Atomica is Parolin and JV are made by TBkart, both using Kkart components I believe.
Slight side note, in the last year I’ve learned a lot about the components side of things, and how just a few companies make components for a lot of the kart world. Some brands like KKart and El Zet I hadn’t even heard of until we moved to Race Factory. Since then I’ve learned a bunch from Race on inner workings of various factories and such.
I’m a bit suprised by TB Kart, as that’s what I run and I have a soft spot for them, but I know they are mainly out of Florida and hold a relatively small (but growing) market share just like MGM. But i guess that is captured by the overall numbers in the chart listed above.
Most of the numbers you see under the TBkart will be made up by the GFC/Trackmagic squad. Gary Carlton has grown his brand quite rapidly, and when he decided to make his own brand he went with TBkart to build them. Most likely because of his relationship with them in the past.
20 GFC
8 TB
1 Trackmagic
TB is a small fish.
I’m more surprised how little representation CRG and IPK have as two of the bigger manufacturers. Especially as IPK was very well represented across the country just a few years ago.
Factory is Musgrave’s in-house chassis last I heard.
The CRG and Praga numbers threw me for a loop. Thought they’d be much higher . . . as they’re both known for quality chassis’. (Why does OTK have such a big market share?)
Embarassed to admit, I’d never heard of Parolin. (Not a knock on the brand)
IPK (Praga/Formula K/OK1) is mostly an East Coast chassis, importer in North Carolina and biggest dealers in New Hampshire and Georgia. Leading Edge in Arizona also uses them.
CRGs just haven’t sold well for a while. Mine was the only one at East Lansing all year.
I didn’t want to say that directly but yes, I also was told it’s Musgrave’s own chassis.
@Charles_Kaneb I don’t have a photo of a new Top Kart, but I remember 2019 SuperNats Pesek was on a brand new Top Kart and the frame looked exactly like the Merlins, down to the small tabs on the frame. I asked some people about it and they were saying Top Kart has been being made by Parolin since 2018 I think? It was pretty soon after their head guy left and started Evo Kart.
I also couldn’t find anything on Kart Mini other than they were from Brazil according to the Homologation forms.
@Bimodal_Rocket it usually ends up being either demand for a frame in the local area, or previous relationships for the team own either from their racing or the distributor they work through.
Regarding CRG and iPK, it’s mostly down to chassis support in the country. CRG hasn’t had strong chassis support here since PSL left, and their other brands (DR, Evo Kart, GP Kart) aren’t strongly supported either. I love DR and the DR guys, but you just don’t see them at races outside the East Coast and Stars, even then it’s a pretty limited number. Tuning wise, they’re fairly finicky. You can make them super fast, but nailing the setup to get it there is a constant battle.
iPK, the Praga parent company, is in a similar boat. There just isn’t a ton strong of team support across the country except for Leading Edge, an Arizona team. That’s why you see so many Formula K entries but no Praga or OK1.
@IRQVET you probably haven’t heard of Parolin, but I’m sure you’ve heard of some of the chassis they produce. We’ve mentioned Merlin and Top Kart, but also Fullerton (according to the Homologation sheets? I swore they were BirelART), Vemme, and Energy. They get a lot of brands are have a really solid product.
@Charles_Kaneb KartSport hasn’t been the importer since AMP became the iPK dealer. They are the distributor for iPK products now as far as I’ve heard. What New Hampshire team is on Praga? I haven’t seen anything from out there.
AMP now being the IPK importer makes sense, they were offering monster deals on the Dark chassis earlier this year.
The New Hampshire team is Prospeed Kartsports / Roger Hargens and they mostly race in New England.
Kart Mini was really popular in Rotax about a decade ago. Lots of fast South American drivers on them. Gabby Chavez drove for them and I think Orsolon did too. They often brought proper pro South American drivers who raced IMSA and the like.
DR tends to be really quick in KZ, but I haven’t seen as much success from them in x30
Tony kart / OTK has always had the lion’s share in my memory. But for sure the gap has gotten even larger of late as they add brands under their umbrella.
It seems like CRG (therefore Tinnini group) numbers have gone down since the importer switched a couple of years ago. They seemed to thrive as CRGUSA but are less prominent lately. Again casual observation.
As a fanboi of Davide Fore I’m excited to see how he does with Italkart. Carrying the flag for us older guys.
OTK were one of the first brands to utilise the concept of having different sub-brands. They also have had a lot of success at the elite level.
Human psychology then does a lot of the heavy lifting from there on in. One of the biggest market forces in kart racing is people tend to like comfort and homogeneity over being different. The consequences of racing an OTK when everyone else races an OTK is minimal risk. There’s security in numbers. negative emotion is more powerful than positive in humans. Thus people tend to avoid negative more than seek positive. Racing OTK is avoiding the feeling of ‘making the wrong choice’. Racing anything else is deemed as a risk rather than a chance to succeed.
It’s counter-intuitive to some degree because you would think racers would want to seek an advantage over their opposition and thus would seek novelty, when in reality most seek avoidance of doubt. If most are on an OTK its one less thing to worry about.
It’s such a strong emotion that karters, in the UK, never noticed that running a kart with a torsion bar (how most run OTKs and other chassis) might be interpreted as outside of the chassis regulations. People aren’t looking solely for performance, like with a lot of humans, it’s follow the herd. If they did care about performance, racers would look at the actual regulations (which they tend not to)
At the end of the day the pereto distribution rears its head and a small number of manufacturers end up with a bilk of the sales, and one or two within that end up with a majority. it’s inevitable.
obviously regions can be different and so on. Obviously not everyone drives an OTK but basic human nature can explain a lot of it. OTK is a good chassis as well… that obv helps.
I would say that OTK was one of the first brands in the modern era to build a kart with a very wide tuning window as well. When I first switched to OTK 10 years ago, it was incredible how little adjustment the kart needed to work properly compared to everything I had driven before.
Now most brands are aiming to build karts that respond similarly and work in a wide variety of conditions with minimal adjustment. 10 years ago this wasn’t necessarily the case.
All of the brands listed are great quality IMO, so it really comes down to perception\marketing\brand presence and personal relationships.
Are you sure about who makes the Race Factory kart? I thought they were made in the USA?
Looks like Intrepid makes their own karts as well as Benik. This is from the latest chassis homologation
Pretty sure. I know Race pretty well and he would like to move production to the US but it is still made in Europe.
@Rdub3 would know best though.
Race is the perfect name for a kart racer, just sayin’.
