Fortunately Junior’s hand is now fine after carelessly leaving it in between his steering wheel and an adult in a Rotax at the weekend! The steering wheel was pretty badly twisted and, with a new Tonykart steering wheel costing in the region of £150, we were always going to be looking at a used replacement.

I have always (I say always, I’ve only been in the sport for four months) been a fan of the steering wheels that allow the Mychron to fix flush to the wheel’s surface. Although Junior wears a Ribtec – it seems desirable from a safety point of view to have the Mychron sunken into the wheel if possible. There are several options in this respect – mostly manufactured by AiM and all demanding a premium on top of the standard OTK wheel so it was quite timely that I had seen one of the C-K-R F1-style wheels come up on the one of the forums the day before Junior’s accident. Aside from looking fairly cool (especially to a teenager), one of the nice things about this type of wheel is that is flat on top and potentially would allow Junior to see a little bit easier (his view over the wheel and nassau isn’t great at the best of times).

I got some pics from the seller: alarm bells ring when the pic is small and blurred – the only thing clear was that the wheel was not in A1 condition. Some of the carbon fibre paint effect was scratched off and it wasn’t being supplied with any of the accessories or even the steering wheel bolts. He wasn’t really answering my fairly explicit questions either but I took a punt figuring that I would be able to get my money back if I wasn’t pleased with the purchase. We struck a deal and the wheel arrived today (Mychron not included!):

You can see where the paint is coming off beneath the switches and it turns out that the one of the pins has snapped off the back of the starter button – good job we’re running in TKM! Now I just need to get a 3-hole steering boss and we can actually see how Junior thinks it compares with the original OTK wheel…

Cost of wheel: £50

Total spent so far: £2,422