I’m anxious to see what Ethan says, but my guess is a volunteer led club and a private owned track by someone who loves racing. Its like a glimpse into the past! I love it and am thankful for it. G&J is where I will be spending my free weekends this summer.
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Privately owned track and a not-for-profit club that’s run by a board and volunteers.
Obviously, there are positives and negatives to that model. No one does this as a full time job and volunteers do it for the love of the sport.
Those are unreal rates. Kudos to both organizations for pulling that off.
We have 2 true clubs nearby (3 hours…lol) Heart of Texas Kart Club and North Texas Karters:
HOTKC
$300 annual family membership
$40 member entry fee ($60 for non-members)
$10 non-driver gate fee
Free practice
Free parking
First come/first serve covered pit stalls
Evinco tires (lines up with all other clubs and regionals in our area)
So $70 for me and my son to get in and race as non-members, not a bad deal. Unfortunately they are 206 heavy with no real KA field. Love racing with these guys though. Great atmosphere.
NTK
$395 per year local / $280 for out of town (we are in that camp)
$55 member entry ($85 non-member)
$10 arm band (driver and spectator)
Free practice
Free parking
Also evinco tires, like everyone else in our region
Reserved/paid spots on most of pit runner
10-20 first come/first serve spots at end of pit runner
Paid trailer parking/storage available
So $105 as non-member for me and my son to get in to race, but we will be stuck pitting in the grass on a busy weekend. When we were members we would arrive early and grab a free pit runner spot. Dropped membership due to weak KA field.
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Forgot to mention that all day practice at our home track, G&J Kartway, is $20.
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SIRA is about as low as we can go while having to pay some type of facility or venue rental as well as renting a semi-load or two of a barriers for a 2-day event.
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Karting is still the cheapest and most accessable option in motorsports.
If you are club racing locally on the LO206 platform as an example, I think most folks would agree that is a very affordable way to go racing. Yes it still costs money. Welcome to racing 
If you are talking about trying to be competitive at the national level, then that is a much different story and yes, I would agree the “average” person has been priced out of that environment.
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This is a big point I think a lot of people miss. Karting is hard fought wheel-to-wheel racing at a lower price point than what your average Auto-X or HPDE participant is paying.
We’ve seen several members join up in the past few years who came to us from those worlds because buying new tires/brake pads/fluids/etc for full-sized vehicles is an even HIGHER cost, and often you aren’t even “racing” head to head.
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Coming from the HPDE world to karting, I found that my overall spending was roughly the same, but I could get way more seat time and frequency in karting. My experience was about 4-6 weekends of HPDE was equal to up to 14-16 weekends of mixed racing/practice in karting. Or as TJ has said many times….you will spend whatever you have in the budget. Karting just allows that budget to go much further than cars.
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The annoying thing I find is people rarely compare 1:1 with karts. it’s often “I did a season of spec-Miata less than (insert some top-level kart series)”.
When you compare like for like karting is almost always much less expensive.
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That is interesting that Karting is similar pricing to HPDE’s. I was averaging $550 Entry Fee, $200 (I factor in oils, tire wear, brakes, insurance) in consumables, $80 in fuel $700-$800 per weekend, this is without trailering. Road Racing in Karting at the same track $550 is the high end because you run as many classes I want but typically I run 2 which is close to 2 hours. Consumables on the high end $80 (I factor clutch wear, tires, sprockets, drivers, oil) Fuel $20, cheaper if I run 4cycle. Totaling $650. I use a free small trailer that does not affect MPG.
Autocrossing Vs. Sprint Kart racing
Autocross, consumables are $25-$40, entry fee $60, Total $85-$100 time on track 2-3 minutes
Sprint Kart racing consumables are $10-25, Entry $60, Total $70-$85. Time on track, 7 minute practice, 9 minute qualifying, 13 minute heat, 17 minute final. 46 minutes total. Even if you double it $170 is cheaper than HPDE.
I see a gap in expenses and cost when comparing Autocross and HPDE to karting. In addition, it’s apple to oranges when considering w2w racing, there is a huge gap between car vs karting.
I don’t think it matters what other forms of Motorsport cost. They’re different. Hill climbing has to be terrible for track time but people do it. Moto-x is interesting because it seems to have been able to stay away from needlessly high costs, not because it’s cheaper/more expensive overall.
The top levels of karting can be as cheap or as expensive as the market can sustain. Karting’s problem is that, in the UK at least, the hobbyist end of the market has been pushed to the fringes, rather than being the core of the sport.
I think the costs have undeniably increased over and above inflation, much of those costs are arbitrarily imposed on karters and a bunch are a straight ripoff. Whether that’s ultimately responsible for the drop in numbers, I doubt it. But it definitely means less people can afford it now, even if we could convince them to do it.
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I agree with David. No one is saying karting is not the best bang for your buck. It absolutely is the best and gives you the best wheel to wheel experience. There is no denying that.
Joking
For what its worth, drag racing is only 10 seconds of seat time and every Saturday night drag strip I have ever been to is busting at the seems with cars and drivers.
Trackhouse Motorplex:
No required “membership” fee, but practice rates:
Sunday – Thursday day pass $50. Friday and Saturday day pass is $70. Kid kart day passes $25.
Memberships allow unlimited practice (pending track availability)
- Annual Individual Plex Pass: $1,200/year
- Annual Family Plex Pass: $2,000/year (up to 3 family members)
- Annual Family Plex Pass: $2,600/year (up to 4 family members)
- Annual Family Plex Pass: $3,150/year (up to 5 family members)
Race Fees:
$50 Annual Number Reservation Fee
$90 entry (10% off with Plex Pass)
$10 arm band (driver and spectator)
Free parking outside gate
MG Reds for most classes, MG Yellow X30
Reserved/paid spots on most of parking lot
Paid trailer parking/storage available
KART SHOP ON SITE - big bonus, and relatively reasonable pricing.
Every race here is a mini-national due to proximity of NASCAR families (and budgets) and world-class facility draws from wide area. I suspect with consumables, and fresh tires every race (you’d better have 'em) that a weekend here is around $300-400 including all food, etc. with no damage. If you’re willing to gamble on tires and settle with a midpack engine / carb for KA, and pack your own food, probably escape for $200.
I don’t think HPDE is similar in pricing to karting. My point was I spent the same, but got 3x more weekends in karting than cars.
I was doing all of my own mechanical work on cars and bartering for fab work that needed done, but even pinching pennies and going to our home track where I didn’t need a hotel it was still around $1k a weekend in cars. I’m guessing in the 5 years since I’ve gone back it’s gone up as well.
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I think this has been mentioned on this thread, but I’ll bring it up again. Like most types of racing, there are many levels to it, and each level comes with an additional cost. For karting, unfortunately, the highest level is what most new people see first, via Kart Chaser/Youtube. Less than 10% of the karting community compete in those events.
You absolutely can race at a local club with a $2500 initial investment and a yearly budget less than $2000. I did it for years. However, as soon as you start moving up the ranks into regional/national racing, the cost multiplies QUICKLY!
Similarly, I have been investigating Spec Miata. Newly built racecars are $40-80K. Used cars can be found for $8000. Some racers run new tires every event at $1100 a set, some racer buy used tires for $300.
At the end of the day, karting is what you make of it, and it can be fun on almost any budget.
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it should be noted that top level racing comes with professional opportunity, or in theory, should. This aspect is often missed out. Joe Turney for example isn’t spending 250k a year.
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I want to explore this for a second, because I genuinely am not sure if this the case or not, and it’s an important question to answer to keep Club karting going.
Is Kart Chaser “big enough” that the average midwestern suburbanite is stumbling across it on their YouTube recommendations and getting their kids into karting that way? I field 2-3 messages a month from people messaging the OVKA pages to ask “I want to get my kid into karting, how do I start?” and I’m able to point them to our guide at How to get started - www.OVKA.com - Ohio Valley Karting Association , but I’m never exactly clear on how and why they found us specifically and I need to start asking to understand.
Do they stumble on karting videos and Google “go-kart racing” or are they searching “how to start racing cars” or similar? Do their kids come across racing videos and drive the search? What’s the most common process?
Luckily @Ethan_Bokeno and I are hosting the Into to karting seminar at our Swap Meet next weekend and we have ~20 new people registered for the talk already, so I’ll make a point to ask the class how they found us this year.
It’s always hard to find out how people found you. When I ran my business, I would ask new people how they found me. Their response was either “they Internet” or a referral. “The Internet” is always too vague to determine the true root.
And I am NOT bashing Kart Chaser! I’m a fully paid monthly member of theirs. I just wish there was a way to point the YouTube spotlight on more club level karting. My algorithm is too karting centric to do any of my own investigating into what a google or YouTube search would provide.
You guys do a great job with your How To and your swap meet. Both things Badger Kart club should propbably work on. But, there’s only so many volunteers and so much time . . .
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I agree with your assessment in general, but don’t forget that Kart Chaser covered Whiteland and MCC club events this year as well. The savvy clubs out there looking to attract more people might follow that lead if they are invested in growing their clubs.
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I don’t think Kart Chaser grows either one of those clubs, though. I know my kid karter’s grandparents were very thankful for being able to see their grandson, but I haven’t seen any new people come in that saw it on youtube.