Essential guide for kart tyres: all you need to know, in brief, about them

INTRO

It’s easy to say "tyres" ... However, after that all you have to do is to look around the paddock of a track, on any Sunday, to understand how these components, which are fundamental for performance, are often underestimated by kart drivers: soft tyres inflated to 2.2 bar at the front and 2 at the rear, as on cars; wrong advice given on purpose to "mislead"; swear words that fly while fitting tyres on rims ... It is therefore worthwhile, with the help of Vega technicians, a leading company in the sector, to put together a brief basic handbook on how to deal with tyres for karts, from the moment of the purchase, until there is very little tread left to consume.

1 PURCHASING

Basically, all the sales channels that distribute tyres can also be used for karting. However, it would be ideal to buy tyres from authorised dealers, who can certainly count on fast supply and thus always ensure "fresh" and up to date tyres. Vega products, for example, use bar codes which monitor the entire life-cycle of tyres: but only the technicians of the Italian company can access this information (quality control).

2 CHOICE

It may seem trivial, but choosing which tyres to use, considering the really wide range of tyres on the market, is not obvious. It is more simple for drivers involved in competitions: the tyres indicated by the organizers are required. The same applies to drivers preparing for races: it does not make sense to try one type of tyre when you have to use a different one on the day of the race. For those who instead race karts only for fun, perhaps not too often, the advice is to focus on a train of tyres with a hard compound: they do less driving and, above all, they wear out less. More experienced drivers who race a little more often can opt for an intermediate compound, always remembering that the softer the tyres, the more they "stick", allowing potentially better performance, but making driving more tiring.

ESSENTIAL GUIDE... FOR KART TYRES