Here’s what all this is leading to, rental karts on a frozen lake: What do you do in the offseason
Some of you probably know I’m a little obsessed with karting on ice… Wayyy back in the 90’s I took my Formula A kart out on an icy track and it was epic and I’ve been wanting to do it since I moved to the US…
This year I’ve been able to put some time into it…I’m based in MN so there’s an abundance of frozen lakes up this way. Would be a shame to not utilize them. I’m going to start off with a track carved in the garden around the house. Honestly, I think it’s going to be too tight to be worthwhile, but it was fun to carve out with the snowblower anyway. Also it’s sketchy AF with fences, mailboxes and trees
Tire Talk
Naturally one of the first things I have to figure out is traction…
The most obvious (and economical) option would be to try regular racing kart wets… But there’s two challenges with that off the cuff…
One: typically wets are so soft the studs will pull out which at best is annoying… and at worst, well I’d rather not remove them from my clothes or body after being embedded.
Two: Wets are not likely not going to be good at clearing snow/slush as the track wears in during the day…
A compromise might be to try “duro” rental kart wets which use a harder compound.
To start off, I’m going to try something designed for ice…
It turns out Heidenau in Germany (Parent company of Mojo) make a racing kart specific ice tire that comes ready to be studded…
Cost: $370 including DHL shipping from SRA Karting in Canada. There is only one size of tire: 11x4.5-5 which more-or less fits on a hub mounted front rim. 12mm of tread so plenty of meat for studs by design.
You might notice that this also gives an extra half inch ground clearance on the front as they are typically 10" diameter.
Here they are mounted on a set of 4x hub mounted front rims I got from Point Karting. $153 including shipping for 4 hub mounted front wheels. I think they were 130mm