Normally the advice here is to not buy a kart at all, until you have been to at least one meeting as a spectator and preferably meetings at at least two tracks.
The reason is quite simple, people have very different ideas as to what constitutes a 'good' kart and those ideas change the more experienced you are.
Very simply, a lot will depend on your budget, what you want to get out of racing and how much time and effort you can dedicate to the sport.
Most people start off by finding out where their local tracks are. You might want to visit both an MSA track and a non MSA track. (MSA tracks round you might be Hooton Park, Glan Y Gors,Three Sisters, possibly Fulbeck and PFI: Google them)
Visit the tracks and look at the types of kart you might want to race.
First thing is to forget 'speed'. All karts are quick and all karts require exactly the same level of skill to drive well.
In the "100 cc" range, there is the 125 Rotax, the 115cc TKM and the 100CC Formula Blue. Each have different advantages and disadvantages. They are all very much the same speed. The difference is mainly how much grip the rubber gives you and the way the engine produces power.
Rotax are nominally the quickest, but have very good rubber that doesn't seem to last very long when racing. The engines are sealed and almost all work on the engine must be done by a licenced engineer (licenced to work on Rotax engines that is and to 're-seal' the engine) and this costs.
Some people say the rubber is too good, that it allows people to stay on the racing line even if they have made a mistake, so that faster drivers shunt the slower drivers out of the way.
TKMs are air cooled engines, the older ones are still bump started (PaG- Push and go), the 'extreme' is started by an external starter and the newest ones have an on board starter. (TaG- touch and go)
TKMs used to be on hard tyres, so were the slowest (the tyres slid more through the corners), now they have got new rubber and found about a second a lap. TKMs were dying out a little while ago but now they are coming back in some areas of the country.
You can do your own maintenance on a TKM which makes them cheaper than a Rotax if you are mechanically inclined. If not, you give your engine to somneone to 'do' and that's nearly as expensive as a Rotax.
TKMs don't allow modern chassis aids, like torsion bars, or adjustable front caster and camber. If you buy a chassis that has them they must be disabled.
Formula Blue is a watercooled TaG engine, about the same speed as the TKM. The advantage of the Blue is that it has a series of restrictors and kart minimum weights related to the drivers body weight, so you never need to carry more than 10 KGs of lead, but the speed of the kart is the same whether you are a 45kg youngster or a 100kg large driver. (Rotax and TKM don't have this system, so you may find yourself at a disadvantage against lighter drivers.) You can do your own maintenance on the engine so it can be as cheap as the TKM.
Grid size is largely irrelevent, normally after the first couple of laps you will find yourself competing against the same couple of people who are as good as you are, behind the better drivers, in front of the worse ones. That is unless the grid is really small (less than 6) or you are exceptionally good. As a novice you will probably spend your first 6 months wondering where the others went.
Talk to drivers in the pits, ask all the questions that are important and look at how things are. If the pits are full of closed off tents where visitors are discouraged from entering, then you might find that the drivers aren't too friendly on the track either. Open pits or pits where you are invited into a tent may help you out as a novice.
Take a look at how much work is involved in getting the kart and driver to the track. As a novice, help is almost essential even if its the guy in the next tent telling you it's time to go to the grid.
When buying your first set of equipment buy from a trader or someone who is going to be there for some time. Don't buy it off E-bay unless you know what you are looking for. Your first kart can (should?) be secondhand, you can spend a lot of time banging into things or riding over kerbs as a novice. Why bend brand new kit?
Any questions, ask on here. If you state that you are going to be at a track 'looking', someone will often offer to guide you to start with and point you at the various types of kart in different tents. If you state you are a novice on your first outings, some people will offer to help or at least make sure you and your kart get to the grid etc.
Hope that helps!
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karting by 'darylwarren' (05 Jan 2011 @ 18:17)
