Driver ballast

What do you guys use as driver ballast ?

Hi Shedley, this is a good question. Really you can use anything that is practical for you. It just needs to be representative of the driver (including all the safety gear) and be positioned in the cockpit such that it approximates how the driver's weight will be distributed. After that, you just need to make sure whatever you're using can be accurately replicated each time.

Over the year I have used many different things- Sandbags, plastic containers filled with water, steel weight plates (like what weight lifters use). Here at Racecraft we use steel weight plates. For the driver, we place tha majority of the plates in the driver's seat, with 10 kg on the floor in front of the seat to simulate the weight of the legs. We also use half a fuel tanks worth of steel weight above the fuel tank to simulate half a tank of fuel - obviously, we pump the tank dry before hand!

In short, use what ever you want, just use the same thing each time and make sure it's positioned identically each time.

Also known as installing the smart driver in to the car in some race teams...

You can also use a friend of the same approximate weight - there's often one about, getting in the way ;-)

You can Gord, but I find they can get grumpy when their phone battery goes flat during a particularly lengthy setup 😅. The weights don't start complaining or need to go to the bathroom.