How to (nearly) win the Supernats: Thursday Qualifying

Probably the most important day of SuperNats week.

If you screw qualifying, it’s a long week ahead. With no pre-final, your qualifying position will keep you in the same starting spot for the over subscribed categories for all 3 races.

Track position is massive in these types of events. Being up front minimises risk of crashes, barriers popping out from other incidents and taking less risks with overtaking opportunities.

With two practice sessions before qualifying, most drivers will use two new sets of tires to dial in the kart.

This is also a good chance to place your kart with the fast drivers from Wednesday’s sessions to test yourself against the main competition.

Happy Hour (the session before qualifying) sets up your qualifying grid position, so gaining a slipstream is important to gain an extra 0.1-0.2 seconds.

In recent years they’ve only allowed 20 karts on track for qualifying, with 80-61, 60-41, 40-21 and finally the top 20 from practice starting qualifying.

A 4-minute qualifying isn’t a lot to switch on kart, tires and driver. It also doesn’t leave much (if any) time to slow down for a lap to get a better track position as once you go offline, it takes a lap or so to get tires switched back on and any debris off your tires.

I’d recommend the first lap or 2 is when you find your track position, whether that’s setting up in a pack to gain a slipstream, or with a particular driver. As the opening lap or two won’t be your fastest.

Drivers need to be aware how many laps are projected to be driven in the 4 minutes session, so they can calculate what lap they’re on when driving.

You don’t want to find yourself caught up or having to overtake on laps 4 or 5, as this will cost you time, and if Lap 2 or 3 is classified as your fastest, you’re in trouble.

Hopefully now you’ve banked a fast lap and are towards the pointy end of the field, you can work out who you are racing (some classes are separate groups) to get an idea on how to attack Friday’s races.

Tomorrow we’re on track racing, and the key with the opening heat races is damage limitation and staying on track! Your weekend can be over quickly before it’s begun with damage early in the weekend!