A thought about getting started in karting for the easily confused

I was on another forum reading a post when it occurred to me that the one resource we don’t have on KP or anywhere else that I know of is a sort of directory for the “I want to get karting but don’t know where to begin” question.

My particular journey down this path involved: googling kart racing, deducing that something called the f-series occurs in my state, that it runs at two tracks near me, and then proceeding to be baffled by their websites.

Without getting too wordy, what we need is a resource that you can point someone to that will get them into a rental performance kart, on a real track, near them. In addition to renting karts they should be able to answer all the basic questions about getting started, who to talk to etc.

As far as I can tell, there are no “shops” that you can pop into that will gladly sell you a kart and point you to the nearest track and club races. At least not around here. It all seems to be online retailers or karters selling stuff to other karters via word of mouth or classifieds.

So in my case, after much noodling of the Internet, I deduced that the local arrive and drive organization also rents TAG karts. I hooked up with them, which got me into a rental kart, into discussion with the guy who runs the local version of the f series, and ultimately an intro to John from compkart who I’ll be buying my karts from and will likely be a good resource for me and nick as we start racing next season. His partner Jerry will most likely do all the wrenching and logistics etc we need. It sounds simple but it took me a while to figure it out.

If someone had simply said, “Hey talk to Keith at Full tilt racing. He rents and sells tag karts and can answer questions about getting started.” That would have made life a lot easier.

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It’s interesting, because James and I have gone back and forth on a few of those ideas for a little while. Most of it comes down to having any extra funds to build something on KP/make it look nicer. (People should buy more hats. jk )

We have (tracks.kartpulse.com) which serves as a track directory, and we have a good number of getting started articles around the main site. I think that the real thing is if someone was to make a wiki/guide like that, would be to be comprehensive, so that people got the idea for how to get started with sprint/road/dirt karting.

@Eric_Gunderson1’s book, Karting 101, does a pretty good job at that, for example.

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@Bimodal_Rocket From what I’ve seen in the industry, what you are experiencing is actually abnormal. At least in most places where there is a kart shop somewhat close, there is usually ‘that guy’ that knows a lot about the sport that can walk you through things.

Locally, I’m trying to corral and organize this a little bit better. I envision ‘karting ambassadors’ that would represent the local area’s karting industry as a whole, and be willing to answer basic questions, meet people at the track, etc.