Winter preparations

Took a nice break from working on the kart after Christmas.  Now, we are back at it and starting a fresh blog for Lian's sophomore season.

Bodywork was going to be changed to the new stuff that Lian got for Christmas.  It took longer to mount than I thought but here it is.

After a little hand-wringing, she chose some nice graphics to complement the blue color.  After a short struggle to put flat vinyl on a irregular surface, we got it looking pretty good.

On the priority list for preparations we had to add weight to the kart.  This year though, I wanted to do it right so I sought to get someone to "scale" the kart with real competition grade scales.  My old standby, Doug, was pretty busy this winter/spring with 4 or 5 karts that he was trying to assemble and prep for customers.

I contacted a few racing families from the club and one name came up a couple times, Gary Lawson.  He is a veteran of the club and now races in national series on the pro level.  Gary was available when we had time and I had just received a batch of lead weights to add.  He did an amazing job starting with front end alignment with laser toe gauge and digital camber gauge.

Gary found several problems with the kart.  First, the caster settings were too excessive.  Second, the weight bias was too far forward.  After adjusting the front spindles, he got to work moving her seat back two inches.  After all that, he even adjusted the pedals to make Lian more comfortable to reach.

After getting it back home, we added the cool numbers and name decals that Lian picked out.  Here is the look she wanted.  What do you think?