Thanks Rusty, I call it fun.
Ok, not kartrods still, but a little update on the racing scene.
Why I continue on is because in the end, it's about building and karting... right?
So today has me cleaning out my shed. It's got 4 years of karting stuff in it from the days I first started racing and I'm on a mission. Reconstruct my daughter's first kart. See pic 1. Most of it is just sitting in the shed... unused and forgotten. It's not tons of stuff, but there's parts from multiple karts in there.
(back story time)
When we got into it only 4 years ago, I remember going to the races & just watching. Gathering as much info as I could by talking to racers and hoping to go in with an informed approach.
While I did have a lot of info, it still wasn't enough. The day we started was a disaster. This broke, that broke, what's this do, what's that do? Ohhhhhhhhhhh... crash, bent axle, black flagged... Ugh.
Needless to say, it took time to learn the ropes & get where we are today.
I remember my many visits to the races with my daughter. Even getting someone to let you "sit your kid" in a real racer was a task. You had to be friendly with them.
Oddly enough, the one person that did let me sit my daughter in their kids racer ended up being a the guy that I'd race against for the next 3 years. We became friends and the battle was on the track... and a year later, my daughter spanked the very kid that drove this kart she'd sat in.
Now in the thick of it as we've been for a few years, I now have many friends there. Some of them have kids that want to try it, some other people's kids want to try it but there's one problem. They can't try it without actually owning one... and sinking thousands into something doesn't make sense to most normal working class parents... because it could be a failure. Not to mention, no racer or parent of a racer would EVER let some kid just "try out" their kart. It doesn't happen... and for good reason.
And in the kart racing world, you'll never sell something for what you paid... Plain & simple. So parts end up sitting, unused.
Their only option is to get the parents to fork out enough to use the rentals (which are pretty fast) but it's still not the same.
So the mission today was to find all the stuff to put a JR1 Cadet class racer together. Why? To let this 7 year old girl at the track try it, no strings attached.
It furthered an idea that I'm going to try.
That is: Get a hold of all the racers and solicit their older used parts, cadet parts for kids, etc... and they donate them to me to build "scrounge racers."
The plan: Have a few "scrounge racers" available for future racers to actually TRY and see what it's like & see if they got it, or not.
Then: If the kid is good and has it, the parent can buy it (or one off them) for pretty cheap and the profit is spread back to the ones that donated the parts. Problem solved, parts gone & used by someone instead of collecting dust or showing up on ebay for less than a profit.
Who builds them: Me.
Another aspect of this revolves around the fear that all kids experience on their first year in this class. I know for a fact that the rookies have a certain fear when the front pack comes around to lap them. It's a scary thing to watch as a parent and you can only hope that your kid comes out ok when 5 of them hit that corner and your kid is in it.
So it could spawn a new class. Here, there's kid karts (comer motors, do about 20-25) and from there, it's to JR1 where the speed doubles and they're faced with some crazy stuff. I watch one of them every race and she's still in the back... and it's been a year... scared and getting lapped every time.
Perhaps these "scrounged karts" could run in a class called JR1 Rookie. Let the kids that are new run the rookie class for a year, mandatory unless otherwise directed by the track officials. If they got it, they can go to the real JR1 class. If they don't, they can sit comfortably in rookie & learn without being too intimidated by the speeders.
We'll see where it goes.
That's the story for today. The kart is rebuilt and ready. I used parts from at least 4 different karts including a Track Magic, CRG, Birel, and an old yamaha RC100. See pic 2. My daughters first kart, reworked and going to the track pretty soon to see if a little girl I don't even know has what it takes. Why? Because she has that certain look in her eyes.
All done kartrods style... with what I had at the time.
Fun.
Kelly
