So, I've been thinking lately that I need to get more seat time. I've also realized that as I've taken on more responsibilities in my personal life (fiance, house, savings, career, etc) that I don't have the budget or space to continue with a track car the way I have been (I'm renting a large 40x40 shop to store the car, trailer, and truck, plus spares, tools, etc). In an effort to continue with my driving career, Ive started looking at getting into the fray with karts. I know its going to take me a season or two to get up to speed with everyone else, plus I could stand to get in a lot better physical shape too.

What I want to know is who among us has raced/still races karts. What are the pros and cons vs. running a competitive w2w car program? Will it make me create bad habits that will affect my s2000 skill set? Does it make financial sense? Entry fees seem to be cheaper, a full set of tires is the same cost as 1 Hoosier, fuel is less, and I can use my daily driver as a tow vehicle vs. keeping a 3/4 diesel around.

Living in Atlanta now, I have a few kart specific facilities with a 4 or 5 hour drive from me.
- Atlanta Motorsports Park
- Lamar County Speedway (road course)
- Carolina Motorsports Park in SC
- GoPro Motorplex in NC
- N. Florida Karting Club in FL
- Monticello Karting in Monticello, FL

A little bit further out, there is:
- New Orleans Motorsport Park
- Ocala Grand Prix in Ocala, FL
- Orlando Kart Center

Those are just the ones I've stumbled upon. So there are a decent amount of places I can run. Seems to be the same sort of travel experience with full road courses (which some kart series run on). The plan is not to be nationally competitive. Id like to start out locally, then move to regional stuff if Im competitive. If Im still competitive (probably not) at the regional level, move on to national level stuff, but this is not the plan.

As a bonus, I cover all of GA, AL, and the panhandle of FL for work, so I can fit some of the regional stuff into my work schedule. Its a lot easier to use your work car to tow your rig and stash a small trailer at the hotel during the week than it is to drive the truck for work and hide a 24' car hauler somewhere for the week.

Thoughts? Experiences?

Thanks for all your help.

aCab

 

Chonda or Tag karting helps tremendously when translating to road course. I used to kart quite a bit, both indoor and some outdoor. Gas karts all the way as electric karts do not behave like cars. I'm looking to buy a Chonda and race with it, they're cheap, reliable and the field is typically stacked and very competitive. I was compare Chonda class to Spec Miata and Tag class to something more powerful such as C5s. You pull more lateral Gs in a kart, so the more you're in that +1.8G zone the more you can really drive a car on the track with the confidence when using slip angles.

 

Austin, Facebook or text Bryan. He used to basically do pro level karting. I'm sure he has lots of cost data, and he's still friends with the guy who is the US distributor for PCR karts/owner of Checkered motorsports.

 

I love my S2000 but it does not come close to the feel of a kart on a road course. I race laydown karts (aka road race) mostly in the Midwest but I usually venture out to some of the bigger events such as the WKA Grand Nationals (usually at VIR or Mid Ohio). It's funny because I have a FI S2000 and I am getting it ready for some track days and autocross this year. There are pros and cons to both types of racing but from what I see, if I want good wheel to wheel racing, karting is the way to go. These are some of the reasons why I like kart road racing (some of which you have pointed out): much less money, pure driving, racing at its simplest form, lots of competition, tires are cheap, everything fits into a small garage, small trailer, small tow vehicle (company SUV for me ) it's safe (400lb kart & driver at 1" off the ground has much less inertia on off-track excursions, you can easily get in 2-4 races in a weekend (45min races) plus 2-4 hours practice each day. That's a lot of track time. Entry fees are generally $75-$90/race. Check out ekarting news.com for tons of info. If you go to Atlanta Motorsports Park, talk to Jim Fry. He works there now and has raced karts for years with his sons. He would be wealth of info for you. Feel free to PM me if you want to get my contact info. Hope this helps!
Chris Larson

 

Rick, thanks for the heads up on Bryan. I didn't realize he had done karting too. I messaged him on FB just a bit ago. Let me know when you guys are down this way. Ill be running a few TT events this year while instructing with NASA. Not sure how serious I will get, but itll be something to fill the weekends up for me.

Chris, thank you for confirming my suspicions. While I'm not currently planning on running Road Course (would rather stick to sprint karting for now), its definitely an area that I am interested in. Im currently looking at a Rotax or LO206 setup. Im not looking for outright speed, Im looking for good w2w action at an entry price that I can drag my interested friends into as well. It seems LO206 would fill that range pretty good. I'm on ekartingnews a lot and have sen where they have raved about LO206, so once I found out if those fields are of a decent size here in the SE, I may pull the trigger.

Ive been to AMP for their rental karts which were fun, but havent gone up for a race day at the kart track yet. When I do, Ill try to seek Jim out. I'll send you a PM once Ive done a little more research and can speak a little more informed.

Thanks,

Austin

 

Sounds good Austin. Jim and his sons (one of them is/was the team manager for the Pickett Racing Muscle Milk car) recently retired from road racing after many years. He would be a great resource for you on whatever you decide to do. You are definitely on the right track as far as checking out the local scene. Sprint racing is fun and I did that as a kid growing up. After I tried road racing, I did both for a number of years but I quickly realized that road racing had what I was looking for. There is a huge difference in the culture between road racing and sprint racing. As you would expect, sprint racing is very aggressive and push push. Road racing is the opposite. Believe me, there is plenty of wheel to wheel in road racing but with 20-45 min (depending on class) races, you have plenty of time to make a safe pass. Bump & runs are not tolerated. More driver etiquette and respect IMO. Generally a strong camaraderie too. My advice would be to get a motor package that you can do both (just change the gear) so you have easy options to venture over to VIR, Daytona, Summitt, Road Atlanta (if we can get it back), and Barber. Check out the WKA Road Racing results pages (since this is the active org in your area) to see what classes are being ran. I don't think they are running the LO206 but they are running the Briggs Animal in quite a few classes. Not sure on the Rotax. Sorry, but I don't follow the sit up karts much when I venture out to the WKA grands. Hope this helps. I am off the the garage now to weld up my upper control arm brackets on my S.

 

When we were at AMP for chump, he went over and took a rental cart out. He ran 4 laps. The last 3 were within .1 or .2 of each other. I don't remember the exact times. however I asked the guy running the place what a really good time was. Bryan was like 3 seconds faster than that. I was like

I think the furthest south were gonna get this year is VIR. We're gonna do the 24 hour race there August 7-9. I might (big maybe) do nationals there too. Just have to see if I can get the days off work. Hope to catch up soon

 

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