GO KARTING

By Dave Roberts

---

Sometimes the scene is so full of stories it’s difficult to be sure which one you want to tell.  Is it the bunch of people having an obviously phat time?  Is it the guy who liked his sport so much he started a business doing it?  Is it the twelve year old kid who is sure he’s using the sport to achieve his dreams?  Well it’s kind of all of them, but I think for today I want to tell the sport and enjoyment one.  

I’ve had it said to me that you’re into motorsport or you’re not.  If you are, and you feel a need to go round a track as fast as you can with glee and terror alternating as your primary feelings, I recently saw something that might be just for you. Go karts are a way to get into motor sport at a really affordable level.  I went into a shop after my visit to the track and found that for $2 000 someone could buy a kart that would go round the track in a way that they need not be ashamed of.  True, there are people spending a lot more, and they’re more likely to win titles, but there are campaigners out there doing it on a shoestring, and coming home after a day’s racing with a grin all over their face and mates to quench a thirst with.

 

 

 

 

So at the end of quite a long story which you don’t get told, I arrived at the Bunbury City Kart Club with a nine year old and an eleven year old in tow.  The sun was shining, the breeze was light, the noise was fantastic and there was the insane smell of two stroke and rubber hanging in the air.  This is clearly enough to set me off and I had to just hang on the fence for a while and watch half a dozen guys old enough to know better thrashing round a 730m circuit sitting about 75mm off the ground with no seat belts, getting close to 100 kays an hour and not wearing seat belts.  Along with the howl of two stroke engines I could hear tiny little tyres reaching the limit of traction as the karts drifted through the fastest of the corners.

The heat I was watching ended with no fanfare, and I proceeded with no problem into the pits.  The first person I came to was in his early twenties and working on some minor maintenance issues on his kart.  What I learned was that he had bought his competitive kart for about $2 500, he races just locally and that amounts to every month for most of the year.  He gets there in a ute that sees other duty through the week.  He spent another $500 on safety gear and he’s been on the same set of tyres for a year. 

There was business all over his face- while he was at the track he was focused on what needed to be done, but there was no trouble giving some stranger any information he asked for.  “Talk to Mick” was the advice which seemed most clear, and everybody told me that same thing, if I wanted to understand what was going on, find Mick Kenny from Revenge Karts.

About then, my 11 year old saw someone he knew.  This young bloke is a year ahead of him at school and is clearly enjoying his racing.  This Sunday he won all 5 of his heats and while it’s the first time he’s achieved that, he is serious about doing well.  Karts are a stepping stone for him to “live the dream” of racing V8 supercars.  Without skipping a beat he relayed the procedure through a couple of levels of Karts, the Formula Ford, the development series and looking for a drive in the supercars.  Mum and dad were at the track, which they are every race day, and mum said that there’s no way she’d get in the way of a young fellow’s dream.  The unspoken issue of how much that eventually costs hangs heavily in the air, but certainly Karts are do-able for the next couple of seasons.  Finding sponsorship to meet the big bills later is something that’s going to be tough, but why stop dreaming now?

Having been told to do it, I found Mick.  Wasn’t hard, look for the great big red truck and the collection of Karts.  The guy is a story in himself and you might get to read it, but basically he confirmed that this is a family sport and he’s loving it because everyone is having a good time, and all are welcome; old, young, guys, girls, serious and social.  There were quite a number of guys down there racing who were even more senior than your very own correspondent, and as is fitting, they seemed keen to race, grin, and tell embellished stories.   It’s not racing if you don’t want to win, and they clearly did, but there were no long faces at the back of the field.

June 2008