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Indoor Karting in UK – Karts and Championships

Indoor karting is a popular motor sports in United Kingdom. It is type of open- wheel motor sport usually raced on scaled-down circuits. The vehicles are four wheeled, small sized, of various designs and are called as karts, go-karts, or gearbox/shifter karts. They are basically of two types: those with gearboxes (which race on both the long and short circuits) and those with direct drive (which race only on short circuits).

To a newcomer all karts appear same, but they vary in speed; are available in many classes to satisfy wide range of needs and abilities. There are superkarts which can go up to speed of 250km/h in comparison to go-karts with maximum speed of 25 km/h. The major components of a kart are: chassis, engines, transmission and tires.

Chassis is made of steel tube and has no suspension. So it has to be stiff enough not to break or give way on a turn and flexible enough to work as a suspension. The stiffness of chassis allows different usage characteristics for different circumstances. As for dry conditions a stiffer chassis is preferred in comparison to a more flexible chassis for wet or other poor traction conditions. Some to the finest chassis permits for stiffening bars at the rear, front and side to be added or removed as per the race conditions.

For an amusement park go-karts are driven by either a 4-stroke engine or an electric motor but for racing karts, small 2-stroke or 4-stroke engines are used. A KF1 kart with a 125 cc two stroke engine and a total weight including the driver of 150 kilograms has a top speed of 140 km/h. It takes slightly more than 3 seconds to go from 0 to 100 km/h with a 125 cc shifter kart (6 gears) and with a top speed of 185 km/h on long circuits.

In a kart meant for indoor karting, power is transmitted from the rear axle by way of a chain. The ratio between engine and sprockets is adapted according to track configuration so as to get the most of the engine. Wheel and tires are much smaller as compared to the normal car ones and rims are made up of either magnesium or aluminum.

There is ample no. of indoor kart tracks in UK. They are often visited by karters and their families to enjoy karting and racing. These tracks are often short and offer a great level of safety. Karts are rented for a session of 15 to 20 minutes and use sturdy chassis completed with dedicated bodywork providing safety to the driver. They are powered by both small 4-stroke engines and electric motors. Motor Sport Association, sole governing body of motor sports in UK, organizes four major British Championships for all level of racers. They are MSA British Short Circuit Championship, MSA British Long Circuit (Superkart) Championship, MSA British Junior Kart Championship and MSA British Cadet Kart Championship.

For more information visit http://www.team-sport.co.uk/

About the Author

Dom Gaynor is General Manager for Team-Sport Indoor Karting Company, the UKs largest indoor go karting company and pioneers of indoor karting for over 17 years. Team-Sport Indoor Karting was formerly known as ‘Go Karting For Fun’ which has been running go-karting events since 1990 and are an established market leaders in Karting Business in UK.

Westfield Indoor Speed Record

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 3:48 pm and is filed under Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.