Do you think the T4 Series is a good way to lower cost of karting ? And give people who dont have alot of money or have the mechanical expertise for karting to have a chance to win. Especially for kids or grownups coming from rentals . Without the high cost ?? Kind of like a IROC car series but lower cost on a karting level ?? Question coming from a lot of rental people I know…
You can race a Senior OK cheaper than a T4 given the right context. So the subject of lowering cost is a bit of a red-herring.
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That type of concept I think definetely lowers operating cost. I run Margay’s ignite racing that uses LO206. Engine lasts for a long time. There is no cost of chasing things like a different rim because the leader has a different rim.
It can make it harder to get into cheap. You are not able to use old engine and chassis your neighbor has sitting around. You can not freshen engine with new ring.
Margay has been doing this with the Ignite program for years and it is good for people to enter the sport and don’t have all the resources necessary right off the bat.
Tillotson is doing the same but it’s not as popular. No idea what the running costs are for the T4 program.
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What’s the cost? No point in talking about cost unless we have cost numbers to compare.
Typically renting (a racing kart) will be a much monetary higher cost in the long term vs owning so you have decide what the tradeoff is. Advantages are that you don’t have to worry about transport or maintenance and of course you have support of some sort at the track. Typically you’re still on the hook for crash damage, but it might be different for the T4 series.
I do have to wonder what costs you’re seeing for 206 as an owner driver too.
I have been in the sport of racing since I started in 1998 with a KT100 mounted on a Dino. I raced KT100, Tag, and shifter before leaving for auto racing in SCCA. The Ignite program was appealling for me to come back to because it was cost affective for a friend that was interested as well as being the best racing in the area. They have since added Ignite 100 which uses a sealed VLR100 engine. Hopefully it will take off. We will see. For now I run both.
I do not know anything about T4. There is no reason it could not see success. It really depends how much commitment Tillotson puts behind it
Renting around here is about $25-$30 per session. Tires alone work out to nearly that ($250/set for 10 heat cycles). That alone puts them even, and that’s not accounting for repairs, purchase cost, fuel, transportation costs, etc.
I’m referring to an arrive and drive situation where you’re driving a competition kart vs a rental/concession type… In ignite’s case, Margay.
Edited my post to clarify.
Ah, totally agree. I should’ve been able to infer that’s what you meant
Just thinking out loud but it seems that it’s not competing with lo206 broadly but rather as a club spec series competitor to the ignite spec club. Or at least hoping to be, which seems to be a rough sell in the us market, given Briggs here already being well established. But maybe less so in Europe since there is no lo at all there afaik (and I get the impression basically no four stroke outside of rentals?) it seems fine to me as a club setup as the ignite is likely as well.
If Keith wanted to start a spec club series I would be happy with either T4 or Ignite, for example. It’s not a kart I’d be planning on racing in any other context than a club spec series.
This would only make sense at around 500 per day. If it included race fee that would be good value, too. 10 races in a series, 5k. Makes buying the kart and dealing with said kart unattractive. But, practice days would add considerably to cost but who needs practice anyways. 
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Keeping the cost down and the fun/challenge high is definitely the goal of T4. I doubt that you can run OK Senior for anywhere near the cost of T4, especially when you take the cost of tuning the engine into account, but the Margay Ignite series is a good comparison.
The T4 package including engine, chassis and a set of tires runs around $5500. If you need racing gear, trolley and tools, add another $2K. Then it’s a matter of how often and where you race and whether you crash a lot. What keeps the cost down for T4 and Ignite is the sealed engine, so no high cost of turning, and monobrand kart, which limits the number of components you can/need to change.
It’s also a good category for newbies because the setting up the kart and engine is simplified vs OK, X30 amd Rotax categories. The Ignite series is more established in the US, but T4 has a growing following with a lot of racing in Florida, the LA area and Pacific Northwest. Several tracks and clubs in the midwest and Texas are also looking at it.
The T4 category is a little faster than the Briggs/Ignite package because our chassis is lighter and we are now revving the engine to 7500 rpm, but the tradeoff there is you probably have to replace the engine a little sooner. One nice thing about the T4 Series is that it’s an international race series that culminates with the T4 Nations Cup currently being held in Valencia, Spain and where you race for both yourself and your country .
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I can, technically. How competitive I’ll be is another question.