Who's got two thumbs and a raging midlife crisis?

This guy!

Picked this up this morning and did a "fitting." Two super cool dudes at Orlando Kart Center walked me through a lot of details, sent me out for a bunch of sessions and made adjustments in between to get the kart adjusted to me and my driving style. Really high-quality experience and worth the time and effort since a lot of stuff isn't intuitive if you're coming from cars.

It's a 2022 Tony Kart with a 225cc Tillotson 4-stroke good for like 15hp. Tillotsons are rapidly replacing Briggs 4 strokes in many markets, and Orlando is all in on them. There's a huge Tilly scene, with a couple dozen younger drivers and regular fields in the old/fat guy classes of a dozen or more, so there's lot of competition.

I kind of saw this as a cheap way to get some track time and stay sharp and to run wheel-to-wheel in a low-stakes environment. I'll probably write some stuff about it (well, definitely), but I also kind of wanted this to be not a work project, but just something I do with zero responsibilities and zero pressure, like for fun.

It's an immensely physical experience. I'm fairly sure my skeleton will fall out at some point, but I also wanted to do this while I was still physically at the age and shape where it was realistic. I'm in a lot better shape than I was a year ago, but I can already tell this thing will seriously push that envelope.

My lap times were competitive out of the gate, which pleased the shop dudes, but the mistake tolerance on a kart seems razor thin. One miscue in a corner and you're instantly and palpably off pace. So I'm really digging the elemental nature of it as a training tool. I'm anxious to get back in the BMW after a weekend or two in this thing to see how things are translating each direction.

Also, kart stuff is cheeeeeeap. An entire set of the spec Maxxis tires is like $220, and the guy at the shop was like "yeah these are kind of expensive." I was like "dude you have NO idea..." It was also cool to see GRM stickers on a bunch of the rental garages at Orlando Kart Center. Need to stop by when someone's in them and say hi.

Awesome.  So much fun even if they crush your spine into dust.  And yes, great way to work on braking technique!  Forces you to use left foot, and very snappy if you don't use smooth inputs.

What is the logic behind only having rear brakes on karts? I know the most berzerk ones use front brakes, but the non-shifters like JGs don't. Of course they're twitchy under braking!

I have purposely stayed away from karts for the same reason I've stayed away from motorcycles. I don't need a new addiction...

That BMW is going to feel like a giant marshmallow the next time you take out on the track. 

Keith Tanner said:

What is the logic behind only having rear brakes on karts? I know the most berzerk ones use front brakes, but the non-shifters like JGs don't. Of course they're twitchy under braking!

I have purposely stayed away from karts for the same reason I've stayed away from motorcycles. I don't need a new addiction...

I think just to be lighter? The cool part is you can trail brake like nobody's business. Except you don't really use the brakes so much to put weight on the nose as you do to control rear slip angle on corner entry. The weird part is there's also a "coast phase" on corner entry which the kid who was helping me with technique was describing. Basically you;re always trying to get to throttle super early since there's some clutch lag and not a ton of power to begin with, but after you get your initial turn in done, you kind of go neutral for a beat to settle the chassis before matting the throttle. Since everything is so immediate in a kart it feels like forever, but it's really probably only hundredths. 

Woody (Forum Supportum) said:

That BMW is going to feel like a giant marshmallow the next time you take out on the track. 

Oh yeah I can't wait. Immensely curious about what it's going to feel like. It's like the automotive equivalent of swinging two bats in the on-deck circle (except the bats are also hitting you in the kidneys).

Very cool. 

You know, if you're gonna follow the Colin Chapman method of "add lightness" the only way to get that is to reduce the size of the nut holding on the steering wheel.  

Raaaaad!

Gah. I gotta start making it to more autocrosses before I start twitching about this (again). Every time karts come up...

I think at some point I got the impression that kart tires might be cheaper per than, say, Spec Miata tires, but you make up for it in volume?

John Welsh said:

Very cool. 

You know, if you're gonna follow the Colin Chapman method of "add lightness" the only way to get that is to reduce the size of the nut holding on the steering wheel.  

Yeah that was a concern. I've dropped like 60lbs in the past 18 months, but I'm still not a typical kart-bodied guy. But on the scales I was only a couple burritos north of the old guy class minimum. I'm not in danger of needing to add weight in the near future, but I'm going to mount a weight hardpoint just for inspirational purposes and try and get there by spring.

Keith Tanner said:

What is the logic behind only having rear brakes on karts? I know the most berzerk ones use front brakes, but the non-shifters like JGs don't. Of course they're twitchy under braking!

I have purposely stayed away from karts for the same reason I've stayed away from motorcycles. I don't need a new addiction...

I think cost is a bigger factor than weight since most of the time you have to add ballast reach class minimums, but, when $220 for a set of tires is considered pricey, front brakes add a ton of cost. 
 

 Karts also scrub speed really bad with any steering input, so most braking zones are more stab-and-turn than being an extended braking zone. Steering sort of counts as four-wheel braking. 
 

The other big point is that it just makes it interesting to drive. I've driven rentals karts with front brakes, and it killed turn-in. The front tires get overloaded and you have to drive differently. I prefer the feel of rear-only brakes; makes it more kart-like

In reply to JG Pasterjak :

I was actually thinking the other day it would be really neat if the magazine could do occasional coverage of the major karting events. The big Briggs national race is this weekend with like 600 entries.

With guys like Zilisch getting a lot of coverage recently and having come through karting, it seems to fit the bill for being a "grassroots motorsport"

"Who's got two thumbs and a raging midlife crisis?"

94% of the users of this forum?

I was expecting to hear that you bought a red Porsche or something.... 

I have a friend that has a bunch of karts. I let him use one of my cars to get his SCCA comp license and he repaid me by taking me out to a kart race. He put me on a Yamaha 100 powered, non shifter kart to give me feel for it.

I swear I turned in three times for every turn the first session. Approaching turn... flick... nope too early... flick... dang this thing points in nicely...still too early... flick... there we go...

My ITA RX7 felt like I was in slow motion after that.

Having a kart for seat time is a great idea.

I had one but sadly we no longer have a local Kart track. The only one is at Spring Man Motorsports 70 miles from my house.......sigh.

Very cool! I'm curious about your #429. Any significance? I've been running #429 since 1993. 

125cc Shifter kart I bought just for seat time.  My goal was to make every car I drove to feel slow, and it worked.  Well, everything but the back end of that 930 turbo with a bigger turbo; that came around faaast!  But everything else up to 500 HP was slow after the shifter kart.  What an awesome way to speed up your visual and mental processing speed.  Also, great way to build endurance and hand strength.  And break ribs...

I consider this for myself whenever kart racing comes up. Then I remember how many trips around the sun I've had, and the wear and tear that's come with those years. 
 

I'll follow along here. 
 

Motojunky said:

Very cool! I'm curious about your #429. Any significance? I've been running #429 since 1993. 

Nah it was just on there when I got it. The previous owner is also a vintage racer. When we were having the initial chat, I wa at Solo Nats running Paul's Camaro and he was at Lime Rock driving this:

So I guess we kind of already spoke the same language.

I had a kart for about 20 years, used it for about 15. 

There was a track that was less than 10 min from where I lived - open track nights on Wednesdays from 5-9 PM, and racing twice a month on  Saturdays and Sundays. Great stuff. 

I learned a lot, and as noted - gods was it cheap compared to racing cars. Could pull the rear seats of the minivan out, and just pick it up and put it in there with my brother, and go use up the alky fuel and tires as much as we wanted, annual engine rebuilds were cheap and easy too. 

Enjoy, JG!

- Bill C

Oh to be mid-life again...  

The middle ground between Briggs and Shifter is Rotax or X30 depending on your region. If you don't have a strong Rotax/X30 class it is because all of the adult drivers are driving shifters. 

Rear-brakes-only is so that the kart can be rotated under trail braking without putting the kart frame under compression and forcing the inside rear wheel down. Shifters push on turn in. 

chaparral said:

The middle ground between Briggs and Shifter is Rotax or X30 depending on your region. If you don't have a strong Rotax/X30 class it is because all of the adult drivers are driving shifters. 

There's pretty strong two-stroke classes locally, but I'm just not sure I want the hassle. The Tillotson seem like a nice middle ground. 30% more power than the Briggs, but also a fraction of the cost of a two stroke and a way longer service life. A brand new Tillotson long block is under $500, and apparently it's not unusual to get 60-80 hours or more out of one with pretty basic maintenance (oil changes, head gaskets, valve adjustments). Fuel is also $5/gal vs $20 plus mixing. 

I won't say I haven't been tempted by that high-rpm buzz, though. But right now I'm really digging the simplicity here.

Karts should be ideal for me but every time I look into them (I have a short memory) I just end up shaking my head when I see the insane amount of rules.