As a kart driver, we frequently must deal with the innumerable decisions, emotions, and memories that are presented to us every day. Over time, our brains get trained to handle the steady barrage of information.
Karting serves as an instrument to test our brain’s ability to process. There are few things in life as bombarding to our minds as attempting to wrestle a kart around a race track lap after lap. It is not surprising that when someone comes up to you after one of these wrestling matches and asks you to recall it in all of its glorious minutiae, most of us do not have the energy to do so. After all, you may think, I was just trying to stay on the track…Do you mean, I must remember other stuff?!!!
Yes! And you must remember more!
That's the reason you're here. You should practice providing better feedback if you want to go faster. Ultimately, why would you not? Giving better feedback will enable you to recall more information as a driver. It facilitates improved teamwork so that your kart can be improved. And of course, perhaps your ultimate finish on race day.
Note - It’s impossible to know what other factors on the track might affect how you finish, but if you and the team are working well together, it greatly improves your chances of a strong result.
Whether I am at the track as a coach, an official, or just as a spectator, it is very common for me to see drivers and teams that are lazy with post-session debriefs. Unknowingly this laziness is very costly, as it costs teams time on the track.
Chassis issues go undiscussed, improvements in the driver’s technique become overlooked, and setup changes go unwritten. Ask any competitive driver, tuner, or engine builder how to make their lives easier at the track, and aside from the classic ‘more money’ quip, they will all agree: “I need a driver that gives better feedback.”
How Does One Give Better Feedback?
The phrase "feedback" generally refers to a driver's entire assessment of a kart's performance on the racetrack. These views will mostly concern the chassis handling, engine performance, and behavioral trends that a driver observes during a session while on the track. As most of us are probably aware by this point, there may be a wide range of solutions in each of these categories.
With this in mind, it is easy to see why feedback matters so much. There are so many answers a driver must provide!
Often some of the most important discussions held at the track on any given weekend are between drivers and mechanics.
Methods For Delivering Better Feedback
Learning how to ‘feel’ what the kart is doing underneath you is the most important step in developing your feedback abilities.
To be able to tell someone else about the kart’s performance, you must first be able to experience it yourself on track. If you don’t feel confident in your abilities in this department yet, don’t worry—we will dive deeper into how to develop a greater ‘driving feel’ in a later discussion. For now, just remember that without this ability, giving good feedback is going to be a bit of an issue for yourself and your team.
Finding the right words and techniques to use during debriefs is vital.
Giving feedback is a learned skill. Unfortunately, this skill is often best learned in a stressful environment. After all, the driver must give the best feedback in times of struggle rather than great success. Therefore, work to refrain from using expletives, generalities, or ‘shutting down’ mentally when explaining a chassis or performance malady. It is important to note that this applies to all team members, not just drivers.
In most cases, teams perform the best when certain activities are conducted routinely regardless of external pressures. In the case of giving excellent feedback, it does matter that regardless of overall performance, debriefs are performed in the same professional and timely manner after each session, with the same members of the team present.
Miscommunication is the enemy of the debrief session, so be sure to find terms that everyone on the team understands and uses and stick to them. It is surprisingly easy to get sidetracked during a debriefing if all team members don’t actively work to focus on using the same vocabulary.
Balancing the driver’s abilities with that of the kart.
The term feedback has always struck me as a bit of a misnomer. While it is true that most driver debriefs and feedback sessions involve the driver discussing the performance of the kart with their mechanics, it would be misguided to say that the driver truly speaks for the kart. After all, a kart is an inanimate object—it only ‘knows’ what is fastest around the track with a given setup, engine, and driver. The kart has the potential to do no more, and no less than that.
If we give the driver the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are constantly driving their kart at 10/10th’s, then the union of kart and driver has the potential to become one, with the driver truly possessing the ability to give the world’s best report of how the kart is handling. When this is not the case, however, things become more complicated.
A driver may complain of a handling issue when it is more down to their driving than it is the kart’s physical setup. The lesson from this is clear: Just because the driver thinks the kart is behaving a certain way, does not always make it so. This is of course true most often with less experienced drivers.
It should be noted that the issue of perceived vs. actual skillset is not limited to just drivers. Tuners, teams, and even chassis manufacturers can easily fall into the rut of only wanting to hear a set number of things in a feedback session.
Trouble can arise when one of these team members does not fully internalize each issue a driver relays to them, or each movement of the kart while watching it on track. Sometimes, a tuner may like 3-5 ‘tricks’ to adjust a kart to their liking. If these don’t work, they may easily just throw up their hands, and blame the driver, or look at the data, hoping to find validation for their suspicions.
Ultimately, keeping an open mind and communicating clearly during debriefs is a critical asset for all members of the team, not just the driver.
Whether you are a driver or another team member, constantly keep in mind an honest self-evaluation of your skill level.
- Are you a driver who truly explores the maximum of the braking zone in each corner?
- Could your steering inputs be causing unnecessary chassis handling issues?
- Are you leaning in the corners?
- Do you, as a tuner, ever venture out of the warm fuzzy bubble near factory settings on the kart?
By keeping these things in mind as a driver and as a team member, you are more likely to set your team up for success when attempting to improve overall performance.
Practicing Feedback
It takes practice to be an excellent feedback provider. Very seldom does a driver have the vocabulary, feel, or commitment to provide excellent feedback right away. Don't worry if, after removing your helmet, you're merely relieved to have survived a certain on-track session rather than a driver who starts talking incoherently about chassis handling!
It is always imperative to consider that your driver may be relatively new at giving feedback and that it must be a collaborative process to enhance this skill. Just like hitting a braking marker, or the apex of a corner, describing and giving feedback is a learned skill.
A simple exercise is to set out some objectives of the type of feedback that a driver should try and focus on for a session. As an example, start with a commentary on how the balance of the kart changes throughout a session.
- Do the tires take a while to ‘come in’
- Does the kart have grip right away?
- Does the kart feel less comfortable at the end of the session or the beginning?
Often, especially with younger drivers, you have to walk before you can run.
Whether your aspirations extend to the pinnacle of motorsport, or simply to do better in your next race, developing a methodology to give thorough feedback is extremely useful, and will develop you more as a driver.
Learn More With Blayze!
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