Little about me: I was racing locally in 90s, then I was doing some racing in 2003-2004 (TaG, Shifters). I have good understanding of basics, totally capable and willing to do any/all mechanical work myself.
After a big break, I want to get back into local racing. Mainly to get my son doing it (he just turned 10) but I want some fun too.
For my son - I am taking him to arrive and drive classes/coaching to see if there is interest. Looks like yes. So we going to proceed with all equipment purchases.
Because of our local track rules and classes I made a decision to run Ignite karts. Will be K2 for my son (LO206) and K3/100 with ROK 100 for me. It’s both sealed engine classes. Financially I am better prepared now vs when I did it being young.
I looked at used offerings but because of nature of a class, used equipment prices not that different to really consider. At least for me. 2k discount will get you well-ridden one. And low use karts are like 1k or less discount in price which to me doesn’t make sense.
I still need to figure out some logistics (transportation mainly).
This is list I came up with with some rough prices and budget for 2026
Does anything look wrong or missing or not needed? Feel free to comment on that.
I’m curious why you chose the Ignite class? My concern would be that the Margay Chassis hasn’t shown much success racing in open 206 classes against other manufacturers.
If you only intend to run Ignite, then that’s probably a good way to enter the sport.
One thing is to “kind of know” what it takes, another thing is to write it down. Because I though it will be 20k, now it looks like 30k. And I am sure I am missing stuff.
Why Margay. Well, guess where I live.. At our track it’s all Ignite, and we don’t have other brands vendors. Yes, there is open classes with LO206, but nothing in 100. So, for my son he can compete in Ignite and in Supercomp, get more seat time by running same kart (different tire). In 2 stroke I can only compete in Ignite 100, not other classes.
There is TaG 60 for his age, where you can run different chassis but I don’t want to overcomplicate and for him being new it doesn’t matter.
Margay wouldn’t be my 1st choice, but at this point it’s kind of easy actually. Not much choice, and no fiddling with engines. Everybody runs the same. Easy, cheap. And because this is Ignite, all chassis are the same, 2020 or 2025, hence prices for used.
$3000 coaching is arbitrary number. I just figure I will use local team support for coaching my son as much as we can.
I want to do practices during a week (testing days) and do single race days (no Saturdays).
Do I want to race for the first year? Sure, why not. As I mentioned we plan to do lot’s of test days, and race entries are not that expensive afterall. But it will be more fun and more intentional.
Are we going to be competitive? Probably not, but hey, this is part of a deal, to practice, observe, get better. Simply getting lap times there not going to help when you drive in a pack.
