For the last several months I have been karting and participating in the monthly GP League racing at K1 in Carlsbad.
If I want to purchase a kart for local racing, What would be a good class to enter?
I am fairly close to K1 Circuit near Winchester, CA. It would be nice to purchase a OTL E Pro kart but that is rather expensive. A used kart is more in line for what I am looking for. Has anyone compared operating costs on a ICE engine kart vs an electric kart such as the OTL E Pro kart?
I am looking for adult class that is in the area and that would offer monthly races such as K1 Speed.
I just sold one of my karts to a racer like you at K1 (Keebler), you may have seen him on the blue Praga.
My advice: get a used kart, recent and in good condition preferably with a bulletproof engine. The one I sold him was a Rotax, pretty much a workhorse with minimal maintenance needed, but still a very fast race engine (that unfortunately, has no class in the area). Keep practicing. Then, after you figured out what you want to do, if racing is your thing, you can rent a KA100 or X30 from a local team for one race weekend. Slap it on your chassis and go racing! Then, if you still like it, invest in your own engine to do a season. This would be a very gradual approach, flexible and probably the most financially sensible. You can do it over few months or a year,or more, at your pace.
Otherwise if money is no option, book a track day trial with a team, try out a KA100 and X30, buy a race-ready package and jump in. I think PGR, Sanner, Precision and many other local teams offer that
This is a fairly common question asked on Kartpulse. Generally, the answer is to consult with the track or tracks you hope to race. This will give you an idea of what motor class is mostly being used as well as where you fit in with ability. The ladder typically is LO206 - KA100 - 125 TAG like X30 or Rotax - Shifter. Local tracks will also possibly have leeds on karts that are being sold. While new is great its also expensive. A good used kart will do just fine.
I find this interesting about karting in the US, why not go directly to 125cc 2-stroke? In Europe most people start like this, maybe because the lower classes aren’t really popular, but I don’t see a reason why something like a senior Rotax or an X30 would be a bad idea for a beginner, especially with rental kart experience.
It could work and I know some even start with shifter. I am just stating the typical progression, which correlates with speed too. I think TAG is a more complicated overall machine like monitoring engine temps to name one. Whereas LO206 and KA are about as simple as it gets and even then they can be finicky.
Anything 125cc or water-cooled is pretty limited at the club level in America right now. Buy-in prices are high and rebuild intervals are too frequent to remain popular for the average racer, and most classes are in the single digits for club racing. However, KA100 and 206 classes remain extremely popular, at least in the Midwest right now.
I forgot another piece of advice. Talk to people in the pits. Meet racers, talk to them, get a perspective before you jump in. Offer to help out in a race event, go see it up close. Next SKUSA race is at the end of the month, in a way or another (driver or mechanic), I’ll be there. PM me if you are interested
Thanks everyone for the feedback. I really appreciate it.
Andy thanks so much for the offer. Let me do some more research and more K1 Speed racing and I will PM you when I am ready to check out SKUSA.