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| The Tillet seat was float mounted using plastic bushings for the most chassis flex posible. |
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| Since Christa is short, a Noonan Racing carbon fiber foot box was used to raise and move the pedals back to where her legs could clear the tie rods and where she could reach the pedals. The Noonan box is highly adjustable, more adjustable than the stock pedals. We used Password JDM fender bolts and washers to attach the floor. We run the floor and front bumper stiffly bolted to help turn in. |
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| The front end is adjustable for camber, caster, toe, track width, ride height, Akerman and kingpin inclination just like the big karts. |
Likewise I got a used Intrepid TAG kart, this is a 125cc water cooled kart with a centrifugal clutch and an electric starter, TAG karts are a new and very popular class with a chassis using the latest chassis technology coupled with engine packages that are less maintenance intensive than the higher strung and more exotic shifter kart classes. The electric start makes them more hassle free than other classes which require external starters or push starting. TAG karts are probably the second fastest class of road racing karts. We also rebuilt the Intrepid for reliable and long service.
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| The smaller Cadet also uses FIA certified and wind tunnel tested bodywork. The side pod bumpers are mounted on swivels to allow for more frame flex with lighter drivers. |
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| The cadet is a serious kart and can reach speeds of up to 70 mph. However karting is a pretty safe sport with a safety record better than little league or Pop Warner football for instance. Christa has been in one serious crash to date but has not been seriously hurt due to good safety equipment and the FIA bodywork. |
Currently we are having fun with the karts and doing track days with a lot of our road racing and Formula D friends who are also discovering the joy of cheap low maintenance track time with karts that are much faster than your K1 rental karts. When you own your own kart, the track time also ends up being cheaper than K1. Christa is going to start racing soon as she seems to be easily beating most of the other kids and will be well on her way as a developing driver.
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| Christa has eyes on the bigger TAG kart. She is probably also thinking about Time Attack Formula D and Road Racing. She can beat her dad but not Dai Yoshihara or Joon Maeng alhough she has diced with them. |
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| Two race vehicles for less than the tire and hotel budget of a typical race season! Bristling with exotic alloys, billet parts and state of the art technology which would be fine on a formula car, karts are serous race machines and not toys. Karts have a larger performance envelope than cars in all aspects except perhaps top speed and possibly acceleration. Karting is more difficult than driving cars and is excellent training for other racing. Real karts are much more fun than indoor rental karting like K1. |
We have found Craigslist to be a good place to find a used kart and more and more of our friends are picking them up for a quick, cheap and easy speed fix. Hopefully more of you readers will look into karting as well.
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