3rd Place Baby!!- And some questions on passing.

Congrats! Let her progress and savor the moment before working on her head...

Work on her eyes. Ask her to look "around" the cart in front of here and stoke her hunger for "clear track."

 

That's great and congratulations. Post some pics!

Passing is a learned skill and takes some practice... and guts. She's only 7, it's understandable that she's being conservative.

Some times it's difficult for young kids to follow complex verbal instructions. Rather, hop on a kart yourself and with both of you on the track train her on passing moves. Even on slower competitors you need strategies like slowing down to then gain momentum/space or key moves in specific corners. Same will apply for defending her position.

 

Have her watch the cadets. Pick someone to cheer for and be excited everytime that person makes a pass. Don't put on pressure like "look they do it so why don't you". Instead just say something like "wow did you see that pass? That was great!"

This worked for me. My son is gifted to the point we moved him up a class. He is a little younger than your daughter. In a large event (over 20 karts) he got crashed out in the first lap of the first heat. He was very dejected as he knew he would be stuck behind slower kids. He was afraid to attempt any passes. A fast kid in an older class was in a similar situation. His final was before my sons so we watched it and cheered him on the whole way. Watching him make countless passes and how exciting it was was just the incentive my son needed to overcome his fear. He went out in the final and moved up through half the field by the end of the race. I had previously tried many things to give him that little push to overcome his fear including working on passing against me but this was the one thing that did it right away.

One other thing I did with him that helped was to go out in a kart and bump him (very lightly) down the straights from behind. This got him used to contact so he would more easily handle it when it inevitably happens during the race. However, again, my son is in a cadet aged class against kids much older so he needs some of this to survive. Kid Kart is an exhibition class. She has plenty of time to learn all this so I would try to keep it light and just enjoy the time. I do know what you mean by frustrating though

 

My son races Micromax. The class is great. There is little variation in the motors and they are so understressed that they will run forever. When the child is ready, you just switch the pipe and remove the restrictor and you have a minimax.

 

Give a little speed up at teh beginning of the turn, so at the exit she is full throttle and has a possibility to pass. If to no avail. she is set up to out brake (assuming show knows what it is) on the next turn. She does need to be on the inside of that next turn though. I know it is kid karts and all, so there isn't much speed to play with but that is the trick i would use occasionally.

 

Now that bears repeating! So basic yet only good racers seem to do this with regularity. I myself get bumper fixation and then I am late to capitalize on an opertunity. Kicking myself I vow to not do that again but I always do... If you could teach such an important skill to such a young child "now", how awesome that would be.