I could not agree more. Karting was, in my view, a motorsport for ‘the people’ so to speak.
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In that vein, someone had posted about Patras in the past…
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I guess electric karting will bring back street racing. These days, every motorsports taking place in a city is frowned upon. In France, the 24h of Motorboat was cancelled due to climate change concerns, which is pretty dumb.
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Which is scary given how heavy electric karts are and therefore their propensity to travel a long way off track.
I think there’s already been an incident where a crowd member got hit by an electric kart?
Update: Yes
To be fair though, root cause (IMO) was the use of non flat sided barriers. Typical road barriers with the tapered sides tend to become yeet ramps. So unlucky too as it looks like the driver hit the last of those in that straight.
I don’t think you see that type of “road” barrier used in street races in the US anymore.
Except that one time at Modesto, I think SKUSA had the city handle the barriers, they used the tapered type and all kinds of chaos ensued.
People crashing in a straight line, I thought it was nascar for a minute
Adams kart track 20 mins from my house. Never been around it in a kart but raced supermoto there a few times!
We are lucky enough to have 3 kart tracks within 30 minute drive plus another one an hour away. I can’t wait to get back out there soon after my 30 year break!
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That’s awesome vs 1.5 hour drive for the closest one, and then 3 hours for the next one.
You would think a metro area of 1.4 million residents would have a kart track (other than put-put rentals), but unfortunately no. Street races would be ideal - since we’re already footing the bill for the streets.
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Are there any street races near southern Michigan? It’s always been on my bucket list
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This racer?
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The one and only. I see her more now at the track than when she was my neighbor in Ohio. Great people that saved a great track in Central Indiana.
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Some friends from work took me to the IMSA race at VIR in 2016. I didn’t give a crap about racing, just thought it would be fun. Grew up playing baseball, Track and Field. Baseball was my main sport. Anyways, I remember watching the cars going into turn one at VIR off that long straight. Watching from NASCAR bend so they are driving away from you. They looked so fast. I immediately said to myself, you have to experience this for yourself one day. Bought a Toyota 86 (my shifter kart more or less) and started doing HPDE track days. So naturally, I would discover rental karting as another way to get on track. Did some enduro’s in the rentals. None of those karts handles the same. Started finding that it seems winning those races is 60% skill and 40% just having a good kart. My wife suggested I get my own kart (best idea ever) so I can have more control on the handling. So over the past 6 years here I am. I have my very first club race in Baltimore Saturday.
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What a cool wife.
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Couldn’t agree more, this has been my experience as well. If only there was a SWS facility around here with decent parity.
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You have a great wife:)
@E13 if this hasn’t already been answered, depending on where you are in southern Michigan, you have a couple of easy options for street races: the Elkhart GP [ https://www.elkhartgp.com ] which runs Fri-Sat Aug 4-5 2023 and the Clyde GP in Clyde OH (roughly an hour east of Toledo) which is scheduled for September 17. I talked to one of the organizers last week, more info should be available in July. We ran last year and it was a blast. ~100 kart entry.
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Its the 2 stroke bug and the racing idea that makes me get into karting , lets start from the beggining as my second bike was a nsr 80cc after that i had my first mx bike a honda cr125 1989 model . I was doing some mx races during 1997 to 2002 , after that my racing passion whent from dirt to street racing and i got my self a honda rs 125 g.p. bike witch i stiil have on the garage , after a few years of practice with that i said my self that is time to quit racing an seek some touring bike for relaxed travels around greece so i bought a honda cb 1300 and start to trying to forget the racing days …
But the things in my heart wasn’t what i think it was … maybe somewhere like 2019. I went with a friend to a racetrack just for some coffee and some rental kart fun . There i could see and touch and hear and smell again a 2 stroke racing engine on a racetrack ,because it was sunday and sundays its some kind of mixed days with rentals and racing kart sessions .
that was the hit that bring me back to the motorsport .
Next day i was putting the cb to the market for 3.500 euros . Sell it and bought 2 used go karts . One with a rotax pre evo engine and one with an ex rok engine . From there and after , one more kart had come to the team and we have successfully made a small garage for working with my friend george at the karts . Im still low in seat time and thats something that im missing a lot ! But its something that will change as the karts is almost ready now . And god after all this years. Im still back to the game !!
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I love the wheelie photo! Nice story. I’m gonna guess your island has some pretty good Sunday drives for pleasure as well. Do you still keep a bike?
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Im still have the rs 125 honda but its a race bike only for trackdays dom . I will post a photo when i go in the garage again . And yes evia has a lot of beutiful road rides to do , but in my free time and with the spare money i got , i am so much into the karting heat that i cant do anything else
as a hobby!! Hehhehe
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Well as I said I will put some photos from the rs honda dom… Here you are, my ever lasting love from the motorcycles days of mine.
You meet the nicest people on a Honda! He hehe!!
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Holy crap that’s a nice bike. I don’t even bike and I like that. I guess that’s what they call a “cafe racer”.
Don’t know how to do accents but there should be an accent over the E and I mean cafe like in Paris,
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