I got into karting earlier this year after finding a YouTube karting channel and from there I was kinda hooked on the idea of going into karting, since they made it look like so much fun.
So what your favorite karting channels?
Here are mine (in no particular order):
I’m a weirdo. I can’t get into a lot of these channels. For me it’s competitive to watching other people play video games.
I will on occasion watch a full onboard replay to see if there is anything I can learn from some of the top level drivers.
Power Republic hands down is the best in my opinion. they taught me so much, Derek always answers any questions.
I also quite enjoy Brent Kadler’s videos.
Those are the two I watch regularly.
Hoping to do more videos this year now that I have a kart again. I want to do tech talk stuff and break down chassis adjustments and stuff in more detail.
I like @tjkoyen videos. I also watch @XanderClements’ KartChaser which is very high quality and Ryan Norberg’s channel.
Connor Zilisch’s channel has good in-race videos.
The Full Caster Podcast is also good.
This is the kind of stuff I enjoy.
Don’t know what it is about videos that show all the behind the scenes and what not that just lose me.
KartChaser is the closest thing to that I watch.
Illegal since they are local
In no particular order, and some already mentioned above:
Kart Chaser
Full Caster Podcast
Drive61 Mostly F1, but at a higher level, including driving and relevant tech
Power Republic
Ryan Norberg
SAFEISFAST Racing and performance driving (cars but highly transferable to karting)
Korsasport Karting Development
K-Racer No longer updated, but unique content - more content/vids at Vimeo
So I’ve really enjoyed this guy. The vast majority of his videos are about racing on Gran Turismo, but he is now a part of Lando Norris’s gaming/eSports company and they sponsored him to run in Rotax/X30 in England.
I think it’s great because he knows how to edit a video well and keep your attention. I think a lot of youtubers could learn from how he puts together a story for each race. Also, if you’re into dry British humor, you’ll enjoy that too.
He did a 6 video series on his experience racing in England this past year. Great perspective from a guy who doesn’t run at the front.
Sad he stop updating his own channel which used to have his Club 100 onboard footage.
He has 630 thousand more subscribers on the SuperGT channel. He followed the viewers. I don’t blame him.
I believe he has some Club 100 stuff too on the SuperGT channel.
Agreed, but he keep calling that channel as his karting channel. LOL
I wonder how that works. By joining the team, his media goes on their site. Therefore, the site for Landos team is where it’s watched and what generates revenue.
So Landos team pays for his ride etc, but he loses the revenue from his YouTube site, yeah?
It would appear that YouTube is his “job”. I may be incorrect in all my assumptions
Youtube is most definitely his job. He’s a content creator.
It’s a mutually beneficial relationship with Quadrant. Quadrant is Lando’s company. SuperGT is Steve Brown’s channel. Steve’s content pushes viewers to Quandrant’s content and Quandrant sponsoring his Karting gives him the ability to create more content for the SuperGT Channel.
I just think it’s cool that he’s introducing nearly 650,000 subscribers to the karting world who may have not watched otherwise. He has 1.4 million views on a video where he raced with Lando (obviously Lando was the draw for that one).
So by having quadrant be where his content is found, he somehow can still make money? The channel (quadrant) pays him?
No idea what the actual contract says but I would guess he gets all the Ad revenue from his channel (SuperGT).
I’m guessing Quadrant pays for his karting team fees and expenses. And then people see that brand on his kart. Quadrant makes their own gaming videos, usually featuring Lando. They sell merch too. It’s all about branding, marketing, content, merchandise.
That would make sense and allow him to make some coin. Thx.
It was great to see Steve making those vids. It should be noted he bought his GT audience over to those videos, so its hard to ‘learn’ from his content because the basis of its success is Gran Turismo. We have yet to see a ‘breakthrough’ karting star, though a couple could be knocking on the door. That’s the crucuail step. We can’t rely on stars from other realms because their audiences can be fleeting.
Steve’s latest karting vids don’t perform as well as his Gran Turismo content (50k-100k or so less on average now bar the early ones tho I don’t know engagement/viewing time) , though the effort he puts into them is substantially more. This won’t have gone unnoticed. Noel Miller puts his karting content on a different channel too now. There are perils deviating from your base content. Youtube notices and you don’t want to upset the algorithm. Audiences also make their voice heard.
Also he does run ‘at the front’ when his gear is good. I think X30 was a bit too much hassle with regard to getting good motors. The team he ran with is good with Rotax so when he went that way his results improved.
In terms of Quadrant and the ‘job’. A 200,000 view video might earn you around £375/$450. (very variable, just going form my own stats so take with pinch of salt). So his karting videos might be generating around $300 on average for himself. The karting videos this year have bought in 1,600,000 views cumulatively. So that generates around £3000/$4000 via Youtube alone (this is a rough guess from my own payment data). This gives a good idea of the ‘value’ of the views and videos. He did 6 or so races… so cost to race is around 2 grand each which is around £12-15,000 not including testings. But lets say £20k should cover it easily.
Compared to Jimmy Broadbent who (and I am not including the Brands video for obvious reasons) generated 2,400,000 views with his year racing Praga race which may have generated a grand more on ad revenue despite the cost being far higher to race GTs (if we’re looking at it from that perspective).
So the karting deal looks pretty decent for Quadrant. Though I don’t know exactly their business model it gets Steve racing and generates decent views which fits the Quadrant brand.
I still am waiting for a breakthrough channel for karting tho. Something homegrown. Not sure what special source is missing, but waiting for it. It’s all a bit vanilla for me. I try to do stuff myself again but I am broke … so don’t @ me
A ton of great insight there. And I agree with a lot. I think the special sauce is thinking about the videos as entertainment vs. a tutorial. I love a great tutorial, but I watch SuperGT’s stuff as part of my regular viewing for entertainment purposes.
I only go to Ryan Norberg or other’s videos if I’m looking for advice on a specific thing.