Yet another new Dad thread

Yea another noob with another child entering into the kart arena. I recently purchased a used Margay Brava 4.15 with lo206 to get started with.

We will be joining a kart club , moving slowly through the next year running practice laps and learning as much as possible before entering in any racing.

I got this Margay thinking by the time we dip our foot into racing he will be of age and size to enter the junior field. I hope that was wasn’t a miscalculation but it was so well kept with little miles on it I had to snag it.

Where are you located?

Urbana IL

What age bracket are you in?

Son is 11

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your mechanical ability, or willingness to wrench on things?

2

Talk a little about your racing experience so far.

Not much , I’m inspired by my sons obsession with racing since he was 2 years old, it’s all he talks about and all he does in his leisure time, YouTube and race games.

What’s the main thing you need help with to get you started.

Just general beginners info or a point to good threads that are valuable to this subject.

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When I said 2 I meant what do I know is maybe a 2 , my willingness is 10

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There are some articles, which I consider essential, written by me, on Facebook under the name Mayko Products. My tagline for those articles was “not the how to, but the why”. You might find them interesting. They were 1st featured in a monthly magazine written by Amy Spad(s) back in the nineties. Mostly just basic information on the care and feeding of a kart, tuning, and other things.

Welcome! You’re in for some great adventures with your son!

You can find a few topics from a parents perspective here: #racer_parenting

There’s also the “Karting Dads” podcast if you’re into listening to podcasts.

Looks like you made a good choice on chassis and engine package as far as brand are concerned, so you’re off to a good start.

When do you think your first day at the track might be?

We are going to take slow and build up some confidence knowing the kart for awhile before we do. Maybe in spring or early summer

And I have been reading through all the materials suggested and will be for awhile.

Research and reading has its merits for sure.

That said, if you can I’d recommend getting to the track before the season is done. In terms of just getting running and safely turning laps, karts are very simple.

If you can, connect with someone locally who can guide you and check over your kart. Do a few days at the track if you can before it gets cold…

Then when you hit the track next year, you’ll already have your basic mechanical stuff figured out and you can just focus on turning laps and improving times.

Welcome Eric!

How old is your son? It’s great that there’s a club near you to learn at. It’s also a great idea to get decent in the kart before racing, but how much also varies a bit too. Club racing is generally very beginner friendly. From my experience, running laps is more than enough fun when starting out. Eventually though, I do recommend racing. It really helped my son mature, actually.

Do you have a motorsports background of any sort or are you both starting fresh? If the latter, consider a coach at some point to assist with the rather complicated task of wheeling these contraptions about.

If you are gonna be a race Dad, there’s some lo206 wrenching you are gonna need to learn. We probably have a thread for that as Briggs is a site sponsor, I think. I recall a video series they did. @KartingIsLife any thoughts? Another idea would be to maybe find someone to show you the ropes locally. You could ask at the club you are joining.

In any case, welcome to the fun!

He is almost 11 . We are picking it up tommorow and then will take it to the tracks shop guy to give a good look over and I’m sure some tweaks to run there. I’m sure it will need a carb sleeve if we want to race and I guess the junior tires for the back ? Right now the back tires are wider but I know nothing about that yet.

Hmm. Dunno on tire width but the shop guy can clear that up.

They likely run the narrower tire/rim setup. Of course you can practice on “adult” size rims. That’s what my 11y/o is doing now. She’s just running my senior kart with adjusted pedals to turn laps.

What pedal adjustments ? Just to be able to reach them or more than just that?

We are picking up the Kart today and then a week of just staring at it before we can test out.

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Yep I moved the pedals so she can reach them. All karts have stop bolts that you can adjust and some have extra options like being able to move the footrest part like this one…

Basically you want the knees slightly bent with the pedal fully forward. Generally it’s better to move the pedals first, rather than the seat as moving the seat will affect handling.

Well it has begun

That’s a clean chassis. 1 season or so?

Somewhere in there I believe

I believe he is thrilled hard to tell he was trying to put on serious race face I guess.

Everyone knows crocs are awesome

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Kart and driver both look great!

This has been the subject of some debate in my household which was recently settled once and for all at the track.

My son (starting HS) also loves crocs. This has his Mom fairly convinced he will remain terminally dorky and has been trying to convince him they are “uncool”.

He’s not buying it and claims that his generation is totally OK with crocs.

So I went to the wisest source I could think of: the young ladies of Motorsport. According to the two college aged women who work the NJMP kart series, Crocs are totally fine and not really something that registers as a dorky red flag.

Motorsport once again provides the answer to all of our pressing questions.

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Try walking on wet concrete or other surfaces with crocs , you will realize they will kill you.

Good purchase and welcome to the forums!

Lots of good info above. If I may add, based on my mistakes, try to not change the chassis a bunch when he is learning. Get a baseline in it that Margay, the track shop or someone running that chassis on the same track recommends.

I tried making changes to my Sons kart the first year every time off to “make it better” all I believe I did was stunt his ability to learn the kart even further. Let him get familiar with one set up and one feeling.

Beyond that, go have some fun! Make great memories and smile!

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Right ive learned many a lessons doing that as well. If it handles ok, goes in a straight line and has a little gusto to it then just keep getting better driving.

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Well we had our first run this past Saturday.
It started off rough with some issues with the sprocket and chain, but the track shop guy did us a big service in helping fix the issue. It took awhile for my son to get his nerve back after that. First it was discouraging then he was realizing how big a step it is driving one of these versus an indoor electric one. Might have been a tad bit of intimidation from a few other drivers there who were experienced as well.
After watching some others run some laps, and calming down, he got back out there ran twice for about 16 laps and ended on a really good note.

So now it’s just bugging me to death when can we make it back out.
So here we go.

Thanks for the info and replies here , it’s been very helpful in getting started.

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