Karting question - anyone with experience?

[NobleLord]

At the ripe old age of 40, I'm tempted to buy a go kart and go and have some fun I know very little about karts having only done a few corporate days. I'm not interested in racing them at this stage; I just want something VERY fast to go and play with. So:

What would would you recommend?
Can you turn up and use outdoor karting circuits for practice?

I've done a couple of days at the Thruxton outdoor circuit and have driven zip karts and some twin engined Honda thing years ago. I remember someone telling me about karts that can top 100 mph... Is this really the case?

Thanks,
NL

[nick997]

VERY fast would be 125 gearbox. Don't buy one of these as your first kart though, would be a very steep learning curve. Try a rotax max, loads available, loads of places to get the engines serviced, lots of people to race against if you decide to do that later. Try Club 100 if you want to have a go without buying one, do one of their test days.

Turn up and drive generally means doing your ARKS test, not exclusively so but will open more options for you. As I say, Club 100 is your best bet for a toe in the water, run by good people and uses decent enough equipment.

[scoobydude]

NobleLord said:

At the ripe old age of 40, I'm tempted to buy a go kart and go and have some fun I know very little about karts having only done a few corporate days. I'm not interested in racing them at this stage; I just want something VERY fast to go and play with. So:

What would would you recommend?
Can you turn up and use outdoor karting circuits for practice?

I've done a couple of days at the Thruxton outdoor circuit and have driven zip karts and some twin engined Honda thing years ago. I remember someone telling me about karts that can top 100 mph... Is this really the case?

Thanks,
NL

If you really want to scare yourself stless build or buy a 250 gearbox. If you want to to O/D (owner driver) but don't want to bankrupt yourself, give Easykart a crack. It's kind of like a one make series for Karts. The Easykart organisation do all the race prep transport and storage of the kart for a smallish fee, it's a low hassle option for getting into O/D karting. If you want half serious arrive and drive you could try Dmax with Daytona or Club 100 arrive and drive.

[jimbobs]

Here's another vote for Club 100 - the best way to dip your toe into the world of two-stroke karting without having to buy a kart. My recommendation would be to book yourself onto one of their test days. Compared to chugga-chugga corporate karts, I guarantee that you'll be amazed!

[lewis1]

as you said you dont want to race yet, get yourself a rotax max kart or a tkm extreme. look on www.karting.co.uk for a retirement sale and you will be on your way. Club 100 and Easykart is ok but if you want a proper kart experience buy your own.
if you need any help pm me. Iv driven rotax and club 100 etc so il do my best to help

[NewMetalSystem]

You don't want a TKM - if you spin off and stall, restarting it by yourself is near impossible. They're also notoriously hard to handle.
Formula Blue and Rotax are the other two 'main' ones. Rotax are the faster of the two, although there's not much in it, and also the most expensive. Both use button starts - so it's a lot simpler than the TKM - and, when limited, can reach in excess of 60mph. They can go quicker, but you'd need to remove the limiter and take it to a used air strip to get the full force

[RobM77]

jimbobs said:

Here's another vote for Club 100 - the best way to dip your toe into the world of two-stroke karting without having to buy a kart. My recommendation would be to book yourself onto one of their test days. Compared to chugga-chugga corporate karts, I guarantee that you'll be amazed!

Give it a shot. A friend of mine raced in Club 100 and loved it.

By the way, how did you fair at Thruxton? I went on Friday and I have a fleshy hole in my hand, my back's all bruised and my hips are a nice shade of purple Great place though.

[Regional]

Starting a TKM is easy when engine is warm, pick it up, throw it down the circuit and chase after it when it fired and takes off because you have the tickover too high, lol.

I've never done it, honest.

It doesnt get much simpler with TKM, more things to break on a Rotax.

[americancrx]

You want a TKM Extreme 115, or if you really want a TaG kart an Easykart.

It's a lot easier to start a direct drive kart than it is to haul an electric starter to the grid and push it away, or troubleshoot the awful contraptions that start TaG/Rotax karts. Just run alongside it till it starts, jump in, and nail it.

The driving experience is also a lot better. A Rotax Max is dead until the powervalve opens at 7500 RPM, then it blasts off like the Space Shuttle, right till 12500 where the ignition cuts out, then you slowly roll up to 14000. Any other two-stroke kart pulls hard off the bottom and revs to the sky.

[americancrx]

Oh, and welcome to the sport. It will eat money and time steadily but not greedily. You will have more fun driving than you could ever dream of in a road car.

[sperminator]

americancrx said:

You want a TKM Extreme 115, or if you really want a TaG kart an Easykart.

It's a lot easier to start a direct drive kart than it is to haul an electric starter to the grid and push it away, or troubleshoot the awful contraptions that start TaG/Rotax karts. Just run alongside it till it starts, jump in, and nail it.

Bobsleigh starts are frowned upon by most circuits these days. C100 karts are Birel N35 chassis with 115 cc 2 stroke engines and are direct drive. This means they are a lot of fun if you spin / crash and stall. You have to wait for the pusher karts to roll up and give you a start. It's fun fun fun.

[crofty1984]

I got a kart for the same reason as you, it had direct drive, in the end we ended up P/Xing the engine for a rotax push-button one. Very expensive mistake. It's ok if you're a 110% dedicated driver and that's all you spend your time doing, but to turn up and just have a play it's a pain in the arse.

[Regional]

When you've been fired off by some nice person it's pretty easy to do the bobsleigh start, the adrenaline turns you into superman, lol.

Mind you, i've been pulling out of the dummy grid and a driverless kart has came past me flat chat and stoved into race control, took them a good hour to extract it, lol.