How to (nearly) win the Supernats: Wednesday Warm Up

Finally. We’re on track today!

After months of build-up and anticipation, drivers are now heading out on track for the first time at this years SuperNats.

The first session of the weekend is dramatically different to how the track will be on Super Sunday.

With in excess of 500 drivers competing, the amount of new tires people put on their karts and the nature of a parking lot circuit cleaning up, don’t stress about times in the first session!

If you’re a driver that’s never experienced a parking lot circuit with barriers, build up each lap! One of the worst ways to start a weekend is by totalling a chassis in the opening session of the week.

Not only will it put a dent in your wallet, but you lose valuable track time and lose confidence on how much you can push on certain corners.

I’d recommend keeping the kart off ½ to 1 kart width from the barriers in tighter sections to begin with, and also stay out of big packs of karts.

This just brings about more risk, as drivers are trying to overtake others on a slippery track they’re not familiar with which brings barriers back into play.

Settle in a rhythm and aim to get faster each lap of the session.

The main thing for session 1, bring the kart back in one piece!

After session one, this is now a good chance to review some footage, and get more familiar with the circuit, and areas you can improve on for session 2.

It's highly likely that from session 1 to 2, the track will have already evolved between 0.5-1 second, so aim to get closer to the barriers and carry more momentum through the corners.

After session 2, you’ll start to get a feel of which drivers are quick, so this is a good chance to setup on the pre-grid with these fast drivers.

it will give you a chance to not only see where they’re quick, but also get an idea on gear ratios which before arriving are all a guess.

If you’re in the afternoon session, you’ve had plenty of time to watch the morning session to see what works, what doesn’t and key overtaking spots.

The main difference with the afternoon session is that the day runs into the night & Las Vegas drops dramatically in temperature. So drivers will need to combat feeling faster driving under lights, and track temp making the circuit slippery first few laps.

Now the day is done, go over any data & video footage you’ve got and make a mini gameplan on chassis adjustments heading into day 2.

Tomorrow we’re qualifying, so we’ll be discussing how to approach the final two practice sessions and the all important qualifying to set your week up!