My Karting Journey and Next Step with Parolin

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I figure I’ll share an exciting development in my karting career now that the season has wrapped up!

I’ve been karting for about 20 years now, and finally deciding to take the next step in getting even more involved in it. I started karting in the KT100 Junior Sportsman and Junior Supercan classes in the midwest at Norway Motorsports Park (previously known as Norway and Concept Haulers Motor Speedway) and did some WKA here and there in the HPV classes. I got my a$$ kicked by @tjkoyen a few times, which was fun. Funny story but it was only in my last season that I realized I had my seat position way off and that was seriously dragging my times down (information was much less readily available 15-20 years ago. Where were you KartPulse?? :frowning: ) There was a bit of a hiatus for college but I was always following the sport in a number of ways. This season I ran the STARS series, which was awesome, and I didn’t expect to have as good of results as I did, but it leaves me wanting to do a few things:

  1. Do Supernats 28. Supernats has always been on my bucket list, and I want to finally do it next year. I actually think we should do a KartPulse tent - why have we not done this??
  2. Really contribute to my local series. STARS is fun and I’d like to run that or USPKS or a similar series in the future, but growing my local series would be a great experience and require less travel throughout the year. I already travel enough for work :stuck_out_tongue:
  3. Continue the coaching that I’ve done more regularly toward the end of this season.

My method of doing that is to become a Parolin kart dealer, which I’ve now got my business all set up for, and now accepting orders actually (shameless plug, sorry). I generally feel like the initial barrier to entry is high in karting, and I’m hoping to lower it by helping to expand a great product at a heavily reduced price (see at GoldTune.net). If you’re unfamiliar, Parolin makes plenty of karts branded under different names (see this post: Who Makes What (2022))

Part of the issue I see in karting is that it’s extremely difficult to make a living off, but that’s okay. I don’t plan on quitting my day job anytime soon and I really don’t plan on making much money off what I sell. This is a purely a passion project

My next steps are to (hopefully) become an MG tire dealer and IAME engines dealer as well, which I’ve submitted my applications for and I think would really complete the vision I have for my involvement in karting.

I fully recognize that this post is a bit of a plug, but at the same time it’s hard for my friends or family to really understand the excitement that I have behind this and I’m hoping to share that excitement with KartPulse, since I think it will be better understood :slight_smile:

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Congrats man, I’ve seen the posts about the Parolin and it’s definitely a great product line!

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Congrats! Don’t give it away though - still have to pay the insurance and trailer bill. :smiley:

An idea that may help you a lot with working on growing your local club and offering entry level packages is to align yourself with a National team as a continuous source for good used inventory. Ideally one that has a variety of customers from ones that keep a kart for a year to a single race.

And frankly you help them too by being a source to liquidate stock.

All of our Arrive & Drive karts are former national team karts too.

Just something that has worked really well for us over time in that same role.

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Congrats and may your clientele grow swiftly!

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That’s a good idea. Thank you!

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Don’t overlook the Quad-Cities. We have really good asphalt and dirt track programs but room for growth… and bring your racers to 30th annual Xtream Rock Island Grand Prix presented by The Hemp Doctor August 30-31… we’re just down the road from Norway.