Endurance races last for an extended period, from 30 minutes up to 24 hours or more with one or more drivers. Consistency, reliability, and pit strategy is of greater importance than all out speed.

Speedway racing takes place on asphalt or clay oval tracks which are normally between 1/6 mile and 1/4 mile long. Tracks primarily consist of two straights and four left-turn corners, few tracks are symmetric and often the shape parallels that of an egg or a tri-oval.

Speedway racing takes place on asphalt or clay oval tracks which are between 1/6 mile and 1/4 mile long. Tracks primarily consist of two straights and four left-turn corners, few tracks are symmetric and often the shape parallels that of an egg or a tri-oval.

Electric go-karts are low maintenance, requiring only that the lead-acid battery from a cars plugged into an array of chargers after each run. Since they are pollution-free and emit no emission, the racetracks can be indoors in controlled environments. A fully charged electric kart can run a maximum of 20 minutes before performance is affected.

2-stroke kart engines are developed and built by dedicated manufacturers. Comer, IAME (Parilla, Komet), TM, Vortex, Titan, REFO, Yamaha and Rotax are manufacturers of go kart engines. These can develop from 8 hp for a single-cylinder 60 cc unit (MiniROK by Vortex) to 90 hp for a twin 250 cc. Currently he most popular categories worldwide are those using the Touch-and-go (TAG) 125 cc units. The recent 125 cc KF1 engines are electronically limited at 16,000 rpm. Most are water-cooled today, previously air-cooled engines dominated the sport.

Karts do not have a differential. The lack of a differential means that one rear tire must slide while cornering, this is achieved by designing the chassis so that the inside rear tire lifts up slightly when the kart turns the corner. This allows the tire to lose some of its grip and slide or lift off the ground completely.

Wheels and tires are much smaller than those used on a normal car. Rims are made of magnesium alloy or aluminum. Tires support cornering forces in excess of 2 G (20 m/s²), depending on chassis, engine, and motor setup. Tires used are slicks for dry weather, rain tires or “wets” for wet conditions, and spiked for icy track conditions.

- Open karts have no roll cage.
- Caged karts have a roll cage surrounding the driver; they are mostly used on dirt tracks.
- In Straight chassis the driver sits in the center. Straight chassis are used for sprint racing.
- In Offset chassis the driver sits on the left side. Offset chassis are used for left-turn-only speedway racing.

Art Ingels is accepted to be the father of go karting. A veteran hot rodder and a race car builder at Kurtis Kraft, he built the first kart in Southern California in 1956. Karting has rapidly spread worldwide, and currently has a large following in Europe.

The first kart manufacturer was an American company, Go Kart Manufacturing Co. (1958). McCulloch was the first company in 1959, to produce engines for karts. Its first engine, the McCulloch MC-10, was a modified chainsaw 2-stroke engine. In the 1960’s, motorcycle engines were also introduced for kart use, before dedicated manufacturers specifically in Italy (IAME), started to build engines for the sport.

Reporter Christopher Carey
E-mail: ccarey@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8291