Karting Thread

[Saidur_Ali]

Hmmn, that is very strange. Did you try to get your money back for the session because of the incident?

Hmmn a similar accident happened to a mate of mine at whilton mill in his kart after he hit a kerb. I don't think it could be the nut on torqued on enough because on mine atleast they don't need to be torqued up, there is a ridge on the stub axle that stops it coming off, and it never even gets loose atall. My guess could be that either the stub axle failed, or the hub holding the wheel to the stub axle sheered a bolt causing the bounce when it came slightly loose, and the added stress on the others caused them to fail thus causing the wheel to come off.

Do you remember if it was only the wheel that came off or was there the hub still attached to the rim. That would decide which of the two above it was.


Anyway hope it didn't deter you too much from karting, and at least your ok.






That is the amount of stuff that my dad put on our budget sheet, that includes everything accept fuel and occasional small spares. With them you could push it up too about £5000.


We kart on a shoestring budget so tyres are second hand, spares are ussually secondhand, and the such, we only race once a month. We have the smallest budget on the grid pretty much wherever we race, however still manage to be competitive and that was our aim from the start, we knew we wouldn't win but aslong as we are in the midfield we are happy, and try to push for podium positions and try to beat other in points of the season.

You are doing very well on that budget then. I'm amazed how low it is for two years. That is the just cost for insurance nowadays for cars so you are doing well do be racing in the midfield. Do you do it just for the fun of it or do you also do it in the hope of getting sponsorship too?

 

[lbsf1]

You are doing very well on that budget then. I'm amazed how low it is for two years. That is the just cost for insurance nowadays for cars so you are doing well do be racing in the midfield. Do you do it just for the fun of it or do you also do it in the hope of getting sponsorship too?

I do it for fun, and my love of motorsport, however if I did sponsorship and more money then I would love to do national championships and try to take it further. But really sponsorship is hard to come by untill above karting, so most top racers race on "daddies money".


Also guys, the biggest race meeting of the year at Blackbushe is coming up next week, looking forward to it.


Also slightly ironically after talking about it here a couple of posts ago, my wheel came off at blackbushe last month, very strange feeling seeing your front wheel go on without you, also very funny seeing a scrutineer having to run out of the way of it.

 

[gogatrs]

You should look to join a team.

 

[lbsf1]

You should look to join a team.

Thats one thing I would do if I had the money, however to really do that its atleast £10,000 at a bare minimum for the seaon.

 

[toyotsupra]

You should look to join a team.

Is there any teams in the uk do you know?

 

[gogatrs]

Is there any teams in the uk do you know?

Not that I know of, I'm in the US.

 

[Hollidog]

Also slightly ironically after talking about it here a couple of posts ago, my wheel came off at blackbushe last month, very strange feeling seeing your front wheel go on without you, also very funny seeing a scrutineer having to run out of the way of it.

I had this happen to me only it was on a fast left right esses and my left rear came off the hub on the exit of the left hander. As soon as I bottomed out I knew I was a passenger.

 

[lbsf1]

Is there any teams in the uk do you know?

Tonnes of teams in england, when I was at rissy about 2/3 of the people at the meeting were running in a team. All of them on 2011 chassis.

 

[paskowitz]

My experiences with karting only span 1 year of casual 45mph indoor karts. I am 6 foot 3, 190 lbs, live in ny and have around $8k. If I wanted to race competitively how far (what) could I get with this amount if money and where should I go (anyone that knows the east coast)? Also just general advice for a newb?

 

[gogatrs]

My experiences with karting only span 1 year of casual 45mph indoor karts. I am 6 foot 3, 190 lbs, live in ny and have around $8k. If I wanted to race competitively how far (what) could I get with this amount if money and where should I go (anyone that knows the east coast)? Also just general advice for a newb?

New York...
GPNY?
Also, I'd recommend a trip to either Oakland Valley Race Park (google it) or New Jersey Motorsports Park, more specifically their kart track.

 

[paskowitz]

New York...
GPNY?
Also, I'd recommend a trip to either Oakland Valley Race Park (google it) or New Jersey Motorsports Park, more specifically their kart track.

Been to GPNY... too expensive, and too slow (although they are getting new faster karts). Got below 2 seconds off the lap record on both tracks and could not break that. NJMP is on my list of places to go. Oakland I have never heard of.

Are there any good guides on the types of karts and the series they can enter with accompanying costs?

 

[gogatrs]

Been to GPNY... too expensive, and too slow (although they are getting new faster karts). Got below 2 seconds off the lap record on both tracks and could not break that. NJMP is on my list of places to go. Oakland I have never heard of.

Are there any good guides on the types of karts and the series they can enter with accompanying costs?

Rotax might be a but much on that budget.
WKA you'll be paying ridiculous amounts for repairs, those guys are insane.
You'd have enough to get a kart, but that's probably it.
No tools, trailer, supplies, etc.
I'd ask around at NJMP, even if it's a bit farther than OVRP.
Ask around for Arie if you go to New Jersey, he should help a LOT. He knows his go karts, he'll be able to figure out where you want to go with your budget.

The guys at OVRP are a bit... lets say strange.
That track will also kill your kart with how rough it is.

I'd recommend New Jersey over Oakland Valley. (the track is in Cuddebackville)

And one last thing, you're going to want to have another person go with you regularly. If you know of anyone else that wants to split costs a bit, that would help you quite a bit.

 

[tobbelobb]

Good afternoon everyone

I drove a gokart race this weekend, and I won!
And since I have a GoPro now, I uploaded the final on Youtube.
I drove the Production class(basically where they put all the engines that doesn't have their own class), still all the drivers used the Iame X30 engine. I notice some people here are driving Rotax Max, and for comparison the X30 is about as fast as the RMax(I qualified 0.040 faster than the fastest RMax).

Since I'm a noob and can't integrate youtube vids, here's a link:
http://youtu.be/t1lU8g9CiFU
Please check it out

 

[lbsf1]

Raced at the biggest meeting of the year last weekend at blackbushe. I raced in mini because junior had 25 entrants which is a recipe for carnage, so we decided to keep out of it.

First heat, the cable for the ignition switch came out at the end of the first lap, cutting out the engine.

Second heat I started on pole, but was beated to the first corner by both drivers on the other side of the grid, my exhaust came loose at the end of the second lap, the engine was making a loud rasping noise (sounded quite nice actually), I managed to hold on to third, untill 8 laps after it came loose, on the last lap I was given the black flag.

Third heat was quite uneventful, started 4th finished 4th.


The final I started 8th and was up to 4th by the end of the first lap, I was comfortably in that position, untill 6 laps from the end I dipped a wheel onto the grass on the edge of the chicane, did a quick pirrowette, but it was enough to drop 2 places, I carried on pushing, however ran out of laps before I was able to retake the positions.

 

[Hollidog]

First heat, the cable for the ignition switch came out at the end of the first lap, cutting out the engine.

Its the worst when that happens. Are your switches mounted on the underside of your nassau panel? Thats pretty much the only place they can go on my chassis (Arrow) and I think its the same for you assuming the kart in your DP is a Tony Kart. There isn't much you can do to stop them falling out again either other than taping the cables to the back of the nassau panel to take some of the load off of them.

 

[lbsf1]

Its the worst when that happens. Are your switches mounted on the underside of your nassau panel? Thats pretty much the only place they can go on my chassis (Arrow) and I think its the same for you assuming the kart in your DP is a Tony Kart. There isn't much you can do to stop them falling out again either other than taping the cables to the back of the nassau panel to take some of the load off of them.

The reason it came off was because we were adding the camera mount on the nassau panel and it must have knocked it nearly off, so it came off on that first jolt on track, we then pushed it back on and it is nice and tight. A right pain though.

 

[Crushed]

Hey guys, i want to start karting but im not going just get a couple thousand dollar kart without trying it out. The closest course near me is 1.75 hours away and they have 9.5hp karts there, are those even fast or should you may as well go to your local "gokarting" place if your going to ride a 9.5hp kart?

 

[SkateNj]

Yea im sort of in the same position besides the track distance^
How much would it cost to get into Karting? Like CRG kart,gear etc?

 

[gogatrs]

Yea im sort of in the same position besides the track distance^
How much would it cost to get into Karting? Like CRG kart,gear etc?

About $10,000 (USD) if you get everything new.
Which is recommended.

 

[Crushed]

So anyone know if 9.5hp karts are fast?

 

[gogatrs]

So anyone know if 9.5hp karts are fast?

Compared to what?
9.5 HP is about 60 mph I believe assuming that it has all the added weight due to extra bumpers and crap for rentals.

 

[Crushed]

Ok thank you

 

[kenny355]

I'd love to get in to karting properly, but still only being 15, I kinda can't afford it I went karting on my last holiday though, it was brilliant and I was about 3.5 seconds slower than the lap record which isn't bad for my first time in a decently powerful kart (they had 270cc engines if I recall correctly). Maybe it's something to look forward to the future for
EDIT:Here's a link for anyone that's interested, although the karts we drove were different to the ones in the pictures (lower, wider, longer wheelbase, the seats were just plastic molds with no material on them, they lacked a headrest and I can't remember whether they had the wheel guards on or not)

 

[ghskilla]

I see most of the discussion about karting locations is in the UK.

I'm a fairly young avid racing fanatic and I want myself noticed, race in a future of Touring Cars, F1, whatever life gives me. So of course, since I can't drive, I want to race karts, but I have 3 problems: 1) I live in the USA. Karting (besides indoor) isn't too poular here. And if I happen to get noticed, I'll probably end up in NASCAR, or some other American form of racing. 2) I don't have the money, and my parents won't want to invest in a $1,000-$5,000 kart. 3) There's barely any tracks. Indoor is plenty, but I'm serious that I have literally no options for tracks near San Francisco besides Laguna Seca and Infineon for local karting. The rest are either abandoned or used for stock car racing.

Like letsgokarting, I want to find some sort of karting league like that near San Francisco. Do you guys know something like that, which is cheap, easy to go to, and they will provide you with a kart? Thanks

 

[gogatrs]

After much discussion, not with me of course, my Dad has decided that we're gonna move up to seniors next year.
I'm teetering on the weight, and the level of competition is much lower in junior, so we decided to make the move.
This is Rotax by the way.
So I'll finish up this year's club series with a healthy lead in the points standings, then next year I'll do the regional series, as well as very well possibly, a trip to Salt Lake City for the Grand Nationals.
There's also been a few rumors floating around that I'll be on one of the top karting teams in the country next year.
It's looking like it's going to be a busy season and we haven't even gotten done with this one yet!

 

[Dotini]

After much discussion, not with me of course, my Dad has decided that we're gonna move up to seniors next year.
I'm teetering on the weight, and the level of competition is much lower in junior, so we decided to make the move.
This is Rotax by the way.
So I'll finish up this year's club series with a healthy lead in the points standings, then next year I'll do the regional series, as well as very well possibly, a trip to Salt Lake City for the Grand Nationals.
There's also been a few rumors floating around that I'll be on one of the top karting teams in the country next year.
It's looking like it's going to be a busy season and we haven't even gotten done with this one yet!

Congratulations, sir! 👍

When you mention "a trip to Salt Lake City for the Grand Nationals" do you refer to the IKF Grand Nationals, by any chance?

Respectfully,
Steve

 

[lbsf1]

After much discussion, not with me of course, my Dad has decided that we're gonna move up to seniors next year.
I'm teetering on the weight, and the level of competition is much lower in junior, so we decided to make the move.
This is Rotax by the way.
So I'll finish up this year's club series with a healthy lead in the points standings, then next year I'll do the regional series, as well as very well possibly, a trip to Salt Lake City for the Grand Nationals.
There's also been a few rumors floating around that I'll be on one of the top karting teams in the country next year.
It's looking like it's going to be a busy season and we haven't even gotten done with this one yet!

WOW. That is all I have to say.

You have done really well to get yourself that far.

 

[gogatrs]

Congratulations, sir! 👍

When you mention "a trip to Salt Lake City for the Grand Nationals" do you refer to the IKF Grand Nationals, by any chance?

Respectfully,
Steve

Thank you!
By grand nationals I'm referring to the United States Rotax Max Challenge Grand Nationals. Next year will be more so for the experience of going there. The following year we'll go there to win most likely.
But a win next year would be nice!

Also trying to talk my Dad into Daytona Kart Week.
But that'll be difficult, I don't think we have the time or the money, but it's always worth a shot!

 

[nitrorocks]

People Please Add me. I need some karting friends! BTW, who has ran Gatorz in U.S.? AND who runs JR Max? Thanks

 

[gogatrs]

People Please Add me. I need some karting friends! BTW, who has ran Gatorz in U.S.? AND who runs JR Max? Thanks

I'm just finishing up my last season of juniors.
I'm in the northeast though.
I've stopped karting less and less on GT5.
I might have to start back up again with the new and improved deft though.