Any Scottish Karters?

[R8Steve]

Having decided i want to get myself back into some form of motorsport after a 15 year+ absence I've decided as i'm not fast enough on a bike/rich enough for rallying/circuit racing/etc I've decided to re-enter the world of kart racing.

I've not been to a race for about 13 years so i can only imagine that unlike when me and my dad used to rock up with a £300 kart on the back of a home built trailer with one set of slicks and a used set of wets things may have moved on slightly!

Am i going to be greeted by multi million pound motorhomes with armies of mechanics/pit crew and all the latest gear or is there still a possibility to turn up with a second hand kart and just do your thing without being the modern day equivalent of Lord Hesketh?

If anyone does race it would be good to have a chat about it and possibly come along to a race meeting to see what to expect.

[DEKE]

From what I have seen, you would be better doing sprints and hillclimbs. Karting scene looks real competitive with lots of motorhomes and people looking for their kids, and rightly so to be the next Lewis Hamilton. The Scottish Sprint and Hillclimbs championships seems to be full of persons who are willing to help and advise
Cheers

[BillyWhizz888]

You prob find it cheaper to race the xr2 at Knockhill

Karting has went through the roof for competitive and all money

Boss Used to do a endurance at Crail and east fortune with his go kart
And only cost £100 to enter tho this was prob 10 year ago

[R8Steve]

I thought as much, I'm building a car for hill climbs at the moment so I might just wait until it's finished and give that a go. The XR2 is a good shout but then I've got the hassle of storage of it and having to trailer it up, etc,

Last time I done karting it was £15 odd for a key to the gate of larkhall with the WSKC and you could just use it whenever you wanted but I see its went up a good deal and you can only use the track on supervised practice days and the race fees aren't exactly cheap either.

There's a race weekend on next weekend so I might take a run through and see how much it's changed and talk to a few of the guys there to see what's what.

[woodysnr]

There is a sprint meeting this weekend 11/12 April at Kames Motor circuit in Muirkirk so may be worth a look at

[slipstream 1985]

You will have far more fun karting in a large competetive grid than a hill climb imo. It can be done on the cheap and you will not be far off the pace. In karting spendin mega money will only get you 2 10ths of a second fastest. The time is in you.

[slipstream 1985]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJPjP8b3W_A

8.17 for one of the best overtakes iv seen.

[GWS33]

Hi, I started racing at Larkhall. From what i've heard recently some classes are struggling for numbers. Rotax might be you're best best for big grids and racing but it is more expensive and i'm pretty sure i heard they have brought out new engines so older stuff is redundant (not sure on the truth of that for Larkhall Clubman racing). I used to race Formula Blue which was a very competitive class with very similar engines so alot of it was down to driver rather than budget. If you get in contact with the likes of Iain Brown who is very helful and does the race licences so would be more useful at getting you involved and letting you know what is current situation. He is also up at Larkhall most weekends.(http://www.cambuslangkarting.co.uk/arks-school.html)

or Lenny Messenger (https://www.facebook.com/pages/LMMotorsport/114642818548608?sk=timeline) who runs a successful team and has been involved for years.

I have been out of karting for a few years so don't really know much about what is going on atm. From personal experience the costs of racing xr2 or fiestas/ formula ford at knockhill are not horrendously different from a full committed year in karting (depending on damage and testing). Racing at larkhall in the clubman stuff shouldn't be too expensive and is probably just as fun.

Edited by GWS33 on Monday 13th April 11:12