Reviving the passion for karting

Many years ago my brother in law had a couple of go karts powered by Villiers 200cc 2 stroke engines with 3 speed gearboxes We had great fun tearing round an oval circuit on a field he owned as he was a farmer.

We had no helmets, only goggles to keep out the dust! We would spend an afternoon racing wheel to wheel with back sliding out on the slippery grass, covered in mud, ignoring the bumps and having as much fun as a Formula 1 racing driver.

Sadly time moved on and the field we used was ploughed over and used for growing corn and the two karts were sold to members of the Historic Kart Club somewhere on the UK.

The thrill of powering those karts around the marked out circuit with bales of hay has never left me so when one of my boys becoming teenagers and having experienced the trill of karting on a friends kart in their very large garden it was "Dad can we get a gokart?" and the thrill and excitment of 30 odd years ago was kindled.

Over the next weeks and months my desire is to blog the progress of finding our kart and the improvement and modifications and the experience we have had flinging our Honda powered kart around a marked out circuit wih cones around a grass field.

The only grass karting clubs in the country are in Wisbech, Conningsby and Bourne all in the Linconshire area miles from where we lived in Worcestershire.

So where do we look for a kart?

I had no real knowledge of karts.

So we searched ebay and yes plenty of karts but so many variations and classes and engines! It was a minefield1

So ebay was searched every week for months until we found one in Newport in Wales.

Knowing nothing about karts, engines etc we did a buy it now for £160 and it was on with trailer and down to Newport to pick up.

It appeared OK. The Honda GX200 engined fired up and ran smooth.

We have a lage grass garden so next day we fired it up and did a few spins arond our garden but it was apparent that a number of things needed doing to the kart.

Over the comming weeks I will share the journey of how we got the kart to where it is now as there may be a lot of folk out there not knowing where to get parts and what to do to modify kart.

Our kart as it is today but it took a lot of research and time to get new parts to improve performance.