Itpro
I wouldn't say I'm being too ambitious. I don't really mind too much where he finishes but, and this is crucial, he does. If there is anything I can do to try to make his hobby more enjoyable then I consider it my duty as a parent to do precisely that. Otherwise he will grow up with all the wrong memories about his childhood. This is afterall his hobby and although it takes up an enormous amount of my time and energy; not to mention money, it's not my hobby, it's his.
The main problem here is that he has gone backwards, having previously enjoyed steady progress and the setup changes you described are appreciated and I will try them next time out to see how they affect handling, as well as making a mental note to use weight distribution to effect different handling in different conditions.
Although he isn't particularly fast at the minute, he does REALLY enjoy driving his kart and he knows who he should be quicker than and who the drivers on his personal hitlist are and he's constantly challenging himself to go faster and he gets annoyed when he doesn't meet his goals, which he sets himself.
I made a decision to buy a new chassis based on the idea that it couldn't be much different to the one he already drives (same manufacturer etc) but I was 100% wrong - he hates it. This is where I step in as a parent to ask the wider karting community for advice because I acknowledge that I don't know very much about karting but I do recognise that confidence is paramount, especially at such a young age, if he's going to have a happy time in his kart.
The kart setup is almost certainly not optimum but as long as he believes its not going to behave how he's used to, no matter how well I manage to get the lightning to emulate the handling of the storm, he won't drive it anywhere near as hard as he drives his storm.
I actually believe that this is a mental block, which at 8 years old and (being a bit awkward) is currently beyond him to overcome at the present time but not necessarily permanent. This is more about how equipment can affect driver confidence and what steps I can take in the right direction to keep him happy - otherwise what's the point?
His Zip Lightning chassis has been submitted to the market place and he is going back to his (ancient, bedraggled, been round the block) storm because it's what he wants to do. He's doing his last race on his novice plates and since discussing the sale of the lightning he's perked right up again. Following the advice from the extremely generous and knowledgeable folk on here, as well as other karting folk, we are going to do the odd test day with as many manufacturers as we can convince to let us have a go, once he gets up to speed and he's got a bit more experience.
|
|