General Idiots guide

[Matthew Farnell]

Afternoon all, I am looking to get into kart racing, just for fun. What kart is best to start with ? there are so many different types and names and as the title suggest I'll need the idiot guide.

All help is gratefully received.

Matt

 

[Adam]

Hey Matt, welcome to the forum!

Do you have any experience with motorsport or karting in general at all?

There are several routes you can take. Stay with corporate/rental Karting at your local circuits is a good starter. You'll find they will run their own championships etc. Then you can up the game to maybe something like Club 100, arrive and drive with the kart supplied still but I would only assume a bit more serious and competitive. These range from say £75 per round on corporate or maybe £200 upwards for something bit more serious like Club 100.

From there you kinda take the jump into owner driver meetings and test days. A lot more competitive and you will have to supply alllllll your own kit. You could stay at club level and progress if you feel the need to. For this I would suggest going to your local track and seeing what popular engine choices the current senior classes run. More than likely you'll find either Rotax or X30.

For owner driver Karting I would say you'll need 3-4k worth of kit plus means of transport. Popular chassis include OTK (Tony Kart), BiralArt, CompKart, etc etc. Kosmic, Tony, Redspeed, Exprit etc are all part of the OTK brand.

The next question is weight. Gross weights for Rotax seniors is either 162 or 177. My OTK weighs in at around 88kg fuelled and I wight about 106kg. So no chance in 162 for me to be competitive. We are some what competitive atm in 177. Need to loose more weight tbh.

Edit: All that being said, all of the above refers to good competitive club racing. If you want to have a really restricted budget you can get an older setup and have some fun on test days. And also dip your toes into a few club races Kart being compliant to current regs.