You have already been advised to visit a few meetings before buying a kart.
At 15 you are in the difficult year, because many classes allow you to go 'Senior' in the year of the 16th birthday.
You have three main engine groups to choose from:
Rotax
Formula Blue
TKM
All three use the same engine in the Junior and Senior classes.
I think your local tracks (Hooton,GyG and 3Sisters?) have grids of all three.
There is a budget difference between classes. None of them allow 'Tuning'; the Rotax engine can only be dismantled by a Rotax licenced engineer (the engine is sealed, cylinder/cylinderhead to crankcase) which makes it more expensive if you can do your own engine work. You can do your own work on Blue and TKM.
Blue and Rotax have onboard starters (TAG=touch and Go), TKM are introducing an onboard starter.
Blue and Rotax are watercooled.
Rotax tyres are softer and wear out quicker. Tyres are a (the?) major running cost in all three classes. TKM have the hardest tyres.
All three classes reach the same top speeds, the apparent difference is largely one of tyres, the stickiness of the Rotax tyre allows one to brake later and 'stick' to the track when harder tyres are sliding. Blues brake a little further from the corner, and slide more, while TKM take a different line into corners because they can slide so much. It requires exactly the same judgement/ ability to brake a TKM 40 yards from the corner as it does a Rotax 30 yards from the corner, and missing the braking point induces exactly the same 'pucker factor' particularly if there's someone else in the corner already.
Only certain chassis are legal in TKM, in Blue and Rotax you can use almost any 'normal' chassis (ie: not a prokart or gearbox chassis). Don't even think of building your own unless you are really good with a welding torch and tubebenders.(and not as novices).
Formula Blue is an 'equalised' formula( handicapped like horses, but calling the class handicapped sounds wrong!). The power and weight of the kart is restricted according to the driver's weight. As a result very light drivers and very heavy drivers can compete on the same terms without carrying a lot of lead or having to compete in a separate 'heavyweight' class. This is done by inserting a restrictor plate with different size holes between the carburettor and engine, so not a complicated solution.
Buy a secondhand chassis to start with, you will
have crashes while you are learning. (a crash is the driver's error, an incident is another driver's error, both can cause damage to the kart. You can limit the number of crashes, but you cannot control the number of incidents, they continue right up until you retire.)
Don't buy a new engine to start with, unless you/ your son already understand what happens when you run the engine too lean. (You can adjust the mixture while driving in TKM and Blue)
The average race kart bears as much resemblance to a 'hire and drive' kart as a race modified saloon does to a raod car. However, if you enjoy indoor or hire and drive, then you will probably enjoy 'proper' karting.
You could also investigate "Lets Go Karting" as a way to experience the real thing quite cheaply.
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Need Help on Starting Karting by 'mjs5' (24 Dec 2008 @ 19:09)
