circuit and and higher towards the outside of the circuit. If there's any ever any instances where you've got uh a cambered corner, naturally the camber of the corner is going to pull the car around uh the corners a lot easier as well. So, you can also take that into account. If you've got a corner that's off camber, so the inside of the racing track is higher and then the outside of the track is actually lower, they're sort of corners that you can actually turn a little bit earlier because if you turn too late, you sort of you you're trying to almost turn up a hill almost even though it's it's not sort of upper hill and it's not going to be exaggerated as much as I'm trying to explain it, but if you get stuck out wide and you're sort of falling off of the camber, it makes it harder to to try and turn towards getting towards that apex.
[5:16]So that's where it sort of um can differentiate. So you've got to take into account the camber of the corner, uh the the radius of the corner as well, how tight it is or how flowing it is, to determine where your apex is. Now, like I said, the earlier your apex is generally going to be the later that you're going to hit the accelerator. On fast flowing corners, you might just take them flat out regardless. And on a later apex corner, you can generally turn in a little bit later, but gas it earlier as well. So that's where you sort of going to try and think about where you can gain the most possible time on a racing lap to see how much you can actually um yeah, to gain in your lap time and not also leave a door open for other carts to uh to be able to nip underneath you. So that's a little bit about our apexes for today. Like I said, we're going to be trying to do as many of these podcasts we possibly can to give you guys the racing knowledge that you need to to improve your cart racing and to see him further up the field as well. So if you've got any questions uh or any subjects that you guys want to learn more about, please feel free to hit us up at cartclass.com.au. We'd love to hear your feedback and obviously if you like this episode, please give us a subscribe and give us a review as well. Thanks very much for tuning in. Cheers. If you've enjoyed today's episode and want to learn more about your cart racing, be sure to check out cartclass.com.au for driving courses catered to all skill levels.
