Hello, I am a new user to this forum.
I am a Nova Scotia resident, i’ve lived here for over 2 years now. I am a former base-brat so it’s a place I can finally call home.
For the past year or less, i’ve done some on and off research on the history of Atlantic-Canadian karting. Turns out, it’s quite intriguing. I thought I’d share the research i’ve done by doing a write-up. So, enjoy my attempted Alan Dove impression as I talk about the history of Atlantic Canadian karting.
FYI: This was taken from my website and I modified it a tad. Expect some weird mishaps with embedding, links, etc. Another thing, take my writing skills and research I have written down with a grain of salt. Some of the information I have told throughout this may not be accurate (which is why I added a legend below), and my writing skills aren’t the greatest.
(?) = not confirmed/not sure
Although it’s uncertain on when kart racing in Atlantic Canada started, the first archived footage of kart racing in the maritimes is from the mid 1960’s at Sackville Downs (?). However, my guess is that it was just an exhibition run in-between horse racing.
Actual kart races date back to the 1970’s at a paved loop, located inside a quarry around the Sunny Brae area in Moncton, NB. The track (even though there is no footage or aerial scans of the track as far as I know) was considered extremely dangerous. The danger of the Moncton quarry track led to the creation of Hubbard’s Amusements in the late 1970’s, however its layout was extremely simple with lap times around 15 seconds.
In 1984, the Championship Kart Racing Association (CKRA) was formed. Along with the CKRA was also an alternative karting track, inside the parking lot of the College Communautaire de Dieppe in Dieppe, NB. Karting at that point began to build more popularity in Atlantic Canada, and as well the Maritime Championship Series formed. Fields were competitive and limited, as you had to qualify to make the main event.
From the time period of 1987-1988, the AMKA moved locations from Hubbard’s Amusements to Atlantic Motorsport Park (AMP). It was also quite simple, around 15 seconds a lap as well, but it was more advanced compared to the bean-shaped oval that was Hubbard’s Amusements. However, after the 1989 season AMKA was forced to move to Scotia Speedworld due to schedule mishaps with AMP. Its original 1989-1997 layout was technical and hard to master, the 1998-2009 layout was fast and flowing, and the 2010-2021 layout took inspiration from the original layout. The roval was considered one of the hardest karting tracks in Atlantic-Canada.
For 1988 and 1989, for “Train Days” within Moncton, CKRA organized a street race downtown with the track’s front straight flying under the main street’s train bridge. It featured the biggest fields for Atlantic Canada’s standards, an example is over 40 karts in the senior category during the weekend in 1988.
By around 1990, CKRA raised enough funds for a proper karting track. It was named Champlain Motorsports Park (now known as East Coast Karting). It is only 5 turns but it is extremely quick, laps from the Senior [Honda] class were around 26 to 27 seconds.
In 2001, the Island Kart Club (IKC) and the New Brunswick International Karting Club (NBIKC) were formed. IKC’s home track was at Burlington Amusement Park, while NBIKC’s track was at New Brunswick International Speedway (NBIS). Burlington’s track was a ticket kart track up to that point, but it had kart racing at one point, as far back as the 1970’s (?). However, NBIS was an interesting track when it was first created. It stayed on the oval. Chicanes were later added which made it an extremely fast track. However, two races into the 2003 season, NBIS paved a hairpin into the infield along with another piece of road that went through the middle of the infield. That is what the track looks like today.
Engine classes were interesting, the AMKA and CKRA had at first three classes: Junior [Honda], Senior [Honda], and F100. As memberships grew, they needed to add more classes. They added Senior Heavy [Honda], and renamed Senior [Honda] to Senior Lights [Honda]. Every club then followed this class format. Originally F100 was recognized as a regional class up until the 1990’s, where it was knocked down to club level. Which was ran until the early 2000s (?). Rotax Max was also introduced in 2005, first used at Burlington with IKC.
However, things started to go downhill after 2007. The renamed Maritime Pro Kart Series stopped running after the 2007 season, and the now named New Brunswick Karting Club (NBKC) and IKC disbanded along with them. Two-stroke classes started to dwindle, as it started to get more expensive to run. Another thing that was happening was that Honda GX engines were as well getting more expensive to run, which is why the Briggs and Stratton LO206 began to replace every Honda GX throughout North America. No, the clubs here were not spared either. It didn’t help that the PSL Karting shop that was on the site of East Coast Karting was shutdown in 2013.
After the “Honda Slaughter” and the “Two-Stroke Massacre” of the early 2010s, both the remaining clubs AMKA and CKRA were LO206-only clubs. They had to adjust accordingly to the amount of entries (such as removing senior heavy, etc.), which made the competition arguably less equal.
As of 2021, CKRA was renamed to Canada East Kart Sport (CEKS) after the 2020 season. They still race at the same track as today with no plans of expanding.
In 2022, the AMKA switched tracks again. This time finally at a permanent karting track called Kartbahn Halifax, where they still race at today.
Fortunately, more people have started to discover this sport and are increasing the entries for each season. Hopefully one day we will see another regional championship, or more tracks and clubs are brought back from the dead to increase this sport we all love, karting.
Sources:
Karting in the maritimes (perhaps open this link with an ad blocker enabled, there could be a lot of popups as this website hasn’t been updated since 2007)
History of AMKA — AMKA