Reaching Top Speeds At The K1 Karting Academy

[vc_row row_type=”row” text_align=”left” css_animation=””][vc_column][vc_column_text] Article written by Daniel Demaras www.demaras.com   This past weekend on October 27th and 28th, K1 Speed brought back the highly popular driver training program for adult and junior drivers: the K1 Karting Academy. Two groups of speed-hungry drivers piled into K1 Speed Toronto to learn how to get even better at the track.   Former Nascar, Touring Car and Formula Renault driver Patricio Jourdain taught everything a driver needs to know about the track at K1 Toronto. He also provided general driving tips and tricks and how they apply to the circuit.   Just about every kind of person you see driving at K1 that would turn up for the K1 Arrive and Drive came in for the Karting Academy. Young and old, male and female, experienced and beginners. All kinds of racers showed up to learn what it takes to be fast.   Patricio opened the day up with a classroom session, starting off with the basics: brakes on the left, gas on the right, thanks for the money…class dismissed! Most people laughed, some looked uneasy.   When Patricio actually got down to business, he showed the drivers a diagram of the racing line to follow, along with braking points and acceleration points. Upon seeing these details, even experienced racers were surprised, and were already learning new things.  This was a great forum for team building and skills enhancement.   Once the first classroom session was wrapped up, Patricio lead the group on a track walk. Seeing a diagram is helpful, but going around the track at walking speed and being able to see the tricks and lines Patricio was talking about makes it even easier to apply his advice to your driving.   Afterwards, the whole group got to go out on track and use the tips Patricio gave them. As they worked hard on track, Jourdain worked harder on watching each individual racer’s line and making notes on their driving. Patricio was able to see details in each and everyone’s driving and on track performance. After the session, he read out his notes to all the drivers, telling them how they could improve next time out.   After a quick break, everyone went back out on track, this time with Patricio in a kart too. He followed some drivers, watching their line, then passed them so they could follow his. Classic lead-follow teaching technique. By the end of the session, everybody at the track had improved by several tenths, some even shaving entire seconds off their lap times.   With the help of a super experienced driver, the K1 Karting Academy provided novice and experienced racers with some very effective insights into how to improve performance through a fun and enjoyable experience.   Daniel Demaras is a 15-year-old karting enthusiast who shares his passion for karting on both the outdoor and indoor tracks, including K1 Speed. Daniel races for Professional Racing Ontario.  Learn more about Daniel on his website www.demaras.com [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]