Welcome

More than 10 years after my first attempt to start kart racing, here is how I learned from past mistakes and found success. (Read about my first attempt here). Finding myself in a new city, with a bit more disposable income, it was time to give it another go. The older and wiser me knew the value of research and planning. I made up my mind to learn which classes people raced locally, and do it the right way.

Choosing the LO206 Engine Class

This time around I knew that purchasing the chassis and motor would be only part of the expenses, and prepared a budget for parts, fees, tires, wear and tear, and traveling to the track. One class was the obvious choice in the DMV area (Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia): LO206 racing. 

By the 2010s, 2-stroke racing had grown prohibitively expensive for many people. Briggs & Stratton introduced a solution by developing a new, factory sealed 4-stroke engine called the LO206 (Local Option 206cc). The new engines lasted much longer than 2-stroke engines, lowered costs, and helped even the playing field by standardizing components and regulations.

Better informed, I called up my closest track – United Karting near Baltimore —  to make sure that they had LO206 racing there. Satisfied, I trawled forums like KartPulse, craigslist (RIP), and FaceBook Marketplace until coming across an old Intrepid chassis with an LO206 bolted onto it. The kart was owned by a road racer who raced at Summit Point Motorsports Park in West Virginia (a track known for its longer road course that recently reopened a sprint track as well). I was off to the races. 

In my first few trips to United Karting, I learned the requirements to race there, and shook the kart down, getting it mechanically all dialed in. The next few months of club racing flew by, as I progressed from the point where just finishing a session without any issues gave me a feeling of accomplishment, to focusing on results.

Learning my Local Go Kart Track

There are three main components to club racing classes – weight, tires, and engine type, plus any rules about age restrictions for kids (and older drivers!). Seeing that the track offered a “heavy” LO206 class, which required the total weight of kart and driver to be 390 lbs, I figured that was the one for adults (me) and got to work bolting a lot of lead scuba diving weights onto my kart to qualify for participation. 

I got lucky, because although being heavy did not necessarily mean I’d end up racing with more drivers my own age, the heavy class turned out to be smaller and less competitive than the light class (340 lbs), which took some pressure off starting out. It was worth the weight, and turning my seat into Swiss cheese mounting all that lead!

Had I spent just a little more time learning about United Karting before buying the kart, or even gone to a race or practice day, I would’ve known the track’s shop specializes in CompKarts and Birels. I might have saved myself a few headaches by starting with one of those. When you buy what the track stocks, you will always have spares available, and when you are first starting out, you will need them! That said, I have since cycled through Compkart AND Birel chassis and will save that journey for a future post….

Start with Rental League Racing Before Buying a Kart

My advice if you are considering getting into karting, is to start one step before all of this, and check whether tracks near you offer league racing with rental karts. For instance, United Karting runs two rental league series. One series runs on its regular rental karts that are suitable for anyone. The other is more competition-focused and races on a dedicated fleet of Birel karts with potent 2-stroke engines and a lighter chassis. Rental league racing is an excellent way to race competitively and hone your skill, before committing to the cost of owning a competition go kart. At United, these faster rental karts even race alongside the competition karts in practice and will give you a good idea of what it’s like.

Explore Additional Tracks as you Improve

Once I got comfortable racing at United, I ventured to other local tracks, beginning with the twisty, technical track at Sandy Hook Speedway, which is an awesome place to race with its tight infield and banked final corner. Next, I made it out to Nicholson Speedway, another Maryland track with a combination of fast sweepers, a hairpin, and some 90-degree corners. Their annual Turkey Race always pulls a huge field and is a really fun event where every driver gets a turkey! The Turkey Race has become my end of season tradition.

Apart from racing other drivers and meeting new people, exploring new tracks has challenged me to be competitive when I’m much less familiar with setup and conditions, passing zones and the like. These are key skills that are essential if you want to move up to traveling for regional races, where you will only have one practice day to get up to speed before race day.

After five seasons of club-level racing, I still rave about LO206 and don’t plan on “moving up” to a 2-stroke class. For now, I am focused on improving my pace and consistency to participate more regularly in regional races, which is the next step up from club racing. LO206 is the most widely raced class in the US. It’s a great place to start your competition karting journey, and is even a great place to stay!

I have been racing go karts at the club level for five seasons. Getting to race regularly has fulfilled a childhood dream, but it didn’t start that way. My first attempt to get into outdoor kart racing was fueled by youthful exuberance and can serve you all as a cautionary tale.

I’ve always been into going fast, from racing bikes down the steepest neighborhood hill as a kid, graduating to dirt bikes, yard karts, and quads. Watching Formula 1 racing, I learned about go karts and how they were the entry point for the greats like Mika Hakkinen and Michael Schumacher.

During college, I worked as a cashier in an office supply store for extra money to get some kart racing under my belt. But I had no knowledge of the intricacies of racing, the class structure of karting, or even any real idea about the local go kart tracks around me.

Don’t Research Kart Engines and Chassis

So, I did what everyone will tell you exactly not to do. I went on craigslist and searched “shifter kart” having no idea that “shifter karts” are one of many classes of competition karting. I just thought every competition kart was called a shifter kart.

I had only raced in a few sessions at indoor tracks like Velocity 17 and GPNY. Rather than join a rental league at one of those and build a network of people that might know what they wee doing, I grabbed a buddy of mine who was hands on with cars and motorcycles and we drove from northern NJ an hour to Long Island to look at a cheap shifter kart posted on craigslist.

Standing over the go kart, we had no idea what we were looking at, but the owner demonstrated that it ran by bump starting it on the street and taking it for a little rip. I cringe now to think of a competition kart being driven on the street, let alone the potholed streets of Long Island, but we were pumped up. 

Don’t Learn the Regulations at your Local Track Before Purchasing Gear

Next, I bought a helmet and a cool black Sparco suit, gloves, and shoes. This was more because that stuff is freaking cool than an informed decision based on safety regulations and requirements at my local track. I didn’t know what those were. I did know there was a kart racing track at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in central Jersey.

On a Saturday morning, I packed up the go kart and gear into my mother’s Ford Expedition and drove an hour down there with my cousin and brother. We were crestfallen to discover there was no karting practice when we arrived. No one picked up when we called to confirm the practice schedule, but we’d been too excited to wait. Oh well. 

Don’t Plan Out Your Trip to the Karting Circuit

We regrouped the next weekend and drove 1.5 hours in the other direction to Oakland Valley Race Park (OVRP), a track in Cuddebackville, New York. Their hours were clearly posted, so this time we nailed it. We arrived at open practice and lowered the shifter kart on its ancient tires directly onto the parking lot with no stand. Then we bump started it and got out there!

Soon I was blasting through the gears for the first time and trying to navigate the circuit on an expert level shifter kart that could catch even a seasoned vet out with the amount of speed and power it puts down. It was probably the most fun thing I had ever done in my life, which flashed before my eyes several times.

Trouble came a few sessions later when the kart would not fire up no matter how many times we tried to bump start it. With no clue how to really diagnose or work on anything, we were lucky that OVRP has a shop onsite with the friendly and knowledgeable Tim Hannen on hand. He looked the kart over and determined it had a carb problem that they could fix.

He also looked at us like we were crazy when he noticed the tires were mismatched, hard as rocks, and turning blue from age. He said we needed to replace them right away and asked which tires we wanted, to which I replied with a shrug.

“Where do you race?” he followed up.

Unsure how to reply, I ventured, “here?”

Don’t Set Yourself Up to Keep Kart Racing

It’s not surprising that I did not continue racing that shifter kart and ended up selling it after it sat unused in my garage for years. Looking back, I now know most places don’t have a large shifter kart class, so it’s not the easiest to get started with. And Tim was asking where we raced because different clubs have different rules about tires. We just had no clue about any of this, and we were intimidated and too focused on getting there and acting normal to ask anyone.

The lesson here is, don’t be like college-aged me: A for effort and enthusiasm, but F for forethought.

For some ideas on what to do instead, which I learned the second time I got into karting five years ago, look out for part two coming soon.