Category Archives: Beginners Guides

My first obstacle

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The second purchase of my (our!) karting career – a 5’x3′ Franc trailer with jockey wheel (uber-important when you will be dragging a kart around on top of it), cover and spare wheel. I’d been looking at trailers on eBay, Gumtree, Preloved and Trade-It but found this one was still for sale on the Karting1 forum having initially discounted it. A steal at £225 🙂

trailer

Towing was a really big obstacle for me – everything about towing (towing capacity, trailer gross weight, weight distribution, noseweight, hitchlocks) was alien to me until now. The trailer was further away than I was really hoping to travel and it would be fair to say I was in fear of towing a trailer up the M4. My fears were unfounded and, although it bounced around a bit and I was overtaken by lorries (including six artics!) for the first time *ever* as I tiptoed down the A34, it all well very smoothly and I held my own on the motorway 😉

With the limitation of towing behind a Clio, I was very keen to get a fairly lightweight trailer that would fit inside my (hitherto full of junk) garage and obviously the smaller ones are cheaper. A kart measures roughly 6′ x 4.5′ so I was keen to go for a 5’x3′ trailer and not a cheaper 4’x2.5′. My inspiration came from this Flickr image. I have my 12″ thick 6’x4′ ply sheet and some timber to make a frame; the plan is to sit the kart on top and ratchet strap it down.

Some alternative ideas that were discounted (the left image looks the part but has no cover for the trailer contents, the right uses a 7’x4′ trailer – a little large for car and garage):

9028tn_Dax 218 kart

Total spent so far: £490 (towbar, trailer, ply sheet, timber) – £10 under budget!!!

The Three Big Questions #3: How much does karting cost?

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So your son is going to love it and you’ve decided you are up to the challenge so now it’s all down to the money – how much will this all cost? Unsurprisingly, it really depends upon how seriously you are going to take it and how much you are willing to spend (it will use up whatever budget you have and then some!). The up front costs are more visible, it’s the ongoing costs that mount up. To start with you need to decide on a class – Junior TKM is generally accepted to be cheaper than the Junior and Mini Rotax classes (there is plenty of discussion to be found on which class is preferred and Spellfame’s overview of the various karting classes is very informative) although it may boil down to what is popular at your local track. You must then set your budget for your kart – will you opt for a complete starter package or are you going to buy a rolling chassis and build up the kart from there? Then there are the things that you will need to have when you arrive at the track for the first time – tools, racewear, fuel and we haven’t gotten to the maintenance side of things yet!

I was aiming very much at the entry level; I have friends who bought karts for their sons at the same time but whose budget was up to three times the size of mine! Here is the list of items that figured in my karting costs spreadsheet along with the costs I factored in, obviously you may not need all of this…

Initial costs:
Kart – complete Junior TKM kart and a decent spares package* (£1,000)
Towing – towbar fitted, camping-style trailer (£500)
Racewear – racesuit (£100), rainsuit (£20), rib protector (optional – £60), neck brace (optional – £30), CMR 2007 certified helmet for MSA racing (£150-£400)
Track membership – Clay Pigeon offer members £5 off every practice session (£35)
ARKS pack – only necessary if MSA racing (£50)
ARKS license test – only necessary if MSA racing (£90)

Karting costs:
Practice day – £40 per day
Race day – £47 per day
Transponder hire (if racing and don’t own one) – £10 hire per day

Consumables:
Race slick tyres** (3-4 race days per set) – £130 per set
Race wet tyres** (1-2 sets per year) – £130 per set
Chains – £20 each
Sprockets – £15 each
Fuel (~5 litres per day @ 135p/ltr + oil) – £8 per day
Petrol to get to track (2 gallons per trip) – £12

Maintenance:
Engine rebuild (every 8-12 hours) – £250-£340 depending upon who
Carburettor clean (every 3 sessions) – £15

* Make sure you get a trolley, preferably spare tyres/rims, sprockets, chains, a seat that fits and any spare body/chassis bits you can!
** Whilst your son is getting up to speed, he won’t be wearing the tyres out as quickly

The Three Big Questions #2: Is this for me?

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Probably the biggest barrier to buying a kart was concern over whether the Dad/Mechanic role was really for me. Walking around the paddock area and watching the Dads busily tinkering between every session really made me doubt whether I would a) be able to do it and b) enjoy doing it. I’ve never been mechanically minded; I didn’t really know how an engine worked; what a piston did, or a carb, crankshaft – you get the idea. I spent a lot of hours reading forums such as those found on the karting1.co.uk and karting.co.uk, as well as collecting strange looks from my other half as I watched YouTube videos such as ‘How A Carburetor Works‘! In the end I concluded that, whilst kart maintenance was something definitely out of my comfort zone, I was going to go with it – hopefully I’ll pick enough of it up to get by in the first few months.

As it turned out, there was a second part to this role I had not foreseen – transporting the kart!!! I own a Clio and changing cars was definitely not something I was prepared to do. Obviously if you have a van or a nice 4×4 then this might not be an issue for you but I *really* did not fancy the idea of towing. I looked around for lightweight options and quickly realised that trailers like this weren’t going to be in the running and it was only when someone recommended the camping trailer and board approach that I became more open to the possibility of towing. It still feared me with dread – what with the kerb weights, towing weights, noseweights (there’s a great resource to be found on the National Trailer & Towing Association web site if you want to find out more).

I wasn’t overly convinced about maintenance or towing and my clearance of this hurdle was more of a slump over than a jump but never mind – onto the last question…

The Three Big Questions #1: Will my son enjoy karting?

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So your son (or daughter for that matter) has done the arrive/drive thing and you’re thinking about buying your own kart? Before taking the plunge and sinking not an insignificant amount of money into karting you need to be absolutely certain that this is the right thing for you both. To this end there are three questions to which you need to be able to answer ‘YES’. The first:

Will my son enjoy karting?

Assuming you’ve some arrive/drive experience (if not then look for something like Teamsport’s excellent Half-Term Karting events – I can’t recommend these highly enough as a first place to kart) then you really need to get yourself to a track and watch a race or practice day. There is a *huge* difference in performance so it’s a good place to gauge not only what you both think of the speed difference but also what else goes on in the background (more on this later). If you like what you see then contact the local karting club to see if they stage open days where potential new members can try out the different classes of kart. This really is the best way to determine whether or not your son is going to enjoy karting. Our first time was a bit of a mixed bag (early spin = loss of confidence) so we rented a kart from a friend and did a practice day a few weeks later: he was a rolling road block at times but absolutely loved it and didn’t take anybody else out.

Question 1 = answered 🙂