RAINING ALL OF A SUDDEN? HERE ARE 5 ACCESSORIES TO ADAPT YOUR KART TO WET CONDITIONS JUST IN SECONDS

Giacomo Mantovani

26 July 2024 • 7 min. read

In the “must-have” column, products to be used in wet track conditions we have addressed them more than once. We recall, among all of them, the articles:

Today, we go a step further and recommend accessories useful in one of the nightmare situations of many karters, namely when you are about to enter the track for a race and all of a sudden... It's raining! In such cases you do not have time for lengthy setup adjustments (of chassis, engine and carburetion), such as those described in the article “Champion Advice | From sun to rain adjust your kart's set-up” You can only make interventions that take seconds to apply, perhaps precisely through the use of specific accessories. We recommend 5 of them, some aimed at optimizing performance with a wet track, others aimed, instead, at preserving the reliability of the vehicle in such critical conditions. Of course, in all cases, it will be up to the driver and his mechanic to decide whether and how to use them based on how much water is actually on the track.

N.B. Do you think there are other products that can be added to this selection? Don't hesitate to share them with other TKART users in the "Contributions" section at the end of the article. The community will be grateful to you!

Tillett rain meister

In rainy weather conditions the track proves cold and slippery leading to the need to work on the kart setup to increase cornering and traction grip. One way to increase the grip of the wheels on the asphalt is to increase the force that the tires exert on the asphalt, especially those “outside” with respect to the direction of the curve (so, for example, if I drive through a right-hand curve, the “outside” wheels will be the two left ones).
This is because imparting more force on the tires, brings several advantages:

it allows the tires to warm up more and faster, increasing their grip;
allows more water to be evacuated under the tread by channeling it into the tread grooves;
improves the mechanical grip that the compound--extremely soft in rain tires--can exert against asphalt porosity.

The result of all this? Always the same: to have more grip in order to go through corners faster and to be able to accelerate as soon as possible. In wet track conditions, there are various ways to increase the force that the tires exert on the asphalt: one of them is to raise the center of gravity. To do this, one can intervene on the chassis setup with operations that are certainly not very fast (see, for example, the article “Doctor TKART | Adjusting front height”), or one can implement more immediate interventions, such as the use of the Rain Meister, which easily allows to raise the overall center of gravity of the “kart+driver” system. With its 25 mm thickness, it immediately raises the driver's seat without intervening on the seat position. It is made of rubber to avoid unnecessary water absorption and is quickly attached to the seat by Velcro strips. It fits perfectly on all Tillett seats and generally on all models of Junior/Senior size kart seats.

Indicative price

About 41,28 euro

To buy: kartshop.com
Photo credit Franklin Kart