Kart Life on TruTV

I have had very good experience with the karters I have met but I also only meet the die hards that show up to practice on off weekends(when they allow bikes).

 

Is karting really a cubic dollar thing for the kids? With a boy on the way I thought maybe thats the path I'd open up to him. However if its us vs the Rockefeller's in a money fight we may as well not bother.

 

It's racing. It's always you against the Rockefellers, unless it's just for fun. Then you can bargain basement a season for about 5-7k including buying a used kart.

 

It depends on what level you want to race at when it comes to how much money is spent.

During the early years, 4 to 6 years old, it's dirt cheap. One set of tires on a kid kart will last more than a season, they'll harden before they wear. The Comer 50 engine or Briggs LO206 engine is bulletproof, and mods are illegal. At that age, all you really care about is getting them to stand on the throttle and have fun, lines and racecraft come later.

After that stage, you decide which engine package to go with, whatever is locally popular is the best bet, and start spending some money. If you are winning everything locally, travel to other tracks and run their series. Eventually you'll find another fast kid to race with and develop that racecraft. If things still seem easy, there's National competition, where you'll have to either really know how to set up a chassis, or pay someone who does to work for you at the track.

At around 9 or 10, if you're racing Nationally, you'll start spending $500 to $1000 a weekend to run up front, including some regular crash damage, tires, and fuel. Oh yeah, fuel, when it's spec, it's expensive, $10+ a gallon for 93 unleaded...

12 to 15 is when you'll find out if you have a special racer, or you have a good hobby. Local racing isn't usually too expensive, but the big series are like trying to show up at an AMA race. You can do it on the cheap, but podiums are for teams that spot on everytime they hit the track.

My day started before dawn, and ending long after sunset working nearly non-stop on just one kart to keep up with the air and track conditions. That was with a chassis tuner watching the kart on track and giving me guidance on what chassis/wheel changes to make. Unmounting tires, mounting them on different wheels, flipping the tires, and scraping them after nearly every track session is almost a full-time job itself. Racing locally, you usually don't work nearly that hard.

It took me most of a season with motorcycles to get used to not having to disassemble and check everything after every track session, if you think it will be like racing bikes or cars, you're sadly mistaken.

All that said, it's awesome racing. Kids aren't afraid, and they learn really fast. My kid moved on to cars last year, I just signed up to mechanic for the grandson (5 years old) of the chassis tuner who took car of Jesse and I for the last 10 years.

If you want to race with the Fittipaldi's, Andretti's, Sargents, the NASCAR families, you'll spend as much money as you're able to spend. If you want to race at a single track with the same club every two weeks, it will cost a lot less, less than a WERA weekend for most people.

 

Has same smell as SS paddock

 

When I was racing karts I was out there with a young Shane Hall and Jason Keller who went on to do some NASCAR stuff I think. I can't remember which one of them showed up with a full on machine shop in their rig so they could build or fix whatever they needed there at the track. I can't even imaging what it is like now.

-steve

 

Last night I saw 1/2 an episode and plan to record a few more. On the one hand, I am psyched to see kids karting on TV. On the other hand, I have a feeling it's going to be ruined by your typical reality show manufactured drama, which sucks, because most all the "real" car and motorcycle people I know hate that fake crap and wish there was just more better coverage of all motorsports.

 

Did you read the posts?

 

Yes. But reading other people's opinions doesn't preclude me from making my own judgements.