Kart racing

Kart racing or karting is a variant of open-wheel motorsport with small, open, four-wheeled vehicles called karts, go-karts, or gearbox/shifter karts depending on the design. They are usually raced on scaled-down circuits. Karting is commonly perceived as the stepping stone to the higher ranks of motorsports.

Karts vary widely in speed and some (known as Superkarts) can reach speeds exceeding 260 kilometres per hour (160 mph), while amusement park go-karts intended for the general public may be limited to speeds of no more than 25 kilometres per hour (16 mph).

History

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

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

Kart (disambiguation)

Kart or KART or Go-kart or similar may refer to:

See also

Kard, Armenia

Kard (Armenian: Կարդ, also Romanized as Kart’; formerly, Gyard, Gyrad, Gyard Nerk’in, Gyart’, Kard Nerk’in, Girt’, K’irt’, and K’art’i) is a village in the rural community of Geghi, Syunik Province, Armenia. The National Statistical Service of the Republic of Armenia (ARMSTAT) reported it was uninhabited at the 2001 and 2011 censuses.

References