Blog
Winning is fun, but HARD!
The Winning Way
Every driver who jumps in a kart on race day has the goal of winning the race. Of course, only one driver per class actually achieves that goal and usually it's not the same driver every time. In the 10+ years that Brody and Joelle have been driving, only two seasons ended with a championship. In others, they've come close, and in many more, they finished somewhere in the middle of the pack.
Winning a go kart race isn't easy and winning a championship is even harder. Everything has to go perfectly right and a driver's timing also has to be impeccable. And even when your kart
Risk is Relative: Go Karting Safety
When people hear that our kids race go karts and they find out how fast they go, I often get asked about the sport's safety. In fact, I've even been chided about our decision to allow Brody and Joelle to participate in such a dangerous activity. Shouldn't they be playing safer sports like baseball or basketball or even football?
I get it. At first, I wasn't too sure about letting my kids have control of a motor vehicle at the tender age of 5 (or 6, or 7, or even 13). Could they even tell the difference between the brake and the gas pedal? After all, there's a reason why we don't let kids get their driver's license until they're at least 16 years old.
But, then I did my own research and found that kart racing is actually one of the safest sports available to kids because of the safety equipment that's required for participation. Given all the long-term consequences of concussions in sports like football and hockey, I now feel much better about the fairly low-risk
When you hear the words "go kart," what do you think of? If you're like most people, you may think of a thin metal seat with four tires and a steering wheel, a chainsaw or lawnmower engine providing the power. These vintage go karts were usually designed for tooling around in the backyard or cruising up and down a gravel road. Or you might conjure up an image of the go karts at amusement parks. These have a more comfortable seat than the backyard version, complete with seatbelts and headrests, and their frames might be protected by a kart-surrounding bumper to keep the paint job and wheels unblemished in the event two karts try to occupy the same space at the same time. Sometimes, people even think that a go kart is like a soapbox derby car, but those don't even have an engine! Until you actually attend a go kart race, you probably won't understand what racing go karts are and just how fast they can go. These are finely-tuned racing machines and they definitely ar