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Originally Posted by speedy king
Wish my dad shared some of your enthusiasm! He missed the start of my last race as he was busy in the car reading the paper
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I can't believe that!...mind you I'd guess you must be a bit older than 'Flatspots' 14 year old lad!?
'Flatspot' whilst I can't add to the Rotax tech talk (it came in just after my lad progressed? to motor racing) I did run several youngsters from the age of 8 to the age of 16 for some 10 years winning 13 championships in a variety of classes here in the UK. Inc the highest junior British Junior Championship 100 Reed valve and the Junior ICA class (winning it twice against someone called Jenson Button...whatever became of him?) What you didn't tell us was how experienced you lad was!
That you asked loads of prep' stuff I'll take a guess he's quite new to it?...well if so don't get too involved in the Data Logging stuff stick with your eyeballs and the stopwatch! After safety the most important thing is running him in testing/practice until you've made a groove in the place, time and watch the fastest lads and study their lines and their split times. Whilst hairpins bends don't win races they are the best splits to compare your drivers technique...ie not scrubbing off too much speed whilst not dropping too many revs and getting a good clean fast exit. (so many people confuse a fast kart at the end of the straight with the motor/carb...when it was the poor exit!
It worked for us! You will also find your reliability will come from your own ability to be a fast worker on the kart in terms of repairs and maintenance, although this new breed of R Max's are 100% better than the fragile air-cooled dyno tuned stuff we used to run.
Spend "qualitytime" too with your guy at the trackside at differant corners studying the fastest guys testing, you can never have enough stop watches either!
Hope I'm not teaching "Granny to suck eggs!" but you didn't mention your mileage.
PS: The hidden spin offs of taking my sons racing every weekend was they never got into drugs (except hi octane) booze and getting into trouble (off the track!) it also taught them how to keep their cool in a heated situation. Also all 3 of mine passed their road driving test first time without a single professional driving lesson! Non to date has been involved in an road accident, all have clean licenses and one has a highly paid job in motor racing.
One last bit of advice...do it seriously sure, but never let it get you both uptight!...next week-ends race is a whole clean sheet of paper. Boy how I miss it! Motor racing doesn't like us dads hanging around our boys! :-(