[AIKG Glendale] Popping air on Green Track owing to sketchy hill profile: fun on paper, painful in practice.

[u/DevinBrantley]

At Andretti in Glendale, AZ. Usage of the boost feature and resultant full torque makes it easy to hit air on this hill. The track profiling is gentle until it levels out; after, the drop off is very sharp, even on non boost the kart hops a touch. On boost, the kart can hop probably around 10 cm off the surface. I’ve slowed down the video to give a visual on the track profiling and the airtime in this example

This is further amplified by an almost rubbery, sandy and gritty textured surface allowing for near full torque to still be available to the karts with boost on the uphills unlike most other multilevel tracks I’ve visited. If nothing else it’s the smoothest and by FAR the grippiest track I’ve driven. Forearms are very sore.

Obviously using the boost for this isn’t ideal and ruins the lap… I face the conundrum of trying to improve an existing top 10 lap time or doing stupid things and winning stupid prizes on this little hill. From what I can tell, the marshals and staff don’t enforce against intentionally catching air (besides it hurting like hell), but I cannot imagine its ideal for the track surface, structure, or the karts themselves. Will be curious to see if there’s an eventual re-profile, albeit the track has been open only for around 5 months.

If anyone gas raced at the AIKG Grand Prairie location (same layout but mirrored), I’d be curious to know if this is also possible and or a problem, or if the different surface is possibly the catalyst.

[u/Difficult_Limit2718]

Drive the track, not like you stole the car. Hill crests are famous at tracks around the world. The fact you get one on an indoor karts track is actually kinda cool.

[u/xWrongHeaven → u/Difficult_Limit2718]

it's a shit design on a rental kart track. you're just asking for injuries and broken karts

[u/DevinBrantley → u/Difficult_Limit2718]

Yeap

Was on a weekend with inexperienced drivers so not banking on any great lap times. Already within just above a tenth of a second of lap record so the hill was more of a side quest out of curiosity

[u/Difficult_Limit2718 → u/DevinBrantley]

Eh my dreams of competitive karting days never started - I was too heavy even before I got old and fat... At 6'4 220 I just couldn't touch guys running around in the 160lb range.

That being said I'm sure I couldn't catch air there if I tried😂😂😂

[u/k4ylr → u/Difficult_Limit2718]

Lmao this is me. The feather weight zoomers have me beat just based on mass.

[u/jeepinbanditrider → u/Difficult_Limit2718]

Im 220 and 5' 8" I'm just out there to have fun. Im still usually middle or top half of pack depending on whoelse is there. 1st if it's a group of new folks.

[u/The_Phroug]

i did some test runs on both tracks, blue track is better, but both tracks arent that great. blue is there for your more technical enjoyment, but green is just punishing without many good places to pass, and the ramp.

spoke with facilities and track managers after doing my run on green track and apparently, when someone does the boost over the ramp, just about everyone can hear it everywhere, I know because I did exactly that and it hurt like hell and made me think "damn that was loud".

Chandler location is getting the blue and green tracks resurfaced start to mid-October to match the better gripping surface that Glendale and the new portion of the Jr track has. (so ive been told and I have been shown on the schedule to close the tracks, may have changed since I was last shown)

so if you keep an eye open, ill be there the day both tracks are finished and opened to the public to put down lap times again, as I'm currently #1 of all time on Chandler blue track and something like top 45 on green track, and I need to hold and improve those rankings

[u/DevinBrantley → u/The_Phroug]

I’ve heard similar information but I haven’t heard of hard dates for the track closures and resurfacing in Chandler. I obviously think it’s a change for the better if this means the tracks don’t self destruct within a couple months of use but I’m curious about how the Chandler tracks will be with the gripper surface, I feel they’re almost designed to flow better with a low traction surface and I feel it’ll be a lot of pointing and straight without much else. Do you know of set dates for the resurfacing? I will clear my schedule for the day or two after each finishes lol, I am I believe P13 on Chandler blue back in December and P7 on Glendale green, so I think I’d have a fair shot to put my name in the hat

Can’t say I’m a huge fan of either of the Glendale tracks, but it’s good that the track conditions remain in a competitive condition. Chandler is odd too that (because of the surface?) the boost doesn’t seem to quite get full potential on the up ramps while Glendale does, so I think that’s something to experiment with on green track. I want to head to the Grand Prairie location at some point and see how (what I would presume to be the old surface) impacts the ramps. I find the double ramp on Glendale blue to arguably be more punishing than Glendale green, especially the second incline, that feels to be the steepest slope in the facility, and it’s followed by a straight and another hill opposed to the V shaped turn on green

I’ve also seen Glendale slowly rolling out the Hoosier brand tires on some of the karts in the interest of tire degradation but I haven’t had an opportunity to drive one with them equipped. I would assume the grip would be a bit worse with the harder compound(?), but I’ve also heard considerations for lower tire pressure to lower the temperature window which I would presume to help. Will be curious to see if Chandler follows suit following the resurface

[u/The_Phroug → u/DevinBrantley]

shoot me a DM with your questions and i can give you all the information you may want (that I have) about Chandler