I think what you are describing is basically already in the US as the Ignite series by Margay. Single chassis, you own it, you can store it at the track and have them maintain it (at least at the St. Louis track), you show up, race, go home.
If you are an enthusiast, you probably don’t need all the crash protection, since its your kart to repair. If it was a huge concern you could do a very simple design to just cover the wheels so you don’t get tangled up in other karts.
Rimo seems to offer it as part of their fleet sales.
Yeah but they wont tune the 390 either. I think Endurance Karting uses the tuned 270cc
Holy moly this site makes me want to pull my hair out.
It’s like they really don’t want you to know how to differentiate their product line up. No, I don’t want to call you and have to speak to the sales team in order to get a basic understanding of what you offer.
Having driven the new Praga it’s definitely the closest rental to a proper kart that I have driven, however they break so much that they almost don’t make sense to use for the track. The majority of people who will be driving them are clueless and they just have to be built like tanks
Recent Experience:
Last night I met up with a coworker and our daughters at DKC. For those who do not know, DKC is first and foremost a rental kart facility. They have two tracks and cater to Owner Karters as well. Typically they have one track dedicated to rentals and the other to owners. Last night, the normal rental track was down due to a repaving issue, so we ran on the owner track.
Having been on the track for the first time, my coworker surprising did quite well. We were both running the dual karts with our daughters riding shotgun. He has a decent amount of experience in rental karts, so there was that going for him. He adapted to the new track quickly by doing some follow laps behind us. We ended up doing three dual sessions in a row. By the second session he was able to get around me and I was struggling to pass him back. Mind you the track was very crowded.
We were on track with other dual karts, single Sr karts and a few Jr karts. This made for a lot of traffic heading into the braking zones and we would ofter have to take unusual lines to avoid others. We would slip through traffic hoping the other karts would not suddenly change their lines and did quite well with that.
However, not a single session went by that there was not contact initiated by others. Mostly caused by understeer into a corner by someone who had not slowed the kart down enough and trying to take an earlier apex. In one example, a guy nearly took our front end off going in to a 180* right hander. We had swung wide left, braked hard, turned in for a late apex and out of the corner of my eye I see this guy trying to divebomb me on the inside with way too much speed. I had to check up and did so with just enough time to see him lock up and back into the barriers. He ended up collecting several other karts in the process.
In another example we were going through a double apex left hander that decreases radius on the second apex. I think it was the same guy, but whoever it was again tried taking the corner too fast and understeered into our left side-pod (where my daughter was sitting) and literally punted us off track. Fortunately my daughter was okay.
To say these karts don’t take abuse is an absurdity! My kart had understeer like crazy. With no grip, I could not get the inside rear to hike properly so it was a game of getting the rear to slide enough to get the kart rotated, but not so much that you killed your momentum.
To summarize, I think Slow and Heavy is definitely cost savings for the establishment. If you want a dedicated fleet of karts used only by Leagues or Specific Owners, then why not just go Club Racing? Work with a Local Team to store and maintain your kart and just Arrive and Drive.
On a side note, on our last session my coworker (for his first time) and I went out in the Sodi GT Maxes. Rotax Max engines. More power, better brakes and less understeer, but with more oversteer on the harder rental tires and increased power. We had an absolute Blast! There were fewer karts on track, which made dodging traffic a whole lot easier and after a few laps we were able go nearly full tilt. I think I have him hooked on the 2 stroke model. 
I want him to come to a club race with me and see how the whole thing works. Bring his daughter too. The girls could keep each other company and/or maybe inspire each other to try karting themselves.
Because I don’t want to deal with owning a kart and want a club type arrangement that stores/cares for the vehicles which are “owned” by the members or has a fleet of well cared for club racing karts.
But I want rentals. But maybe modded to output 11-14 hp. Covered wheel wells so we can lean on each other.
This just doesn’t exist that I have seen. Closest would be speedy karts at OKC.
The cost of such a program would likely be prohibitive for a business with out charging an arm and a leg to the owners/leagues. I like the idea, but don’t think it is feasable.
Yeah. But I can dream. Ovrp is basically set up like this on some levels, minus the rental race karts. Storing the beasts is a problem I suppose. Having two fleets is expensive but some of these places could totally afford it.
Club100 for the US would be pretty cool. Question is which tracks have enough of the right demographic surrounding them to attract enough drivers to make it work.
Sidenote, we mounted one of the our pit bike shifter engines on an Rx7 rental chassis. One day would love to host a pro am event with these engines on ice.
Isn’t that what PGK has done 10 years ago ?
BTW Spa got a refresh, and will be hosting the IAME Benelux next year !
That looks a lot fancier I think. Paddle shifters too. Very nice.
This is another example I feel like there is a market for new rental engines and/or newer lighter chassis. Sodi and Honda crushed the opposition thanks to their facilities and their production output and won’t innovate anymore (Or they put a screen on their steering wheel and that’s all). But OTK/Vortex or IAME can rival these guys. There is a market opportunity as the others are slacking.
Are you thinking along the lines of one of their 125 engines? It is interesting that OTK’s rental offering follows suit of building heavy tank karts.
The OTK viper is a mere Sodi RX/RT copy, nothing interesting here. Like the Centurion from CRG. I don’t think a 2 stroke would be great for that use, and a smaller, 125cc 4 stroke engine could work if you plug a gearbox to it, like a motorcycle. I don’t think that would be novice friendly, but pretty fun.
I think IAME hit the sweet spot with their IT-250 they seem not interested in selling. 250cc, 16hp, aircooled. Simple enough for a 4 stroke.
Looking at the time they announced it seems like a back-up plan in case the world economy managed to get worse than expected