Diary: Jake Spencer In Japan, Day 1

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from Jake spencer via Remo Racing

The Kosmic Racing Department team and I arrived at the track this morning at around 11:00am. Upon arrival, there were around 20 kart-sized boxes in our pit area waiting for us to unload. Each box had come from the OTK (Tony Kart/Kosmic) factory in Italy. Inside the boxes were all the team’s karts, tents and spares for the weekend.

Above: This is how the Kosmic karts arrived in Japan
pic - Spencer/Remo Racing

Once everything had been unloaded the mechanics started building the karts. In the Kosmic team there are six drivers – two are racing KF1 (Daiki Sasaki and Tereza Gromanova) and four are racing in KF2 (Paulo Ippolito, Nicklas Nielson, Tanaporn Nokkaew and myself).

Each driver has two brand new karts and a mechanic assigned to them for the weekend. My mechanic is called Alessandro and he is Italian. He speaks very little English, however it is enough for us to communicate basic things. He has taught me how to say ‘understeer’ and ‘oversteer’ in Italian which should make things easier for the weekend!

The two karts come from the factory as almost bare chassis. This meant that we had a long day ahead of us building the two karts completely. Alessandro (my mechanic) was surprised that I was able to help build the karts with him, as most the other team drivers went off and did their own thing while the mechanics built their karts.

Above: Seats are pre-drilled and ready to drop in - a big time saver when assembing a kart at the track!
pic - Spencer/facebook

The Kosmic team back in Italy make it as easy as possible for the mechanics through pre drilling seats for each driver as well as doing the front end wheel alignments on all karts before they arrive in Japan.

Once all the karts were built I did a track walk with the other drivers in the team. One of the KF1 drivers in the team (Daiki Sasaki) is from Japan and has a lot of knowledge on the Suzuka track.

He was happy to answer any questions from the other drivers which was a great benefit to myself in particular as I have never driven on the circuit.

The Suzuka circuit is 1,264 metres in length and seems to be very fast and flowing compared to the tracks we have in Australia.

Above: Now ready for engine and tyres
pic - Spencer/Remo Racing

Tomorrow we have our first day of testing. I have four x 15 minute sessions to learn the track and work on the kart set up.

I will keep you updated throughout the weekend.

Jake

• Remo Racing will continue to publish updates of Jake's progress on their website HERE

 

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