Why do karters do FREE advertising?

Look up karting bodywork in the 70’s…cool, retro, and pinstripe masters.

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Coming from the road race world I thought the same thing, so we made my son a custom livery for his first kart.

His current kart isn’t quite as cool, but still no free advert

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I didn’t know about your Thrasher past Dom! I used to read Thrasher quite a bit. Never skated, but did do freestyle bmx and I found there was a lot of cross over in attitude and culture.

I don’t know if a 3 cylinder Charade can ever be ‘much faster’ than anything, even other 3 pot Charades. But yes, the little thing is getting set up as a street/track car. First outing will be Lakeside Raceway in April.

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How much is Arrow paying you?

I get 70s custom van vibes from his cadet livery, in a good way. :+1:

Look…I know I’m new and I’m not one of the cool kids and all, but y’all take yourselves waaaaaay too seriously. Seriously. This is supposed to be fun. Chill.

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Wish I was that talented, but sadly no.

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Kp is intended to be the opposite of the kool kids club, a place where you can come ask stuff and not be made to feel dumb or feel like you are being judged. @KartingIsLife set this place up specifically because he was tired of that “I’m right, you’re wrong” vibe on karting FB and the like.

Your observation is a good one; it reminds me that even when joking around, I gotta revisit what I write before I hit the send button and consider wether it’s gonna make someone feel like they are being excluded, ridiculed, or disrespected. Thanks for that reminder.

In the modern context it is an interesting phenomena. Sticker kits and suits aren’t exactly cheap. So competitors are paying quite large sums to advertise the chassis brand they’ve just paid for. It’s not FREE advertising… the brands are earning off it.

In addition I always chuckle at the social media posts about “x team signs x driver for factory program”… when most of the time it’s really a driver just purchasing the services of a team.

I think TJ nailed it with the feeling of being part of team. Also, karting is a chance to play pretend in that sense. You can pretend at being a professional driver, which you can’t do in cars unless you really are actually professional.

I am fully signed up to the philosophy that you should avoid running decals and focus on your own sponsors/situation. But like I said, karting is a chance to play pretend, and people will spend hundreds of dollars on team stickers kit and team wear to do so. They aren’t seeking sponsors because they can already afford to race. So in liue of that, they ‘play’.

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Back when I was driving competitively, I would join a private team tent program and we would have the team overalls and a few stickers over the factory decals.

I guess keeping the factory decals gives it a cleaner look while being cheaper than designing your own decals.

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I should note that my question wasn’t asked with assignment of judgement – I’ve done it too! I wanted to be a factory Tony//Kart guy, so I was busy trying to find budget factory overalls, shoes, decals, etc. And now I’ve swung to the other side of the pendulum and run virtually no decals unless they’re “value added.” To each their own… As I have my own vinyl cutter I prefer to do layered graphics now rather than the laminated factory graphics. The laminated look cooler when new, but they’re hard to apply nicely and when one section’s ruined, the whole section is ruined. With layered vinyl, I can just replaced the marred part… Thanks for the responses and candor.

Weed logo? Maybe you could a “Herb of Life” take-off on the Harbalife logo with a pot leaf instead? :slight_smile: I was going to do that on a VW bug with a “Herb-ie” layout if I raced in LeMons again…

That’s a neat idea…HerbLife parody. Brought to you by Centrum Silver. I was thinking of the leaves shape being used as repetitive pattern, and then up close,you see the stripes are composed of the leaf pattern.

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I think Briggs is the only one on the kart for free.

When I do seek sponsors, pretty nuch everyone is paying to be on the kart.

The few exceptions are close friends and usually its as a thank you because I am probably in their debt anyways.

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The question is how much do we get if we slam a KARTPULSE logo on our kart @KartingIsLife




I used to do custom graphics on our kart from Danny Corcoran. I also put in a lot of effort to get sponsors. The blue flames was one of my favorites.

One of the reasons I stopped was it became difficult to find someone who was able to produce a kit in a timely manner due to lack of time, and lack of vinyl printers available.

Last season a few of us dads joined together to create a Team (share info, tent together, help wrench) and had a team graphic created.

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Those are both very creative and very nice looking liveries. Just noticed the two matching karts and outfits behind as well.

You’d have to find one, first! I think they must be expensive to make and it’s never really happened. I got a sticker sheet from James a while back but the KP stickers are very elusive.

Lord Burpo @CrocIndy printed a few last year. Send him a $20 and he’ll ship you a sheet I’m sure.

They’ve been on the “store” for a while, but to be fair they aren’t on the homepage and the store layout etc is a bit of a dumpster fire, so you’d have to search for them:

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