vLane Blog

Feature: Kart racing, Sweetie Girl Racing style

From AshleyW, Featured Contributor
Posted on May 4, 2009

Filed under Feature, Motorsport, racing, karting, go karts, sweetie girl racing

Racing around a track in a go-kart is not my typical Sunday morning. But the experience proved to be worth it as I learned a lot more than I thought about karting, and how I can enhance the way I drive on public roads.

Sweetie Girl Racing aka SGR is an all-female racing group and automotive show team in Canada.

As one of the largest clubs in Canada for the past ten years they have three divisions: SGR Miss Shift, racing in four different categories, circuit, time attack, drag and drift; SGR Miss Represent, car shows and audio which is for women who have a strong intestest in motor sports even if they don't have a vehicle themselves; and SGR Miss Street division, for women who want to be more involved in SGR.

Improving my driving skills and learning how to become a better driver is something that I have a serious interest in. So, when the opportunity to learn during Sweetie Girl Racing's driving clinic involving go-karts, I wasn't sure what to expect and what I would learn that could improve my skills driving a "real" car.

Click through to read — and see — the results.

Lesson time!

The lesson began with volunteer intstructor Jason A. explaining that we would be racing electric carts which are quick but aren't as fast as gas carts aparently. He went onto explain the words, "smooth," which means to be actually be going fast not slow. Understeer — when the front tires lose traction, oversteer — when the rear tires loose traction, neutralsteer — when all four tires have grip at the same time and drifting — controlled oversteer which means that your actually taping the gas lightly to control the car as it does this.

We were taught the three points of a corner: the entry, apex and exit. I had never heard of a corner described like this and it made me think, this would have been so helpful in drivers ed when I first started learning how to drive. The entry is when you start turning, the apex is the clipping point of the corner and the exit is the outside of the corner. He stressed that it was important to use all of the track when turning and to accelarate out of a corner (this was hard for me to get used to) and to look ahead. We were also instructed to visualize the steering wheel as a clock and place our hands at 9 and 3 to control the kart better. No 10 and 2 here!

What I thought was really important was the track-walk, something I never did the first time I went go karting. It really was important to get a better view of the corners, how long the track was, and what the track looked like in its' entirety.

On track

I was actually in the first group of cars to go out with an instructor and other participants. As I got strapped in with a helmet and tightened my seatbelt I realized that my legs were a little long for this small go kart I would be driving. So as we're getting ready to go I thought to myself remember everything I was just taught…ya right. As I stepped on the gas and took off it was more like Go! Go! Go!. The first corner I totally messed that up, the apex part went out the window…but as I started racing around the track, halfway through I started to remember to look ahead at where I wanted to go and about the entry, apex and exit. Instead of racing so wide throughout the track I got a little tighter and more comfortable doing this. I was able to turn through those corners better and really felt what our instructor had said about oversteering and understeering.

Once I was done I hopped out and watched the other participants, it was good to see how others were racing on the track as well. The second and third time out we were instructed that we could pass each other and pick up speed. The track defenitely felt a lot faster those times and I know I bumped somebody and I felt a few taps as I was doing my laps. (I walked away with some bruises!)

The aftermath…

After each session we would de brief with our instructor to hear what we were doing right and doing wrong. Racing with SGR was a lot of fun, especially to meet women and men who were involved in this sport. I learned a lot of driving techniques that I know I can apply to my everyday driving and to more kart racing the next time I'm on the track.

I was able to interview President and CEO, Anna He of Sweetie Girl Racing who explained to me why she loves what she does.

"It's a very unique automotive team, the people you meet, the opportunities that you get and the racing experiences that I've had on track as well as off track are really unparellel to none," she said. "There have been ups and downs, it's been a very interesting roller-coaster ride but overall I see it as a very positive experience. It's changed the way I percieve myself and the way I percieve females around me."

The emphasis on SGR being a female racing group is imporant to He because she feels that females are steretyped in the automotive industry in terms of how they act and dress, she is someone that is making strides in diminishing those stereotypes altogether.

Special thanks to Sweetie Girl Racing and GP Kartways for making this report possible. SGR and GPKartways provided the lesson at no charge to vLane.

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AshleyW is a featured contributor for vLane.