Luckily in the US we don’t require FIA homologations on gear.
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SKUSA requires CIK L2 suits
You are correct the rules say that they must “meet” CIK level 2, I would be curious to know how many on the grid are actually CIK homologated however.
I guess the situation is this meme
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WAPO article on FIA and KArting btw. Behind wapo paywall.
pretty bad article. Little errors here and there. it’s winning series karting, not world etc… Infers karting started as a birthday party diversion.
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At least in my club they don’t check gear.
Unless you are at the front 
Well FIA doing FIA things to make sure “poor” people dont mix with rich people.
At least we dont have to follow that yet here where i live, but from 26 they will start requiring the FIA approved ribprotector.
There’s a Merc F1 “store” I walked by in the tourist area near Penn station. Want me to go buy you an overpriced Lewis shirt?
I have a spreadsheet tracking all my expenses. I have never blown a budget. I have a small SUV and a trailer that is 40-1/2 in x 48 in Utility Trailer. The kart hangs off of it, It is my Brother-n-laws so it’s free but I am looking for a trailer with a ramp, I may just rent a Uhaul, for 4-5 times that I would need it. Over the years it has been cheaper to do most things myself but having a pro look over my kart at least once increased my reliability and speed. I am trying to budget a coaching session, and more practices. However I am learning that a practice sessions save me time and money, but because I run on the car tracks getting track time other then Nelson ledges is not possible. However everyone budgets their time a money, if you have the money and want to spend it I don’t care if someone shows up next to me with a huge trailer and 4 engines and chassis ready to go as spares, good for them, the more people we have the better and I will buy it when it’s old and tired 
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Our safety guy is just happy that we wear gear
I built my own kart stand. It holds 2 karts. Has a built in winch that allows me to load and unload it by myself. Total cost including the winch was about $150 for the stand and winch and another $100 for the ramps. The battery is from a kids ride on toy.
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It’s mandantory in any national events but I’ve never seen anyone checking them.
Only helmets and few times racing suits.
Not sure if with the new 8877-2022 homologation something will change, I see a lot manufacturer out of the list for 2025.
I’m NOT a fan of spending money but I think safety gear is under-estimate in karting. I still see people going into session with not-karting equipment and they are nuts to my eyes.
Anyone tried replacing rear tires only for maintaining high tire performance while trying to stretch your money? After watching quite a lot of 1/4 speed video of various two stroke kart drivers, I see almost no slippage/understeer with front tires at any point during their laps, which might explain why fronts typically look and feel fine even when the rears have dropped off a lot in performance and show a lot more wear.
What’s the point? If you’re going to go pound laps on a compromised baseline of having worn fronts and new rears, you aren’t going to learn much since you’ll be fighting and questioning if the balance problems are down to tires or driving or chassis setup.
If your goal is just to get seat time for the sake of seat time, I suppose it’s fine. But to actually learn or practice anything it’s kind of useless.
Plus I generally have the opposite problem; I’m harder on front tires than rears. Usually I pick up understeer as the tires wear.
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Depends on your driving style. Some drivers wear out their fronts heavier than they wear their rears. I guess it can be good to save money and drive for fun but like TJ said you won’t learn anything useful or representative.
I would suggest to buy slightly used sets from other drivers in your track instead. The peak performance will be worse than new tyres but it can be very cost effective if you only want to practice. I do it quite a lot, especially with rain tyres which I use very few times per year.
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I get the idea of maintain a consistent platform to judge against, but I’m wondering if anyone has managed to do that while going for a two-fer (two rear sets, one front). Ultimately, the same argument can be made for why used tires shouldn’t be used at all (e.g., even though replaced all four, they’re still going to behave very differently than new and thus you’ll still be ‘fighting and questioning if the balance problems are down to tires or driving or chassis setup’)
I’ve always replaced all four, but to this day they’ve always been used. Now I’m wanting to find a way to make my overall tire quality better, but my cheapskate nature and wallet is not-so-secretly hoping to find a less invasive way than just ponying up for all new. Cake and eat it too, free lunch. 
Agreed with Max, that if you wanted to save money on tires, teams will generally sell full sets for cheap or give them away at the end of a race day. Doesn’t get much cheaper than free. Badger used to allow you to stack up all your used tires by the registration building and other club racers would come grab them to use.
Also, keep in mind that the majority of your time driving or racing is spent on used tires. They are only new for one session, so 90% of the time you’re driving on used rubber anyway. I would argue that you want to practice on lightly used tires whenever you can, and save new tires for dedicated qualifying practice.
If the tires are all the same level use, then you can rule out tires as a cause of your balance issues, even if they are pretty worn. Until a set of tires gets down to the cords, the balance of the kart should be fairly consistent. If you have finding balance issues as the tires wear out, it’s down to a driver style or chassis setup quirk that is unevenly wearing the tires.
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